Men and women religious thankful for their vocational call

 

As a group, the jubilarians have served for 2,810 years as priests, sisters, brother or permanent deacons.

 

In his homily, Msgr. Harry Bugler, ordained 50 years ago, said it was appropriate to gather on Divine Mercy Sunday, and he reminded his fellow jubilarians that they were "pilgrims of hope"

 

"Every one of us is a pilgrim of hope in a wounded world, not ignoring the suffering that abounds but seeing it as a call to strive even more deeply to bring the Gospel of Christ into people’s lives," he said.

 

Msgr. Bugler cited Pope Francis' metaphor of the church as a "field hospital" as might have been found centuries ago.

 

"The field hospital that Pope Francis wants us to envision would be like that of the field after the Battle of Gettysburg, for example, or indeed after the Battle of New Orleans – hundreds of wounded men, wrenching in pain, seeking relief in various states of consciousness, all desperately in need of hope and healing," Msgr. Bugler said.

 

"Pope Francis confronted us with this image of the church so that we can come to understand that in the life of the church, all of us are wounded, all of us are in pain and all of us sinners in need of mercy and forgiveness. It reminds us also that the church sins and is in need of healing.

 

"God bestows mercy on us and calls us in turn to be bestowers of mercy on others."

 

In her reflection after Communion, Ursuline Sister Carolyn Brockland, a 65-year jubilarian, said she always thought she had a lot in common with Matthew, the tax collector, in Caravaggio's famous painting that depicts Jesus gesturing to him to become his disciple.

 

"Matthew was a tax collector," Sister Carolyn said. "He was despised. He was considered a sinner. And, yet, Jesus chose him. All of us, I think, have those moments when we're called upon to follow Christ in some way. And, it's like, 'Jesus, are you sure you didn't make a mistake?'"

 

She said God gave her the grace to become a principal, a mentor and public speaker when she never thought she would be able to do that. And, Sister Carolyn said God's providence was especially evident after the chaos and destruction of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when the Ursuline Sisters stayed at Ursuline Academy of New Orleans for several days and sheltered friends and families in their flooded neighborhood.

 

"God provided everything we needed, and we worked together and supported one another," Sister Carolyn said. "Those who couldn't do a lot could just sit and visit with the others, especially if somebody was having a bad day. God's grace carried us through that very difficult time, and as we all know, it didn't just end when we were evacuated and rescued. We had to come back and have a clean-up and rebuilding and all the other struggles that we had for years. But God was faithful. God is always faithful."