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“The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change… Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home.” (Pope Francis, Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home)

September 1 has been designated as the Universal Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation today. This year’s day of prayer was launched last night with the first annual ecumenical prayer service in Assisi. It was a great honor for me to do two of the readings at last night’s quiet service, held in the side chapel of the Basilica of St. Clare, where the original San Damiano cross hangs. According to tradition, Christ spoke to Francis through this cross, saying, “Francis, go and repair my home. Don’t you see that it is being ruined?” We gathered to remember those words and to hear them anew, as an invitation to us and to all, to restore this earth, our common home. As we reflected together on expressions of care and commitment articulated by various churches throughout the world, we affirmed that our care for creation is a matter of great joy and hope that we would engage even if our common home were not in crisis.

In fact, the entire period from September 1 to August 4 has been designated the “season of creation” where people all over the world will be renewing their commitment to caring for our home and for one another. To connect with a network of people engaging the Season of Creation and to see or notify others of events in your area, please go to http://seasonofcreation.org.

Last night’s prayer service is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONggo3gTODg

Please join me in renewing your commitment to caring for our common home and in extending this invitation to others, so that all of us might commit ourselves more deeply to the work and the joy of making this world a home for all.

Today is the 503rd birthday of one of history’s remarkable women, Teresa of Avila. Successfully spearheading the reform of the Carmelite order and articulating some of the most profound expressions of the mystical life, despite the inhospitable climate fostered by the Spanish Inquisition, Teresa has much to teach us today. She teaches us the virtue of tenacity, or, as she would put it “una muy determinada determinación.” I think some today express it with the phrase “And still, she persisted.” Moving about Spain by mule to found over a dozen convents, organizing a center for formation for women who would take her reforms into the next generation, and modeling what active, collaborative partnership with God looks like in the real world–in her accomplishments, it is easy to see both the vision and the strength of character and will necessary to bring a vision into being.

Where did all that strategic vision come from? Another thing we can learn from Teresa is how to grow into a functional partnership with the divine. Teresa spent considerable time in prayer, and her prayer took many creative forms. She was not born knowing how to pray, but she, like all of us, was born with an inner instinct toward the divine–an instinct that she re-discovered, as a young adult, because she became deathly ill. As her inner dialogue with God deepened and expanded, new forms of prayer emerged, and gradually she learned to see and listen to the world around her with God, sensitized by the indwelling presence of God that she nurtured and fed with her attention and solicitude. Her writings teach us that all of us have that vocation–a vocation to listen, to be present, to extend love into the world, and to allow God to continually re-create us as our partnership with God grows and bears fruit.

Teresa’s counsel, “The important thing is not to think much but to love much; do, then, what most stirs you to love…” underscores Pope Francis’s clarity in Joy of the Gospel, that we are all called to be “missionary disciples.” We are all “agents of evangelization” as we extend God’s love into a weary world, knowing that a loveless world is not the same as a loving one and acting in the strength of that conviction. “What you have come to realize, what has helped you to live and given you hope, is what you also need to communicate to others,” writes Pope Francis. “Our falling short of perfection should be no excuse; on the contrary, mission is a constant stimulus not to remain mired in mediocrity but to continue growing.” (Joy of the Gospel, par. 121) With Teresa’s counsels to guide us, let us aspire to that growth and be visionary agents of change, aware that “whoever does not grow, shrinks” (Teresa, Interior Castle) and that “every authentic experience of truth and goodness seeks by its very nature to grow within us.” (Pope Francis, Joy of the Gospel, par. 9)

Thirty-eight years ago today Oscar Arnulfo Romero, archbishop of San Salvador, was assassinated on March 24, 1980, while offering the Eucharist in the chapel of the Divine Providencia at the hospital where he lived. Many of us know something of his strong desire to ensure that the church express its concern for the poor through more direct accompaniment of them in their needs and by implementing the changes that their cries for justice require. But Romero was not always a prophetic person. He grew into the Christian vocation to be a voice for the voiceless through a genuine conversion—a conversion brought about by his accompaniment of the crucified Christ in the poor of El Salvador. Prior to discovering Jesus in the midst of the suffering poor, no one would have predicted that he would become one of Christianity’s great modern prophets. In fact, Romero was originally named archbishop because he was seen as reserved and introspective. Perhaps the most remarkable element of his Christian witness is its testimony to the God who continually works in and with us, calling us to grow and to change.

Romero grew to understand his pastoral responsibility in very specific ways: he was to listen, to understand the lived experience of his people, to help them to see the Christ in their midst, and to exhort all to fidelity to the gospel’s call to dignity, equality, and love. His homilies became central to the theological, ethical and spiritual formation of the people of El Salvador. He had a keen sense of Christ’s presence in the poor and a profound gift for articulating the demands of the gospel for justice, tenderness and right living. He preached by word and example, listening to the stories of the poor, founding a center for families whose loved ones had been disappeared by paramilitary forces, living simply, and becoming a voice for the voiceless. Romero denounced his country’s social, political and economic injustices, the indifference of so many to those injustices, and the growing spiral of violence intended to maintain the status quo.

Strengthened by his deepening awareness of the presence of God in the community around him, the only way Romero could make sense of the darkness around him was by intensifying his dedication to showing love in action. As I look to his example, I see someone capable of showing us how to see past the darknesses of our days and commit ourselves to bringing greater light and presence into our world.

