Bishop DiMarzio Addresses New Ecclesial Groups

This is the full text of the homily preached by Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio at the New Ecclesial Movements Mass celebrated on Dec. 1 at St. James Cathedral Basilica, Downtown Brooklyn.

It is my pleasure today to celebrate this Eucharist with the New Ecclesial Movements and communities in the Diocese of Brooklyn. The Ecclesial Movements have been called the “new springtime for the Church.” Movements and new communities are providential expressions of a new springtime brought forth by the Spirit with the Second Vatican Council. The council announced the power of God’s love which is overcoming divisions and barriers of every kind. These movements will renew the face of the earth to build a civilization of love. This is how Pope John Paul II, in his homily at the Mass for Pentecost in the Year 2000, expressed himself to the over 280,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square for a prayer vigil with the Holy Father.

During that Pentecost Vigil before John Paul II’s intervention, testimony of movements were brought by Chiara Lubich, foundress of the Focolare Movement; Kiko Arguello of the Neocatechumenal Way; Jean Vanier, founder of the Arche; and Monsignor Luigi Guissani, founder of Communion and Liberation. Today, I am happy that those movements are represented here in the Diocese of Brooklyn, among many others.

Last year we met. This year, however, in the celebration of the Eucharist preceded by a wonderful Holy Hour, we come together again to reflect on the role of the New Ecclesial Movements and new communities which are signs of hope for the good of the Church before humanity.

My latest pastoral letter, “Do Not Be Afraid,” described in detail what the New Evangelization means for our Diocese here in Brooklyn and Queens. I mentioned the place of the New Ecclesial Movements as promoters and participants in the New Evangelization which can bring the Gospel to all who are willing to hear.

At the heart of each of your movements is a particular friendship that has developed because you are truly disciples of the Lord who used the instrumentality of friendship to bring His Apostles and disciples together. The post-synodal document on the laity tells us, “By their nature, charisms are communicative and give rise to that spiritual affinity between persons and that friendship in Christ which is the origin of the movements.” Each one of your movements has a particular charism and particular gift for the Church, a particular style which has led to your individual conversions and renewals as active participants in the life of the Church.

Just as St. Paul describes in the first reading today the variety of charisms which make up the Body of Christ, so too your individual charisms form a beautiful mosaic which can be the back-drop of the New Evangelization in our diocese.

Your charisms, however, must be authentic. You have come to me as your bishop to ascertain and guarantee the authenticity of your charisms. You wish to be truly integral parts of the life of our diocese. Today, I must formally thank you for what you have done and what you will do in the service of the Church in the New Evangelization. There is much to be done: strengthen the family, encourage vocations and reach out to the alienated and much more.

Your mission, however, is not one without its difficulties. There are inherent misunderstandings which arise from the fact that you are movements. Every movement has a goal. Every movement must be seen as something not static but alive in the Spirit. Your enthusiasm, however, your individual charisms, your friendship with one another, which sometimes is not understood or appreciated by others, may create negative perceptions by some in the Church today. Jesus, in the priestly prayer of our Gospel today, singles out the disciples who would experience what you experience. As your bishop, I challenge you to overcome what would seem to be “movements apart from the mainstream” of the Church or “turned in upon themselves.” I know that this is not your intention, and I know that you will work against giving any impression that somehow you are the “elite” or the “saved” while your fellow Catholic Christians have yet to discover the true meaning of their faith.

Let me remind you of a parable, the parable that Jesus taught about who is my neighbor when He was asked that question. He told the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritans were ostracized by the Jewish people because they were not like the Jews who worshiped properly. The Samaritans had their own places of worship. Although Jewish and preserving the faith in the one true God, their manner of worship and belief was different. It was a Samaritan who was the neighbor to the man left on the side of the road by the robbers. First passes the Levite, and then the priest and finally the Samaritan who was the only one who stopped to take care of the man abandoned on the side of the road.

You, my brothers and sisters, must be the Good Samaritans in our Church today. It must be you who bring in those who have strayed from the practice of the faith, those who feel most abandoned and distraught for many reasons. It is you who must, as one of your movements fashions itself, be the ambulance of the Church picking up those in need of help and bringing them into the arms of Holy Mother Church. Whatever be your charism, whether it is the joy of praying in the Spirit and being enlightened by Him, or the discovery of the intellectual depths of our faith so as to explain it to an unbelieving world, or the experience of community and liturgical worship, different yet truly in the Spirit of the liturgy itself, each brings about a renewed baptismal conversion. Whatever your charism may be, all of them seek a deeper practice and understanding of the faith. All of your movements are meant to lead all of you to holiness.

Today, we have celebrated the votive Mass of Mary the Mother of Unity. We place the new ecclesial movements under her patronage. It was she, who, gathered at Pentecost with the Apostles, received the Holy Spirit, the grantor of the unity her son prayed for in His priestly prayers. This statue of Our Lady of Fatima on this first Saturday of December reminds us of her presence with all members of the Church of which she is the first.

Let us pray together, my Samaritans, that we will be an example to our neighbors, our brother and sister Catholics. That we might be the light of the world, that we might be the “new springtime in the Church,” bringing the Good News to all, with a certain joy and passion which are characteristic of the movements the Spirit has given to the Church today.

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