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Sexagesima Second Sunday before Lent February 6 & 7, 2021 Homily for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass of St. Thomas More Catholic Parish celebrated at St. Joseph Catholic Church 116 Theodore Street Scranton, PA 18508 Mark 1:29-39 I spoke last week about the inclusive and expansive love that is characteristic of parishioners who have as their pastor a married priest. Whereas the celibate priest is singularly focused and can devote all his energies to ministering to his parish, the married priest must also minister to his family. Therefore, just as his love is necessarily inclusive and expansive, so his parishioners respond in kind, including in their love the pastor’s wife and children. We see this inclusive and expansive love reflected in today’s Gospel. When Jesus entered the house of the brothers, Simon and Andrew, they immediately told Jesus about Simon Peter’s mother-in-law. The concern, in other words, is not only for the Pastor, the Rock upon whom Jesus built His Church, but also for Peter’s family, in this case his wife’s mother. We might take for granted that the disciples of Christ would love our first Holy Father, our first Pope. What we learn is that the disciples of Jesus Christ also love their pastor’s family. I expressed last week the consolation I derive from the great love you have shown my wife and children, and I have no doubt that this love was a consolation to St. Peter, also. Why did Jesus choose a married man to be the first Pope? That, of course, we cannot know, but the Scriptures do give us some insight as to how the Church benefitted from Peter’s marriage, just as they show us how the Church benefitted from St. Paul’s singular focus in building up the Church of Christ. Their different gifts in terms of marriage and celibacy complimented each other. In St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 9, we read St. Paul ask, “Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a wife, as the other apostles and the brethren of the Lord and Cephas?” (1 Cor. 9:5). From this rhetorical question about a right that St. Paul never exercised, remaining single throughout his apostleship, we learn that St. Peter’s wife accompanied him on his own apostolic journeys as he brought the Gospel to Jews across the Roman Empire. We can imagine several advantages to such a vocation, some of which I alluded to last week. First, of course, the married priest has a helpmate in fulfilling his responsibilities. The role of the wife of a priest is a vocation in and of itself. It means, if it is to be a successful and fruitful partnership, a complete commitment to the call the Lord has placed upon the heart of His priest. This is part of the reason a married man can be ordained, but an ordained man cannot be married. Obviously, to maintain the trust and intimacy a priest must enjoy with his parishioners, we would never want to witness a priest on the make. But on the other side, we want a priest’s spouse to enter into this vocation with eyes wide open, understanding that if the bride does not accept the responsibility of her husband’s call, the groom may well never be ordained. My own wife, fifteen years ago, had to sign several documents, sent to the Holy See, attesting to her support of my call. And that support must endure throughout the marriage. Imagine how less fruitful would be my ministry, if I did not have a wife so invested in the Lord’s will. This investment in my ministry to you then serves as an example to other families within the parish. To the degree that our love is complementary and united in the advance of a common goal, we can show how best to have a fruitful marriage. We are partners striving to aid our beloved to reach heaven, not individuals who each go in opposite or competing directions. A married priest and his wife ideally do not seek out self-fulfillment as much as they do complete self-oblation, and the beneficiaries of their sacrifices are the spiritual children borne to them and nurtured by them. This example of complementarity naturally extends to the realm of chastity according to one’s state in life. While the celibate man’s vocation is an obvious example of self-control, sacrifice, and complete devotion, so may a married priest’s witness serve the same ideals, if the priest lives chastely with his bride. Whether a married priest’s family is large or small, the couple’s openness to life must be obvious to all. Otherwise, married clergy, in failing to keep the marriage bed undefiled, will serve as a counter- example the Church ought strenuously to avoid ever visiting upon an unsuspecting flock. We want priests who want to let the little children come unto Jesus, not disciples who shoo the children away from His loving embrace. In a nation where 95% of Catholics admit to contracepting at some point in their marriage, the witness of a pastor who is open to life is an invaluable resource in building up the Gospel of Life and resisting the culture of death. The complementarity of a man and his wife can also be seen, finally, in the realm of accountability. Since the married priest always lives in community with his wife, he has beside him someone to fulfill the spiritual works of mercy for him on a daily basis: not just someone to pray for him earnestly day and night, but someone who is willing to instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, and even reprove the sinner when those works are necessary. The man who lives alone, or resides in less intimate proximity to his housemates, does not enjoy the advantage of having a woman who is watching his every move and who is also willing to call him out when he falls short of the holiness to which God has called him. Since his wife is not perfect, he also has ample opportunity to bear wrongs patiently and forgive sins readily. The married priest who understands it is his duty to help get his wife to heaven can certainly desire no less for his parishioners, who just as much require his spousal solicitude on their way to their heavenly home. I could go on, but we will really only know the reason Jesus chose a married man to be the first Pope after we have passed from this life and are partakers in the Beatific Vision. For now, I’ll simply commend to you the response you might offer when people begin asking questions when they find out your pastor is married. If you think it true of me and my beloved, simply say, “The complementarity of the sexes, which God imparted to us, is reflected in their love for the flock that Jesus entrusted to our Pastor.” .

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