ARCHDIOCESE OF PHILADELPHIA

Esteemed Judges of the Federal, State and Municipal Courts,
Public Officials, and Legal Educators, Lawyers practicing in firms
     and corporate law departments,
Paraprofessional and Support Staffs,
Family members and Friends who join with the legal profession here this evening.

          We gather at this annual Red Mass sponsored by the St. Thomas More Society to seek the special guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit upon yourselves as individuals, and upon your work on behalf of others in the noble practice of the legal profession. We make our prayer this evening the refrain from our responsorial psalm of the Mass: Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.

          Like the prophet Ezekiel in our first Scripture reading, who prayed to God on behalf of the people of Israel for renewal and strength, let us hear once again the consoling response of the Lord to those who seek to do His will in sincerity and truth: I will give you a new heart and place a new Spirit within you....I will put my Spirit within you and make you live by my statutes, careful to observe my decrees....You shall be my people, and I will be your God (Ezekiel:36: 26-28).

          In our second reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus too, assures his first Apostles, and through them the Church, of the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit, as He prepares to depart from them and return to His heavenly Father: But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1: 8).

          Finally, once again in the Gospel of Saint John, Jesus assures his disciples, past and present, of the continuing presence and support of the Holy Spirit as they begin their own mission as His witnesses in the world: When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me. And you also testify... (John 15: 26-27).

          Clearly, the Holy Spirit is given to the disciples for a mission. St. Luke, in the Acts of the Apostles, tells us that this mission is be to be a witness to Jesus, even to the ends of the earth ; and Jesus in this evening s Gospel passage from John gives his disciples, as they receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, the task of testifying on His behalf in the world.

          As we invoke the Holy Spirit this evening, the Risen Jesus present in our midst as we are gathered in prayer, as well as through the Scriptures we have heard, and particularly in His Eucharistic Presence exhorts you too to be His witnesses and to testify on His behalf in the world in which we live and in which you exercise your professional lives. Truly, this is the mission given to disciples in every age, to be a credible witness to the truth, hope and redeeming love that Jesus Himself came to bring to all people of every time and place, of every nationality and culture, even to the ends of the earth.

          You, dear friends, are called to be witnesses to truth in a world often appearing to be marked by moral confusion, indifference and lack of faith; to be witnesses to hope in a world presently engulfed in fear and spiritual uncertainty; and to be witnesses to love in a world in desperate need of compassionate love and forgiveness as antidotes to human selfishness, violence and sin.

          Perhaps as you hear the Lord exhorting you to be His witnesses and to give testimony on His behalf to the world in which you live, it is natural to ask the question: How am I to do this ?

          The answer to this question is, of course, always tempered by the circumstances in which we live and by the issues of our time and culture. Like every age, our present era is not lacking in its issues and its challenges, whether it be the defense of the right to life of the innocent unborn child, or the safeguarding of the right of the elderly and those near the end of their earthly journey to compassionate palliative care, free from societal pressures to bring human life to termination through means other than by a natural death. To be a witness to Jesus in this context is to be faithful, in both what we say and do, to the core teaching of our faith that all human life is sacred to God, from conception to natural death.

          To give testimony on behalf of Jesus in our world today means to be a
proponent of the family, founded on the permanent, faithful union of a man and a woman, as the basic and essential unit of society itself, and as God s intentional and unchanging plan for the propagation of the human race and the stability of our world.

          To be a witness to Jesus in our time means to bean advocate for the poor and the marginalized in our society, especially children, the elderly, the immigrant, the unemployed, the homeless, the sick and the physically and mentally challenged.

          Certainly the challenges are many, but so also are the opportunities, to be authentic witnesses to Jesus to a world in great need of credible testimony to the truth, hope and compassion of the Risen Lord, acting in and through his faithful disciples, empowered by the grace of the Holy Spirit. It should come as no surprise that this mission will entail personal sacrifice, and that it will often meet with the opposition of the world. Did not the Lord Himself predict this when He told His first disciples: If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you ; and, If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first . Nevertheless, we are called to be faithful to the task, remembering the now famous words of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, that the Lord has not asked us to be successful, but to be faithful.

          There are some in our society today who argue that there is no place in the discussion of public policy for opinions based upon, and informed by, religiously held convictions and beliefs. . While it is admittedly a somewhat daunting task to find the proper balance between religion and politics in the discussion of public policy, it would be a mistake to accept the argument that religiously motivated convictions are a purely private and personal matter and have no place in the marketplace of ideas, or in the political discussion that shapes the public policy of our time. In fact, the bishops of the United States argue just the opposite in urging citizens to participate actively and intelligently in the political process by contributing the best of their ideas which are molded and shaped by their deeply held religious principles and convictions. Indeed, this is a necessary and authentic contribution to the democratic processitself, as well as a responsibility from which no authentic witness can excuse himself or herself. Neither should one fear or hesitate to speak and act upon one s deeply held religious convictions because they are not always popular or shared by others. The patron of your professional society, St. Thomas More, is a shining example to us all of an individual motivated by a personal integrity that was inspired and shaped by deeply held religious and moral convictions. As we know, Saint Thomas More never hesitated from expressing those convictions, even when they were not welcome, and even when it became necessary to pay the ultimate price of his life for expressing them. Surely, guided by the Holy Spirit, he took his Master s request seriously, to be His faithful witness and to give testimony to Him in the world.

          In a particular way, the Church reminds us today of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council regarding the vocation of the laityin the world: namely, that the lay vocation is primarily meant to be lived in the family, the workplace and in the business, professional, and political spheres.

          It is precisely in these spheres of human activity that the Church urges you to participate by contributing the best of religiously inspired truths, as well as those based on the natural moral law, to the public policy discussions and debates of our day.

          Dear friends and esteemed collaborators of God in building up a society of justice and freedom, truth and love, may the Holy Spirit guide and empower you to heed and obey the command of the Risen Lord to be His faithful witness and to give testimony to Him with integrity and conviction, in all the situations of your lives. Amen