“I proclaim to you good news of great joy.” Luke 2:10

The story is told that on the day of Christ’s birth the Emperor Augustus consulted a prophetess, the Tiburtine Sibyl.   The Roman Senate wished to name the Emperor a god because under him peace, in the estimation of many, had come to the world.   The shrewd Emperor, knowing he was only a man, asked the prophetic Sibyl, whether the world one day would see the birth of a greater than he.   At this moment, the prophetess saw a golden ring surrounding the sun and in the center of the circle stood a beautiful Virgin with a Child at her bosom.   A voice was heard to say, “This woman is the Altar of Heaven.”   Then, the Sibyl spoke to the Emperor, “This Child will be greater than you” (cf. 13^th century, Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend for the Feast of the Nativity).

Bishop Glen John Provost, D.D., M.A
Bishop of Lake Charles
All Souls Day Mass
Thursday, November 2, 2023
Consolata Cemetery
Lake Charles, Louisiana

All Souls 2023 (With apologies to Thomas Gray)

"Without me you can do nothing." John 15:5

The sun sets, and we make our way through the "solemn stillness" of a chilly night to the land of our ancestors called Consolata. Here the "forefathers of the hamlet sleep" and we keep vigil in the hope of Resurrected life. 

Who were they, those who sleep here? You knew them well. The harvest yielded to their sickle. They shared the joys of home, and they, like all of us, sensed an obscure destiny. They were busy housewives, ambitious men of business, and some accomplished as the world would define it. Some returned to their Lord young and others after a long life of toil without alloy, sadness and joy all melted into one, sometimes indistinguishable.

"You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you" {John 15:3). These words of our Lord prompt us to reflect on what that pruning means, for me, for you, or for them. Pruning cuts away and moves us to consider how through life there is greater loss than gain. This pruning might imply sadness at what might have been. Something missing might have "repressed their noble rage," something unattained "froze the genial current of the soul."  We will never know, and yet perhaps we do.

The word that prunes is the word that cuts, and what is left bears more fruit. This is the most difficult lesson of all. Poor humans, we have difficulty letting go, but letting go we must. To us all death comes. And when it does, it finds us either waiting, a healthy branch, united to the vine, or separated from it, thrown into the kiln. This belief should not depress us but rather prompt us to pray for ourselves and for them who have gone on before us.

So, we are filled with hope. We must always strive to remain one with the vine, all the branches in their varying shapes and lengths. Apart from Him we can do nothing. We die. But united to Him we live.

Our visit this evening is a reassurance, a reminder. God exists, He loves us, and our departed live. God wishes us to be united with Him forever. May it be so for our faithful departed. And while we recall-the multitude of persons whose mortal remains lie here, let us recall one branch alone. "large was his bounty and his soul sincere,/ Heaven did a recompense as largely send:/ He gave to Misery all he had, a tear,/ He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wished) a friend."

May those who rest here come to the judgment united to the Lord as a living branch, pruned and strengthened, to enjoy the Beatific Vision. May the· "vine grower" see in them the sap of life flowing into the harvest of eternal life. Eternal Life grant unto them, 0 Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.

The Most Reverend Glen John Provost
Bishop of Lake Charles

Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
Lake Charles, Louisiana

November 19, 2023
Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
 (Year A)

“You wicked, lazy servant!”  Matthew 25:26

Acedia is a word we rarely hear used today.   That is lamentable!   Because the Gospel today warns against it.   So, I think it would profit us to look at the word more closely and then allow this reflection to reveal for us more fully the meaning of the Gospel parable.

Acedia is often defined as laziness or a refusal to be active.   However, it means much more than that.   It comes from a Greek word that appears in Homer for the first time to describe a refusal to bury the dead.   Such a refusal to honor the deceased was termed acedia because it reflected gross negligence and indifference.  It was, in short, a denial of one’s responsibility.  When acedia enters our lives, it can have disastrous consequences especially in our relationship with God.   And this is to what our Lord is refers in the Gospel.

God’s kingdom is like a wealthy man going on a journey.   He entrusts three distinct sums of money to his servants, one each “according to his ability” (Matthew 25:15).   Two servants invest the money and make a profit for the master.   They are rewarded.   The last servant, however, hides the money “out of fear” (Matthew 25:25).   This prompts the returning master to call him a “wicked, lazy servant” and to have him thrown out into the darkness, where there is nothing but “wailing and grinding of teeth” (Matthew 25:30).   These are not “nice” words, but neither is the punishment!   The kingdom of heaven is a serious matter, so we must understand the acedia of the rejected servant.

