Bishop calls us to stay mindful of all created in the image of God
By Tami S. Scott
Associate editor
Bishop Ludden Jr-Sr High School campus minister Monica Hanson reminded students and faculty of an experiment she offered them during the first school Mass of this year.
“I challenge you to think of our Bishop Ludden community and reflect on how each one of us is made in His image,” she said at the Oct. 10 Mass for Life.
Bishop Lucia was the principal celebrant and homilist at the Bishop Ludden Mass for Life on Oct. 10.
She then listed examples of who they might forget this fact: the kid in class who keeps talking and makes it difficult to continue with the lesson; the high school bully who makes you overthink everything on your way home from school; the teacher whose class you failed; the coach who cut you from the team; the friend who wronged you or the insensitive coworker.
“I challenge you today to offer this Mass up to them,” she continued. “Being able to pray for someone who has wronged you changes your heart from being angry and hurt to forgiving and gracious, and ultimately, at peace.”
Later in his homily, Bishop Douglas J. Lucia reiterated Hanson’s sentiment.
“In a very powerful way this morning, we’re being challenged to recognize the gift of life that surrounds us, in creation, in one another,” he said. “And here’s the difficult part. In those we don’t understand and those who we might think are different than us, we have to come to know that they, too, are sacred to God.”
The students sat with their respective classes around the altar set up in the gymnasium. A table with Respect Life brochures and numerous Miraculous Medals were spread out for anyone to take. Bishop Lucia was the principal celebrant and homilist; Ludden alum Father Dennis Walker was concelebrant.
Bishop began his homily with a question: Does anybody know what the most common sign in Syracuse is these days? The answer: Road Work Ahead.
“It seems every time you turn on the street, that’s all you see,” he quipped. “Today we’re being reminded that there is roadwork ahead that each one of us can do to help our world appreciate, again, the gift of life.”
He went on to say that since God created male and female in His Divine image, “In a sense, we’re being invited to be chips off the old block.”
“We’re being invited to, in our own daily lives, to say, ‘Well, how can I show to another the face of God, the face for the family to which I belong?’”
He admitted there are times we, including himself, do very well representing our Catholic faith and other times we just bomb at it.
Bishop named gossiping, selfishness and criticizing others as behaviors that miss the mark. He then offered a virtue to help kick the vices to the curb: to be mindful of others.
“I think that’s really what, when we talk about the gifted sanctity of life, whether we’re talking about the littlest child in the womb to the most elderly parent … they’re very precious to God,” he said. “Where you and I can really work on that, where we can say there’s work ahead, is to remember — especially in those not-so-easy moments — to be attentive to who they are in God’s eyes just like you are precious to God.
“Even on the worst day, even when we might be at our lowest, you have to remember that God has not forgotten you … because what is the gift of the Holy Spirit? But it’s God who promises to be with us at our high points, at our low points [and] at our crossroads.”
