Opening Mass of the Holy Spirit
St. Mary Seminary, Roland Park
August 27, 2025
Introduction
Whether you are newly arrived here at St. Mary’s Seminary or you are returning seminarian, I hope you look upon the beginning of a new year of formation with enthusiasm. But not the enthusiasm that will fade with your mid-term exams but rather a zest for formation that has staying power.
After all, formation is never done. I’ve been a priest for 48 years and a bishop for 30, and I am very much a work-in-progress. Or to put it another way, “The Lord isn’t done with me yet!” And I hope you’d feel the same way too. Formation is the work of a lifetime. Either we embrace it eagerly and enthusiastically, and thus grow in our humanity, knowledge, pastoral skills, and holiness, or else we accept it grudgingly, as a somewhat necessary evil, and then, the best we can hope for is stagnation . . . something that isn’t good for us or for the people we hope to serve.
Since all Scripture is useful for teaching and instruction, how do today’s readings guide our prayer to the Holy Spirit on the cusp of a new year of formation? Let me suggest three insights.
Toil and Drudgery
In our first reading, St. Paul speaks about his “toil and drudgery” on behalf of the Church at Thessalonica. He goes on to describe how tirelessly he labored on their behalf: exhorting and encouraging the members of that church, insisting that they walk in a manner worthy of God who called them into his Kingdom and glory. To understand this reading correctly in the context of this Mass, let us be clear that the toil and drudgery Paul refers to does not apply in the first instances to you, the seminarians, but rather to your formation faculty.
To put it another way, formation is hard work. As seminarians, you might be tempted to think that the faculty “holds all the cards” that they have “arrived”, that their lives are easy and predictable, whereas your vocation, your future, hangs in the balance. But I came today to say that formation is hard work, even “toil and drudgery”. And whether or not it is always evident, your formation faculty wants nothing more than to see you progress, as they exhort and encourage you, and insist that you learn to walk in a manner worthy of the God who is calling you to serve his Church as priests.
What then to pray for? If you are engaged in the work of formation, pray for the wisdom and holiness truly to guide all those entrusted to our care, in all the aspects for their formation. If a seminarian, pray to receive the wisdom you faculty will share with you not as the word of men, not merely as advice to be taken or left behind, but as truly reflective of Word of God now at work in you. Pray to the Holy Spirit truly to be open to the guidance you will receive in all the dimensions and phases of your priestly formation.
“You Searched Me and You Know Me”
Moving on. Formation has an ineluctably interior dimension. It has to do with one’s innermost self, one’s heart of hearts, that secret core and sanctuary where we are alone with God and his voice echoes in our hearts. It is entirely possible to conceal from ourselves and our formators what is going on deep within us, or experience dissonance between the way we present publicly and the way we are when we are alone with our thoughts.
Thus, our need continually to take today’s Responsorial Psalm to heart: “You have searched me and you know me, Lord!” Psalm 139 impresses on us the truth that, while we can hide from others, we cannot hide from God. Wherever we go, God is there.
Whether we are shrouded in light or darkness, God knows us more clearly and more deeply than we know ourselves.
What, then, should we ask of the Holy Spirit? We should ask the Spirit to search our spirit, to reveal us to ourselves, to help us begin to see ourselves as God sees us, to enable us to engage in formation with complete transparency. As the Spirit plumbs our depths, not only are we cleansed of sin but we are rendered capable of receiving God’s grace and glory, and leading priestly lives that reflect his goodness and love.
“Woe to You . . . Hypocrites”
Now this! In the Gospel, Jesus takes our reflection on Psalm 139 and returns it to us with stunning clarity as he condemns the hypocrisy of the religious leaders of his day. They appear to be righteous but they are hollow on the inside, leading lives that are unworthy of the God in whose service they claim to be. Nothing kills a parish, nothing is more inimical to the Church’s mission, than priests who are insincere, in it for themselves, priests who seek to appear as holy and pious while engaged in evildoing. Nothing empties the pews quite like that.
What then to ask of the Holy Spirit? That as you engage in formation and self-reflection, you would have the grace to discern in your lives anything and everything that cannot be reconciled with the life to which you are aspiring. I always say of my old boss and mentor, Cardinal Hickey of Washington, that he was the same good person in public and private. He didn’t act one way in public and another behind closed doors. He was a truly virtuous man whether in front of a crowd or in the midst of a busy and difficult day in the office.
Finally, since this is the feast of St. Monica who shed many a tear in the hope that her son Augustine would find the faith, we should also pray to the Holy Spirit that we will be those priests who pray, work, and grieve for those who have left the faith and for those who look upon the faith with indifference or hostility. Priests who are good through and through and fully committed to mission – these are the priest whom the Spirit is raising up. Thank you for saying “yes” to this great adventure of grace. May you have a wonderful year of priestly formation!