A few years ago, I read an excellent little book by a French Benedictine monk, Abbot Jean-Charles Nault, entitled The Noonday Devil.   I recommend the book highly.   Acedia, Abbot Jean Charles observed, is “a lack of care given to one’s own spiritual life, a lack of concern for one’s salvation” (p. 28).   Acedia is a spiritual carelessness and indifference to religion that is detrimental to the kingdom of heaven.   It is, in a way, the problem of the “wicked, lazy servant”, and it is, by extension, what we suffer from in the modern world.

Acedia surrounds us.   Abbot Jean-Charles refers to it as the “noonday devil.”   Having reached the mid-point of the day, we are lost as to what to do.   The day seems “’fifty hours long,’” Abbot Jean-Charles says, quoting an ancient writer (i.e. Evagrius of Pontus, p. 28).   The sun is shining brightly on us, we are restless, tired, and seeking an escape—anything to alleviate the boredom of constantly having our appetites satisfied.   I remember a grandmother lamenting that her grandchildren suffered from being blasé.  That’s another good word.   Blasé is that boredom that overtakes us when the pleasures of the world exhaust us.  When you are blasé, nothing impresses you.  Nothing is ever outrageous enough to capture your attention.  Does this all sound familiar?   It should.

There are two problems that seem endemic in our society:  the refusal to accept responsibility for one’s actions and the undisciplined pursuit of pleasure.   When mixed together, the results are deadly.   Doesn’t the “wicked, lazy servant” suffer from these attitudes?   He knows very well the master expects results, but he hides the money out of fear and then blames the master for his inaction.  “Master, I knew you were a demanding person,” he says in his defense, “so out of fear I went off and buried your talent in the ground” (Matthew 25:24, 25).   What kind of defense is that?   It sounds like a child blaming a parent for giving him too much responsibility.   The servant blames the master for his indifference and refusal to act.   Little wonder the judgment of the master is harsh. Acedia is punished, not rewarded.

How do we avoid the fate of the “wicked, lazy servant”?   How do we escape the clutches of the “noonday devil”?   How do we rise from our acedia, from a blasé approach to life?   I think the answer comes in the Gospel today.

What the two enterprising servants had, and the “lazy” servant did not, was a respect for the Master.   The proper end of life, the goal we seek, is God Himself.  He is the master who returns and expects results.   Unless we are oriented to Him, setting our sight on His return, taking seriously His spiritual and material gifts, vanquishing fear and living soberly with focus and virtue, then we cannot be ready for His coming.   The servants, who proved worthy of their master’s trust, were keenly aware of his expectations.   Acedia is best vanquished by knowing what God expects.  We cannot know what that is, if we do not know Him.

I will conclude with the profound observation of Abbot Jean-Charles: “[T]he chief remedy for acedia is found in the joy of the gift.   A gift that precedes us, which is the gift of God Himself, who has come to be united with his creature, to share his weakness and poverty, so as to lead him to the ultimate goal of his existence:  sharing in the very life of God” (p. 201).   “[S]haring in the very life of God.”   Isn’t this the reward given to the conscientious servants in the Gospel: “Come, share your master’s joy” (Matthew 25:23)?      

Bishop Glen John Provost, D.D., M.A
Bishop of Lake Charles
Priesthood Ordination
Saturday, May 27, 2023
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
Lake Charles, Louisiana

“Do not neglect the gift you have, which was conferred on you through the prophetic word with the imposition of hands of the presbyterate.”   I Timothy 4:14

In a few moments, I will impose hands upon your head and ordain you to the priesthood of Jesus Christ, our Lord.  Finding its origins in Apostolic times, St. Paul speaks of imposing hands twice in his letters to St. Timothy, once mentioning his own imposition of hands and again that of the presbyterate.   Along with the invocation of the Holy Spirit, a gift is given, one foreseen by God and revealed through His Son to His Church.  St. Paul will speak of this saying, “I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands” (II Timothy 1:6).   And again, St. Paul will mention the gift of priesthood “conferred on [Timothy] through the prophetic word with the imposition of hands of the presbyterate” (I Timothy 4:14).

Hands play an important role in the life of a priest.   You will pour water over the head of a newly baptized.   You will raise your hand in pardon to the penitent, anoint the head and hands of the sick and dying, and, most especially, raise the Sacred Host before the eyes of the faithful and distribute the food of eternal life in the Eucharist.    

