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| News - Conventions Bishop Jack Kaising's keynote address at the Section 6 & 7 Convention Bishop Jack Kaising, submitted by Fr. Tom Espelage and George & Terri Brass Dear Lovers, We just experienced the Section 6 Convention in Columbus, Ohio. The Columbus Lovers did a great job hosting, organizing, and seeing that we all had a wonderful experience. Many lovers from Section 7 joined in our enrichment. There is nothing like celebrating with a happy, fun-loving bunch of people like those we meet in Marriage Encounter. We thank everyone involved from the bottom of our hearts. Below is a copy of the Keynote Address given Sunday morning by Bishop Jack Kaising. We were very moved by Bishop Jack's words to us. We wanted to share them with our M.E. family. Reflect and enjoy. God Bless you all, Love, Fr. Tom Espelage and George & Terri Brass
Section 6 & 7 Worldwide Marriage Encounter Convention 27 June 2004 Loving and living Sacraments! Thanks for the invitation to speak at this convention. I think the Holy Spirit had something to do with my being asked. George & Terri Brass asked me last year at the National Convention if I would say Mass for you during the convention, I was happy to say yes. Then the next thing you know I am the “Keynote Speaker!” I should have learned by this time to be careful of what ME couples ask and that I say yes to, but it is a real joy for me to be here. I said the Holy Spirit had something to do with it because yesterday I was able to be present for the ordination of a new Priest for the Columbus Diocese, Father Carl Subler. Carl is also co-sponsored by the Archdiocese for the Military and will enter active duty with the Army in three years. What a joy it was to witness this ceremony. I had a great seat so I could watch the faces of these six young men as they said yes to the gift of the priesthood, they never stopped smiling, what a joy for them and for the church. So my time in Columbus is allowing me to celebrate two great Sacraments, Marriage and Holy Orders. What a gift for me. As many of you know my being a bishop was no where on my radar screen. I was happy as a pastor in Cincinnati and working with the ME family there. I was all set, but John Paul II had other plans and he called me to be a bishop for the military. I only mention this here as we celebrate the Sacrament of Matrimony because, many of you may have your plans made for your life and your marriage, be careful, don’t forget God is a very big part of your lives. If you want to make God laugh tell him your plans, I did and Look at me. God has always worked in my life in strange ways. I was called to the military ministry, I was happy there. Then I met you guys in ME in 1978 and my life took another turn. Then the call to the Episcopacy and now here I am. So watch out God has plans for you but he has not told you about them as yet. One of the joys of being a bishop for the Military is that I get to meet so many great people. I just returned from an extensive trip through the Western U.S. doing Confirmations. I traveled from Washington to San Antonio to Alaska and lots of places in between. I did 37 confirmations in that time. What a joy it was to meet so many people, to meet so many committed young adults, the hope of the church. But this trip also gave me a new way to look at the people I met. These parents and young adults are the fruit of the Sacrament of Matrimony – again committed young adults and proud parents. Doing 37 confirmations is the space of two months can get “old” after a while, but when I see those young adults at each stop they get me charged up to be for them and with them as they made that big step in their lives. It thrilled me to be a bishop and to be a priest who works with married couples who helped to develop these committed young people. At the convention in Atlanta I sang the praises of the first married couple to be canonized as saints. Today I am proud to sing the praises of a woman, a working mother, St Gianna Beretta Molla, who was canonized just this past May 16th. She was an ordinary woman, as the press release said she did nothing extraordinary, she lived a normal life, but she did choose to be a Christian Catholic mother/wife first. She died in 1962, one week after giving birth to her fourth child. She had refused a medical procedure to remove a tumor because he was afraid it would harm the child. Being a medical doctor she was aware of the medical implications, this was not a mere emotional decision. That child and her husband, 90 years old, were present at her canonization. What a gift to that family! What a woman! A wife, a mother and now a saint. A real person to celebrate because she chose to live the fullness of her marriage vows and to bring forth life as God had willed it. At least two young ladies I confirmed on my recent trip took her name as their confirmation name. Proof that she has impacted the youth of our country already. All married couples need to celebrate this new Saint – wife, working mother, an “ordinary person” who lived the fullness of her vocation, in the light of her faith, sustained by the Sacraments and guided by the Lord thru his Church. What a role model for married couples. We ordinary persons, Baptized Catholics, are gathered in convention here in Columbus to celebrate relationships, unconditional love and service to the Church as directed by God and not our own whims. Using Paul’s letter to the Ephesians was a gutsy call and a stroke of genius by the outline committee. Paul’s fifth chapter is probably the most misunderstood passages in all the New Testament. It is used by the unknowing in our time to name Paul as anti-woman, as a know nothing as, in plain terms, an idiot. As we know he is no such thing. Paul was a thinker, a revolutionary in his time. He was calling upon the people of that time to think about equality. That equality was to be expressed by the same unconditional love that Jesus Christ shared during his years on earth. Give without