ARCHDIOCESE OF PHILADELPHIA

Dear Sisters, consecrated to Jesus Christ and His Church,
Dear Friends in the Lord,

She was the first person Mother Teresa came upon when she began her now famous ministry among the dying of Calcutta. The old woman, her body seriously diseased, lay by the roadside, hungry and alone. Blessed Teresa recognized that death was only moments away. All she could do was simply hold the frail body in her arms. The old Hindu woman looked up and uttered only two words: "Thank you," she whispered, and then she died.

Recounting this story many years later, Blessed Teresa said that what impressed her the most in that meeting was its similarity with the Mass in which she had just participated that same morning: "Once more, I encountered the mystery of the Eucharist in that woman’s simple words of thanks." And she added that she herself was filled with a tremendous gratitude for meeting Jesus in that woman and for being able to share His love that day.

Mother Teresa’s encounter provides us with a simple insight into that great mystery which is the Holy Eucharist. Each time we gather around the altar, we meet the risen Jesus Christ, but in the body that was broken for us. He is so close to us. His suffering becomes our suffering; His offering becomes our offering; His thanksgiving becomes our thanksgiving; His Resurrection becomes our life.

Jesus Christ’s words of thanks are at the very heart of the Eucharist. It is in this sacrament that the Son recalls the Father’s total and complete love for Him - and it is that love which we, His brothers and sisters, are privileged to share. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta’s loving compassion brought a heartfelt "thank you" to the parched lips of a dying woman. But can you and I ever begin to appreciate the depths of Christ’s own thanksgiving to the Father—the Father who reached out in love and brought His Son through the hideous suffering and death on the cross to the glory of His Resurrection? Can we, who share in that same love, in that same promise of everlasting life, ever adequately give thanks? We simply cannot, unless we join ourselves to Christ in the Eucharist and thank the Father "through Him and with Him and in Him."

The words of today’s Gospel related to us how Jesus found Himself encountering ten persons afflicted with leprosy. Saint Luke is quick to point out that only one of them, a foreigner, desperate as he was for a cure, could see beyond his suffering. He understood this miracle as a sign of even greater things to come, and so he returned to give glory to God and to thank Jesus for this gift.

"I was filled with tremendous gratitude," wrote Blessed Teresa, "for meeting Jesus in that woman and being able to share her love that day." Such an experience of gratitude, of compassion, of solidarity, and of thanksgiving is a gift from our heavenly Father. Such a gift was the experience of the foreigner with leprosy in Saint Luke’s Gospel, who was cured by our Lord. And only those who have been graced with such a gift know that this cured man in the Gospel truly understood and appreciated Jesus’ miracle: even greater things were to come.

Today, we are the foreigner with leprosy face-to-face with Jesus Christ. And today, each one of us knows, as did Blessed Teresa and the dying woman, that to really live we need to love and to be loved; we need to appreciate and to be appreciated; we need the Eucharist; we need Jesus Christ.

Such was the lesson learned by the fourth Bishop of Philadelphia, Saint John Nepomucene Neumann, through whose instrumentality Mother Francis Bachmann founded the Sisters of Saint Francis of Philadelphia 150 years ago. Bishop Neumann’s sole desire was to be a simple religious priest, but, instead, he was given the charge of a diocese which, at that time, encompassed all of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and part of New Jersey. Visiting his flock by horseback, his whole life, despite his many sufferings and infirmities, was lived in thanksgiving to God for all that God had done for him. Through Saint John Neumann’s gentle and humble spirit, and particularly through His devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, the Forty Hours’ Devotion was introduced in this country, as was the parochial school system, and this brand new religious congregation, the Franciscan Sisters of Glen Riddle.

Saint John Neumann reflected in all that he said and did his undivided love of the God who gave him life and who shared with him His love. The power that was at work in the life of Philadelphia’s "Little Bishop" was the life of Christ in the Eucharist. Saint John Neumann’s life was a shining example of the words of Saint Paul: "Over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection. And be thankful." He lived the words of Isaiah: "The favors of the Lord I will recall...because of all he has done for us." And he made his own the words of the Psalm: "Lord, I thank you for your faithfulness and love."

Following the example of Saint John Neumann, Mother Francis Bachmann strove to thank Almighty God by keeping alive the memory of the Lord’s covenant with us. She accomplished this by founding this religious institute as a sharing in the world mission of the Church "to magnify the honor of God, to spread the holiness of Christ, and thereby to glorify His name." Each of you who are spiritual daughters of Mother Francis began your own journey with Christ to Jerusalem at baptism. Your consecration as women religious is a further expression of your baptismal call and commitment. In living out your consecrated life, you follow in the footsteps of your Foundress, witnessing to the life of the chaste, poor, and obedient Christ, in the spirit and tradition of Saint Francis of Assisi.

The love of Christ leads you, through your vow of chastity, to "care for the things of the Lord," and "to have nothing else to do except to follow the will of the Lord and to please Him"[Constitutions, no. 15]. You are called to be "truly poor in spirit, following the example of the Lord, ...[living] in this world as pilgrims and strangers...materially poor, but rich in virtue" [Constitutions, no. 22]. And, through your vow of obedience, you "willingly serve and obey one another with that genuine love which comes from each one’s heart" [Constitutions, no. 25].

I take this opportunity, dear Sisters, on behalf of the clergy, religious, and laity of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, to offer my warm congratulations to you as you celebrate this important anniversary in the life of your religious institute. I also extend my deep gratitude to the more than three hundred and twenty sisters who live in and serve this local Church. You are involved in a variety of apostolates here—in all levels of education, in parish service-related works, in health care and campus ministry, in the administration of your institute and in many volunteer works, performed particularly by the residents of Assisi House, who continue to serve us by their prayers and good works.

Although deeply appreciative of what you do for the People of God, I am also reminded of the words of our Holy Father, who, speaking to other religious, said: "Your greatest contribution is not what you do but who you are and who you have become by the grace of God: women specially consecrated in love to Jesus Christ; women living for Christ and for His Church in ‘the obedience of faith’; women finding in Christ the fullness of a wisdom and justice, a sanctification and redemption to be communicated to a world in need" [Message to the General Chapter of the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus, January 30, 1980].

As you move toward your future as a religious institute, never doubt that you have a vital message to proclaim to a world in need. This message is Jesus Christ. Never wonder whether your life makes a difference in a society often immersed in darkness. Never lose hope in the midst of the many distracting shadows that vie for the attention of those whom you are called to serve. But, as the man cleansed from leprosy, always and in all things give thanks to God in Jesus Christ, so that in your hearts, as in the Heart of Mary, He can daily re-ignite the fire of His love. In this love may you always find the deepest fulfillment of your hearts and the strength to serve and serve and serve until the end. Amen.