While the hands of the bishop will ordain in the Sacrament of Holy Orders, it is your hands that he will anoint with Sacred Chrism “that you may sanctify the Christian people and offer sacrifice to God.”   Into those same hands which you placed in mine promising “respect and obedience,” I will place the blessed paten and chalice holding host and wine mixed with a measure of water.   I will say, “Receive the oblation of the holy people, to be offered to God.”

Behind every priestly hand gesture is the hand of God.   Just as surely as God directed the institution of the priesthood by Moses to Aaron and his sons (cf. Exodus 29:1-9), so too God has ordained that the new eternal priesthood of His Son, Jesus Christ, be shared by those who continue the efficacious work of His one and only Sacrifice.   The words of Psalm 119 take a new meaning: “Your hands made me and fashioned me” (v. 73).   And for what, we might ask?   “’Like Melchizedek you are a priest forever.’  At your right hand is the Lord” (Psalm 110:4-5a).

You are the work of God’s hands.   He has fashioned you for a purpose.   And what is that purpose?   To be his faithful and vigilant servant, for that is what priesthood is at the very core of its sacrificial essence.   “[B]e like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks” (Luke 12:36).   “You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come” (Luke 12:40).   What marvelous words to speak to a priest!

Ask any priest.   The priesthood is a great adventure, a silent journey, to what earthly end we know not.   But of this we can be certain, the adventure is for the discoverer who is in love with the eternal end of his pursuit.   This expectation is what keeps the servant working until his master’s return.   The servant knows just enough about the master to know that he will see him once again.   In his anticipation, his love for the master grows.   He knows that the master “will put him in charge of all his property” (Luke 12:44), because he found the servant waiting—not in tedium or boredom or in hope of a reward, but in love, a love that translates into doing what the master expects of him.

Love—what an overblown and misused word in our world today!   What can restore the word’s equilibrium?   Perhaps hands can help us understand.  What we learn from the hands of our parents pass onto to us as we grow older.   Hands hold and caress.   They also reprimand and admonish.  They heal and support.   They also measure, cook, and construct.   They write and paint and play musical instruments.   They do countless things, and when we turn to prayer, they trace our body with the symbol of our redemption. 

These gestures of childhood and young adulthood prepare us to grasp God’s hands.   The hands that directed the Creation of the world are the same hands that work through those of Moses to establish the Levitical priesthood.   To what purpose?   So that we will understand better the work of His hands.  So that in the fullness of time, God’s Son can hand His apostles bread made flesh and wine made blood to be an everlasting memorial of His love. 

Someone recently asked me what I thought was the biggest problem facing the Church today.   Where do I begin to answer that question?   After having reflected for a while, a thought came to me at prayer.   The biggest challenge to the Church today is the loss of a sense of the sacred.   We find an increasing desacralization both within and outside the Church.    The contemporary, secular world speaks for itself.   When an ancient and prominently Catholic country recorded almost twice as many deaths as births last year (cf. Italy, 2022, 713,499 deaths to 392,598 births, WSJ, May 13, 2023), then we know that the culture of death has taken hold.   This loss of a sense of sacred goes beyond the symptoms manifested in our families, schools, governments, and churches.   The Church must witness to what it was called to be—an evangelizer of the Gospel of Christ, a witness to eternal truths, a harbinger of a better way of life.   This vocation is not accomplished by mimicking the secular world.   And we do not capture a sense of the sacred by discarding a witness, which is precisely what celibacy is.

The priesthood is not an institution as the world understands institutions.    The priesthood is a sacrament, an efficacious sign, the work of God’s hands.    And every dimension of the priesthood, including celibacy, is integral to the created object fashioned by the Divine artisan.  We are the work of God’s hands, all of us, but the priest in a unique way.

The priest brings Christ to others, intimately so with his hands.  He holds the hand of the dying, reaches out to the needy, embraces the sorrowful, and knocks on the door of the lonely.   Anyone, any Christian, can do this, but when the priest does so, he is Christ sacramentally to others.   For this reason, among many, I think celibacy is important, not only because the Lord Himself was celibate but also because celibacy tells the Beloved that you are all His.   Celibacy cannot be reduced to a discipline.   To speak in that way about celibacy is crude and a dismissive distortion.  Celibacy is a rich sign that communicates a powerful message.   The priest belongs to someone else.  And why this intimate identification?   Because hands were placed on his head. 

Allow me to conclude with this priestly prayer of St. Paul VI.   “Make us worthy, Lord, to serve our brothers and sisters throughout the world who live and die in poverty and hunger.   Give them, through our hands, this day their daily bread, and by our understanding love, give peace and joy.”