My formal installation as pastor of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton is scheduled for this coming Tuesday. Pastors’ installations are performed by the Bishop or by another priest on the Bishop’s behalf. Bishop Zarama performs the installation of pastors appointed for the first time. Since I have been a pastor before, Bishop Zarama will not attend. Fr. John Forbes, Dean of the Fayetteville Deanery and Pastor of Sacred Heart parish in Pinehurst, will be the priest who will come on Tuesday on behalf of our Bishop.    

In today’s gospel the Lord says to the people appraising the costly stones and votive offerings that adorned the Temple of Jerusalem: “All that you see here̶ the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down”. I see in these serious words an invitation for us to build for eternity. The buildings that we are invited to build for eternity are, of course, our lives. The costly decorations by which we need to adorn our lives are the Christian virtues.

I would like to focus my reflections today on the importance of building our lives for eternity. We need to build our lives for eternity because there will arrive a day, the day of judgement, when our lives will undergo their ultimate scrutiny and the things that are not worthy for eternity will be destroyed. Only the things in us that are worthy of eternal life will remain.  

A portion from the prophet Malachi is the reading from the Old Testament that is paired with today’s gospel. Malachi warns of an approaching day, a day “blazing like an oven, when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble”. The prophet announces that the proud and the evildoers will be set on fire on that day. Malachi, on the other hand, announces that those who fear the Lord’s name will receive the light of the sun of justice whose rays, instead of destroying them, will heal them.

I would now like to offer you some ways for building our lives for eternity. I will follow Malachi’s words to find the counterexamples and the example. The counterexamples are the proud and the evildoers. The example is the people who fear the Lord’s name. So, the ways for building our lives for eternity are the virtues of humility, righteousness, and fear of the Lord. Many of us go through life building our lives just as the people of Israel did building the magnificent Temple of Jerusalem. They were focused more on the material components of the temple rather than on its spiritual significance. Here we recall the Lord’s criticism to the people of Israel when he said that they had turned God’s house of prayer into a house of sin.

We confirm once again that humility is the most important Christian virtue. The humble and righteous person who fears the Lord’s name is the one who will go through the Lord’s judgment and not see the building of his life being thrown down. In other words, the Saints are the people who build their lives for eternity. When we learn about the life of any saint, we see their life as a beautiful building adorned with the costly decorations of our souls which are the virtues. That is correct. Mastering a virtue is costly, it takes the patience of a lifetime. The virtues cost so much because they are the precious objects that our souls should display.

Let us humbly ask the Lord to give us his grace to build our lives for eternity. Let us ask him to adorn our souls with the precious virtues of humility, righteousness and the fear of his name.

On a different topic. The topic of imparting a blessing to those who come forward in the communion procession and do not receive Holy Communion. You may have noticed that the Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, that is, the people who have not received the sacrament of Ordination, have recently started to offer a brief prayer for those in the Assembly, adults and children, who come forward in the Communion procession and who are not receiving Holy Communion. The brief prayer is “May God bless you” or “May God continue the good work in you”. Extraordinary Ministers were imparting blessings here in our parish until recently. The practice of imparting a blessing at that moment is a practice reserved for the ordained ministers. I respectfully ask for your understanding in the implementation of this diocesan policy that has been in place in the Diocese for a long time. I encourage you to continue coming forward and accept the brief prayer, knowing that you and your children will receive the blessing from me when I impart the final blessing to the entire Assembly at the end of Mass.