Only Your Love and Your Grace

 

It is deeply human to celebrate milestones in life. The way we choose to mark such occasions matters. Think of the birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, and national holidays that pepper your calendar every year. The time off you yearn for in your vacation. Think about the gifts you’ve bought for the people you love – to congratulate, to celebrate and to show your care and affection when they get a promotion or achieve a life goal.

We are fundamentally social creatures. Evolution and psychology tell us that we are hard-wired for living in communities. Even though in our age of instant communication we are far more networked and our circles of influence are much wider, we still need other people not only to survive but to thrive. Celebrating milestones reinforces our connections to other and allows us to know each other better. Even trauma – traumas like our recent pandemic – bond us together because it reinforces how much we really need each other. 

I have been reflecting on a couple of significant personal milestones. Last December, in the middle of our COVID winter (figuratively and literally), I became Medicare eligible. (Yes, I turned sixty-five.) This was particularly significant for me, because, in part, none of my grandparents lived that long. My maternal grandmother lived the longest – 61 years. My parents outlived them but only because advances in medicine allowed my father to undergo two rounds of open-heart surgery. Pharmacology prolonged my mother’s life by several years as she struggled with a combination of chronic illnesses. Both have now been gone nearly twenty years. Yet, I remain extremely grateful that I have been blessed with reasonably good health: some reparative surgeries and some physical therapy here and there keep me going strong.  All this makes it hard to believe that I am now older than my grandparents and seem on track soon to surpass my parents in healthy longevity.

On September 1^st, I began my seventh year at St. Luke’s – significant because I have been privileged to serve you as priest and pastor longer than I have served any other single community. And on the 17^th of this month, as we celebrate our patronal feast of St. Luke, I will celebrate the fortieth anniversary of my ordination as a priest.

This last milestone, my ordination anniversary, came into clear focus a little while ago, when I was referred to as “one of the senior priests of the diocese.” Senior priest? Oh my. As that conversation progressed, I realized that many of my colleagues around the diocese were submitting letters of retirement to the Bishop and Church Pension Fund. It caught me up short. By a quirk of the calendar, I was always the youngest person in my class – grade school, high school, college and even seminary. That was a lot of practice at “being the youngest.” So, being an elder among my colleagues was not something I often envisioned – until now.

And yet, I observe these latest milestones with immense gratitude to God, because it is only by God’s grace in Christ that I have been able to see them pass into the rearview mirror. I am extremely grateful for the people I have come to know and serve through more than forty years of ministry – as a lay person, as a deacon, and as a priest. Every person – each one of you – has influenced my growth as a servant-leader among you. Without you, the People of God, I would be nothing – nothing at all.

As I pass these milestones, and look toward new ones, I earnestly pray words that I learned many, many years ago and which have become the byword of my life:

Take, Lord, receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, my entire will, all that I have and all that I possess. You have given all to me; now I return it. Give me only your love and your grace. These are enough for me. Then do with me as you will, according to your good pleasure.  (St. Ignatius of Loyola)