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The Holy Father Sends Greetings to
the Diocese of Belleville and the People of Southern Illinois

“My prayers are with you as you celebrate the 40th anniversary of your ordination. Please give my greeting to all the people of your Diocese. I bless them and join them in praying for vocations to the priesthood. I send my cordial good wishes to all of the people of whatever religion or walk of life in the communities you serve.” With these words to Bishop Edward K. Braxton, His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI sent his personal greetings to the people of southern Illinois during his audience in St. Peter’s Square at the close of the Year for Priests. The Pontiff expressed gratitude to the Bishop and the Christian faithful of the Diocese for the work they do in the name of Christ each day. Bishop Braxton assured the Holy Father of the prayers, loyalty, and prayerful support of the priests, deacons, religious, and laity of the Diocese.

Bishop Braxton traveled to Rome on pilgrimage to participate in various events marking the close of the Year for Priests during the week of June 6-13. Activities included lectures in various languages at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls (where St. Paul is buried) on different aspects of the life and holiness of a priest. There were also concerts, charismatic events, and tours. For priests in Rome for the first time, the “Scavi Tour” of the excavations under the Basilica of St. Peter was perhaps the most moving. This unique experience takes pilgrims deep under Michelangelo’s great 16th century dome and under Emperor Constantine’s earlier 4th century basilica to the world of the Christian martyrs of the first century. The spiritual highpoint is the arrival at the “Red Wall” and the place of the burial of Simon Peter, the first leader of the Christians in Rome. Praying in this hallowed area makes every Catholic appreciate in a deep way the reason why the Church is called “the Roman Catholic Church.” It has been washed in the blood of the great martyrs, St. Peter and St. Paul.

The most solemn events of the closing days were the Thursday evening Vigil Ceremony in the Square in the presence of the Holy Father and the once-in-a-lifetime experience, the closing Mass on Friday morning celebrated by the Pontiff. During the Vigil there were eloquent testimonies of faith from people from around the world. The high point was surely the dialogue with the Holy Father during which priests from around the world asked Pope Benedict questions about vocations, the priesthood, celibacy, theology, and evangelization. The Bishop of Rome responded with great clarity and precision without the benefit of notes, revealing the magisterial skills he developed as a university professor of theology in Germany.

On Friday, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Holy Father presided at a Solemn Eucharist marking the close of the Year for Priests, which had coincided with the 150th anniversary of the death of St. John Mary Vianney, the Curé d’Ars, Patron Saint of Parish Priests. More than eighty cardinals, five hundred bishops and between fifteen and seventeen thousand priests concelebrated. Uncounted thousands of deacons, religious sisters and brothers, and members of the laity participated with great enthusiasm.

In his homily the Pope noted how the Year for Priests was celebrated to ensure “a renewed appreciation of the grandeur and beauty of the priestly ministry. The priest is not a mere office-holder. Rather, he does something which no human being can do of his own power: in Christ’s name he speaks the words which absolve us of our sins and in this way he changes, starting with God, our entire life. Over the offerings of bread and wine he speaks Christ’s words of thanksgiving, which open the world to God and unite it to Him. The priesthood, then, is not simply ‘office’ but Sacrament.”

He continued, “This audacity of God Who entrusts Himself to human beings (Who, conscious of our weaknesses, nonetheless considers men capable of acting and being present in His stead), this audacity of God is the true grandeur concealed in the word ‘priesthood.’ This is what we wanted to reflect upon and appreciate anew over the course of the past year. We wanted to reawaken our joy at how close God is to us. We also wanted to demonstrate once again to young people that this vocation, this fellowship of service for God and with God, does exist.
“Had the Year for Priests been a glorification of our individual human performance, it would have been ruined by these events (the sexual abuse crisis). But for us what happened was precisely the opposite: we grew in gratitude for God’s gift, a gift concealed in ‘earthen vessels’ which ever anew, even amid human weakness, makes His love concretely present in this world. So let us look upon all that happened as a summons to purification, as a task which we bring to the future and which makes us acknowledge and love all the more the great gift we have received from God. In this way, His gift becomes a commitment to respond to God’s courage and humility by our own courage and our own humility.”

The Holy Father continued his homily by commenting on verses from the 23rd Psalm. “Your rod and your staff — they comfort me’: the shepherd needs the rod as protection against savage beasts ready to pounce on the flock; against robbers looking for prey. Along with the rod there is the staff which gives support and helps to make difficult crossings. The Church too must use the shepherd’s rod, the rod with which she protects the faith against those who falsify it, against currents which lead the flock astray. The use of the rod can actually be a service of love. Today we can see that it has nothing to do with love when conduct unworthy of the priestly life is tolerated. Nor is it love if heresy is allowed to spread and the faith twisted and chipped away, as if it were something that we ourselves had invented. As if it were no longer God’s gift, the precious pearl which we cannot let be taken from us. Even so, the rod must always become once again the shepherd’s staff — a staff which helps men and women to tread difficult paths and to follow the Lord.”

The Successor of St. Peter concluded his homily recalling the two fundamental Sacraments by which the Church lives: Baptism and the Eucharist. “From the Lord’s pierced side, from His open heart, there springs the living fountain which continues to well up over the centuries and which makes the Church. The open heart is the source of a new stream of life. Every Christian and every priest should become, starting from Christ, a wellspring which gives life to others. We ought to be offering life-giving water to a parched and thirsty world.”

Upon his return to the Diocese of Belleville, Bishop Braxton commented, “It was a great grace for me to prayerfully reflect on forty years of pastoral service as a Priest, fifteen years as a Bishop, and five years as Bishop of this Diocese gathered with so many priests and bishops from around the world around ‘Peter’s Chair’ at the close of this great Year for Priests. I prayed for the intentions of everyone in the Diocese, especially the sick and those who are grieving the death of a loved one. At the tomb of St. Paul, I prayed that we might all heed the call to be evangelizers and share the Good News about Jesus. Early one morning, I prayed at the tomb of St. Peter. As the sunlight gradually illuminated the majestic dome, I gazed upon the six-foot-high letters from the Gospel of St. Matthew that encircle the dome. “Tu es Petrus,” “You are Peter and on this rock I will build My Church.” I prayed that as our Diocese approaches its 125th anniversary on January 7, 2010 the Holy Spirit might enlighten each of us, enliven our faith, and enlarge our love that we may work and pray together as members of the Body of Christ.”