regard to what we get in return, that is unconditional love. Jesus loves us, many did not return the love – it did not deter him from loving us. We have many opportunities in our lifetime to be unconditional lovers. Our world is full of those who will not accept our love. That is why we have wars and terrorism. That is why RPGs, Insurgents and IEDs have become such a part of our vocabulary in these trying times. For many sharing love has been met with death. There is a priest, close to death, in Walter Reed Army Medical Center today, Father Tim Vakoc, who is an unconditional lover. He was serving his soldiers, bringing the love of God in the Eucharist and Reconciliation when his vehicle was struck with an IED; he took the full brunt of the explosion. He gave of himself without counting the cost. We need to pray for this lover – this hero. He truly knew what unconditional love, agape the giving of self, was all about. St Gianna Beretta Molla was a lover. She gave her life that her son might live in the likeness of Christ. She was, as I said before, an ordinary woman filled in an extraordinary way with God’s unconditional love. We need to pray to this lover – this hero. Yesterday, I am sure that you identified unconditional lovers in your life. I have not had trouble doing that: Joe and Mary, Doug and Susan, Peggy and Dennis, George and Terri, Fr Tom, Mike and Nancy, Fr Ken, John and Rosemary, Fr Joe, Lucy and Dave – and the list goes on, all who gave to me and never counted the cost. We need to pray for these and other lovers – other heroes. Father Tim certainly also live up to the second Scripture you heard and discussed yesterday Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians 13, 4-7: “Love is patient; love is kind…Love is never rude, it is not self-seeking…Love does not rejoice in what is wrong, but rejoices with the truth. There is no limit to loves…power to endure.” But remember love is also tough! Not just roses and sentimentality. Once again our world is challenged to live out those words of Paul. Our society is really mixed up; I sometimes wonder where it is going. Read the headlines: “Same sex marriages approved in Massachusetts”, “Partial Birth Abortion Law Struck Down”, “Pro-Choice Marchers fill streets of Washington DC”. We can’t counter these kinds of headlines by acting like they do. We have to be lovers and teach the world what love is all about. We have to lovingly stand up for the real value of marriage between a man and woman, not by shouting ephithets but by living the love that true marriage generates. This means sitting together to work out problems, not shouting at each other, but in love reaching a solution that is mutually agreeable. We have to love our children as true gifts of God from the moment of conception, and pray for those who don’t understand that. It means being a parent more than being a “pal” to your child. We have to be pro-life lovers. We have to be lovers who understand the values of marriage. We have to support with our love those who speak out, those who are willing to share love, in the truest sense of Paul’s words to the Corinthians. We have to believe that “There is no limit to love’s forbearance, to its trust, its hope, its power to endure.” We have to pray for those who live Paul’s understanding of love – these lovers - these heroes. You are lovers in and for the Church. The choice of the passage from John and Matthew was brilliant: Jesus’ command to love in John and the pathway to love others in the Beatitudes in Matthew. What ideas what concepts, what a call for lovers in and for the Church. We all know that we are the Church! The living, breathing people who give the church life. A church only gets life and excitement and vigor from those who make it up. Those who love one another; those who are poor in spirit; those who hunger and thirst for holiness; those who are peacemakers, who are called sons of God. As I said before the world is going through some tough times, well so is the church. When priests and bishops are the cause of scandal, the whole Church feels it. When our sacraments, especially Marriage are attacked, the whole church feels it. When whole concept of marriage being between a man and a woman is attacked, the whole church feels it. But all is not lost. There are lovers, priests and couples like you who continue to love and live in the church. Lovers who follow God’s commandment to love one another as he loves us Lovers who are peacemakers, lovers who are striving for holiness and lovers who suffer persecution for holiness’ sake. To live unconditional love is to be like God the Father Himself. He is the true model for all married couples and priests. These are lovers who have gifts and are willing to use them. Each of us has our own way of sharing these gifts but gifts they are. Make no mistake the church needs your gifts now more that ever. Your hearts make the heart of the church grow. You guys are the real life givers and savers of the church today. It is because I so strongly believe that you are the hope of the church as our Holy Father has said that I got involved with you and stay in and rejoice in your company. So I truly say to you again and again: BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE NEEDED. The Bishops need you; your pastors need you to help the heart of the church to grow. Thank you for allowing me to share some thoughts with you today, thank you for allowing me to challenge you to live what you learned here this weekend, thank you for being the sacraments you are. I would leave you with the thoughts of John Paul II in a talk recently in Bern Switzerland to a group of young people: Marriage is a permanent “part of love” between man and woman. You are those lovers in Marriage, all the priests and myself here today, believe that. Please believe that! PLEASE LIVE THAT! Thank you and God bless you all. Presented June 27, 2004 at the Section 6 Convention Click here for a printable page (PDF, 63KB)
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