In his final homily, 38 years ago, Romero spoke of hope as what enlightens all of our longings for justice, peace and well-being:

“We know that every effort to better society, especially when injustice and sin are so ingrained, is an effort that God blesses, that God wants, that God demands of us… We know that no one can go on forever, but those who have put into their work a sense of very great faith, of love of God, of hope among human beings, find it all results in the splendors of a crown that is the sure reward of those who labor to cultivate truth, justice, love and goodness on earth.”

The recent declaration of Pope Francis that Romero will be canonized this year brings us both joy and an increased responsibility to understand his challenging message for us today.

You can find a wealth of information about Romero, including copies of all of his homilies, in English and Spanish at http://www.romerotrust.org.uk

Over and over again, the gospels show us the richness of encounter with Jesus.  In those encounters, people learn, are healed, are strengthened and affirmed, are given new vision, and are changed.  Because of that encounter they become bearers of light and love.  In today’s gospel we see how much some of the wisest people were willing to give up in order to be faithful to this life-changing encounter with Jesus.  If we today were to learn from the wise leaders, what three gifts might they give us?  I would suggest that they teach us the wisdom of vigilance, receptivity, and the joy of journeying together.

The first gift of the magi is that they show us how to be courageous and dedicated in our vigilance.  We see how they looked around their world with expectation, watching carefully the signs of the times.  They kept themselves ready to do seek and engage encounter with God in their own human circumstances.  They left behind their business affairs and responsibilities in order to seek the light and wisdom of Jesus, they travelled to distant lands, faithful to a long and difficult journey, and they kept their hearts open to allow both the journey and the encounter with the incarnate God to give them new direction.   From this we can learn to be vigilantly on the lookout for encounter with God.  This means being open to the wisdom that will help us truly find Jesus, for Jesus comes to us in many subtle ways.  Sometimes we don’t even see Jesus.  Or we look away.  Or we are unable to recognize the Christ in the ordinariness of our lives.  We will need that kind of dedication and vigilance if we are going to see, recognize, and attune ourselves to the God who, in Christ, has become part of the human family and is here in our world today.

But an encounter with God in our midst is only the first step in a series of spiritual practices.  What do we do when we find God?  Or when God finds us, in the midst of our circumstances?  The magi show us that encounter is about more than searching and finding.  It is also about receiving and being changed.  It is about being with, about lingering, about taking the time to be present to encounters so that the God who is with us in those encounters can truly take hold of us and change us.  That is the receptivity that the Magi model.  Despite the fact that they go bearing gifts to give, the more important part of the exchange is that they receive the light of Christ that gives them wisdom and greater knowledge of what needs to be done in a hard and sometimes treacherous world.  Without receiving that light, we cannot really know how best to order our lives and live toward what God wants for us.

But when we receive that light, we receive a third gift: the gift of joy.  And this is a joy that, at some level, no one can take from us, because it is a joy that comes from constancy and fidelity.  It is not always a flashy joy, full of emotion.  But it is the kind of  joy that gives us peace in our hearts, balance in our lives, and a radiant countenance that is ready to share and willing to work with others toward the common good.  Pope Francis calls this joy one that is “constantly born anew within us” through our contact with Christ; it is a quiet, strengthening joy that gives us the desire to do good and helps us to move outside ourselves.  The knowledge that we are fruitfully  journeying together toward a better world is the light that moves us forward.  That knowledge is the source of our joy, as Pope Francis says in Joy of the Gospel, par 24: when we know that God has loved us first and has so loved us as to share life with us, we know that we too can get involved, can go out to others, seek those who have been trampled down, stand at the crossroads and welcome the outcast.   As we greet the new year together, let us try a little harder to take the first step and to become involved; like the wise rulers of today’s gospel, let us bridge distances, live into our encounters, and go forth changed.

Forty years ago, in his Christmas homily, Archbishop Oscar Romero reminded the people of El Salvador that with the birth of Christ, God’s reign is inaugurated in human time.  He told them:

On this night, as we Christians have done every year for twenty centuries, we recall that God’s reign is now in this world and that Christ has inaugurated the fullness of time.  Christ’s birth attests that God is now journeying with us in history, that we do not go alone, and that we can hope and work for peace, for justice, for the reign of divine law, for something holy, because the builder of a reign of justice, of love, and of peace is already in the midst of us. (Christmas Homily, December 25, 1977)

Romero’s homily, written in a time of great personal and social darkness, is an important reminder of where our joy this evening comes from: God has entered human history in order to join us on the journey of life, on a new path that slowly leads toward an enduring peace.

Ever since he became pope, Francis has been encouraging us to “go forth” in faith.  We go forth in imitation of many who have gone before: we imitate the simple faith of shepherds seeking the child Jesus, we imitate the spontaneous generosity of the three kings.  We imitate the quiet courage of Mary and Joseph who went forth in faith despite the forces that threatened the safety and well-being of the child Jesus.  We go forth, to be, as the angels proclaim, ambassadors of God’s peace—to make peace real for the hungry and homeless, for migrants and those seeking safety, for all who have been deprived of their dignity or hope.  We go forth, knowing that we do not walk alone.  We walk with the One whose love gives life and guides our steps as we share the journey toward a more humane way of life, toward a way of being that mirrors God’s own generous self-sharing that we know in the birth of Jesus.