Digital Marian Helper Winter_2019

him bishop of Vilnius. With a pastor’s heart, he addressed his unexpected flock by stating what should be the goals of every priest. At his installation as bishop on Dec. 8, 1918, he said: As I go to the altar to offer holy Mass to our heavenly Father, I shall offer the spotless Lamb of God not only for myself, but for the whole diocese — that the good may be strengthened, that sinners return to God, that the sick and the afflicted be at peace, that the departed receive mercy and be saved. I shall be your teacher. … I shall bring you God’s grace in the holy sacraments. ... I am prepared to lay down my life for the truth. Bishop Matulaitis knew that “momentous duties” awaited him, and he knew he’d need help to fulfill them. So he then asked: What can I expect of you? If from now on we are to be one large family, then we must work together. I shall ‘We need men willing to go in’ P robably no matter where you were on April 15, you got a phone call or a text message, or a coworker said to you, “You’ve got to turn on the TV. Are you seeing this?” And what did you see? The Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris in flames. It looked horrible , like it was going to burn to the ground. Those flames were huge. And as the cameras panned the crowd, you saw people crying, praying, some on their knees with a Rosary, some singing songs in French, some singing to Our Lady in Latin. But they were all a great distance from the fire. What we didn’t see [was] that, initially, many people were inside. They ran out to get away from the fire, and they sought refuge in a nearby park. But did you know one man was on the sidelines with everyone else who decided to go inside? He was a Catholic priest, Fr. Jean-Marc Fornier, the chaplain for the Paris fire department. He turned to two firemen and said, “I’m go- ing in. Come with me.” And they did. They ran in. Father took the lead. And as they ran in the main corridor, he said to them, “There is the Crown of Thorns. Break the glass and take it. There is the cloak that King Louis used. Take it. There are the relics of St. Helena. Take them. There are the relics of St. Catherine. Take them.” And do you knowwhat he did? He went into the heart of the fire, into the sanctuary, where all around him pieces of the wooden ceiling were falling. And if they hit him, he’d be dead in an instant. Why did he do that? To save the greatest treasure in the Cathedral, the Blessed Sacrament. He took out the con- secrated Host. And when he turned around, two firemen were holding the relics, looking at him like, “Let’s get out of here!”You know what he did? He raised the Host and blessed the firemen so they could get out — even if he didn’t make it. And then he raised the Host higher and blessed the entire Cathedral with the Eucharistic Presence of our Lord. And the Cathedral didn’t fall. It burned. The ceiling is gone, but the structure remains. The roof can be rebuilt. What gave that priest the courage? His love for our Eucharistic Lord, primarily. And he was simply imitating Jesus Christ, the High Priest. Remember what Jesus did for us? When it seemed like the whole world was in ruins, that the flames of sin had destroyed everything, the Son of God left the comfort of Paradise to become one of us and step into the fire, to give His life as a sacri- fice for us so that we could be spared the eternal flames of hell. And today, we celebrate His Ascension, when He returned to the side of His Father in the Heavenly Kingdom. And yet His mind was still thinking about us . He said that He goes to prepare a place for us, that we can have a mansion in the Kingdom of Heaven, if we remain faithful to Him. After that fire at Notre Dame, many social commenta- tors — both Catholic and not Catholic — said that it was almost as though that fire were symbolic of something happening now in the world of Christianity, Catholicism in particular. It would seem that it’s on “fire”: the persecu- tions, the divisions, the confusion. It’s everywhere. People are leaving the Church in droves. If you look at the studies, Mass attendance over the last few generations has radically plummeted. If I were to ask you, “Do you have someone in your family who no longer goes to church, who no longer believes?” I guarantee you, all of you would raise your hands. These are seriously confusing times. We live in an age with a generation of young people who are called the “None Generation” because they believe The following homily was delivered June 2, by Fr. Donald Calloway, MIC, the Marians’ vocations director, at the first Mass of Fr. Michael Baker, MIC, who was ordained to the priesthood the day before. “We need holy priests. We need Marian priests.” 12 M arian H elper • W inter 2019-20 • marian . org