29th Sunday A
150th Anniversary
Holy Family, Randallstown
October 18 2026
Greetings
I am delighted to return here to Holy Family Parish and to celebrate with you your 150th anniversary. It gives me an opportunity first to thank your pastor, Fr. Ray Harris. Father, thank you for your leadership of this parish, your hard work, and your dedication to the pastoral needs of your parishioners – and let me congratulate you on your 10th Anniversary as Pastor! I also greet and thank Msgr. Jay O’Connor, my delegate for the Eastern Region, & welcome back to Holy Family Msgr. Carl Cummings and Fr. Nicolas Mwai. My greetings also to Deacon Bill Arther and Steve Rosher both of whom are sons of Holy Family Parish. My warmest thanks also to your parish lay leadership and most of all to you, the parishioners of Holy Family Parish, for the many ways you advance and sustain the mission of your parish.
Giving Glory to God
The theme of your anniversary year is “giving glory to God.” For 150 years, Holy Family has been doing just that. In 1872, Mrs. Mary Louisa Harker began running Sunday school in her home on Liberty Road. Soon, Jesuit scholastics travelled from nearby Woodstock College to celebrate Mass in a ground-floor chapel within her home. In 1876, Holy Family Parish was established primarily to serve Irish immigrant miners who were living in the area. As you know, the “old Church” was built in 1880 and continues to be a place of gathering and worship. A school was opened and staffed by the Sisters of Mercy; it served generations of children and families. The present church was opened on Christmas Eve of 1960 and renovated in the 1970’s. In these and other ways, your parish evolved from a small, rural mining mission into a vibrant and diverse community of faith, worship, and service.
But that’s not the half of it. Through the years and at the present time, this community gives glory to God by a life of vibrant worship, by the preaching of the Gospel, by evangelizing, and by many ministries of service to those in need. In this anniversary year, we join our voices with those who went before us, especially the many priests and religious who served here, in giving God thanks and praise, in giving God the glory, for the blessings of this past century and a half, and in asking God to bless this parish family as it journeys into the future.
What It Means to Give God Glory
But what does it mean to give God glory? Is not God glorious in himself? In one of the prefaces for weekday Masses, we address God in these words: “You have no need of our praises, yet our desire to thank you is itself your gift.” We go on to say that our praises ‘add nothing to God’s greatness’ but ‘they make us grow in grace and profit us for salvation.’ In giving glory to God, we are filled with God’s grace, with a share in his life. We give God glory by reflecting his glory in our hearts and in our way of life.
Today’s Gospel illustrates this point perfectly. The pharisees try to trap Jesus by asking a controversial question: “Is it lawful to pray taxes to Caesar or not?” Jesus didn’t take the bait. Instead, he had them produce a coin with Caesar’s image. Holding it in the palm of his hand, he said, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give to God what belongs to God.” What do these words mean for us who seek to give God glory? Jesus is reminding us that we were created in the image and likeness of God. God takes delight in us because it is his image that is stamped on our being. When we were baptized, that image was cleansed of sin, and we began to belong to God by belonging to his Church. This is our deepest identity. We are followers of Christ. It is his image that we bear as members of his Church.
The imprint of his image is deepened, clarified, and burnished, every time we seek forgiveness of our sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, every time we gather to listen to the Word of God and to take it to heart, and then to celebrate the One Sacrifice of Christ by which we were redeemed, receiving his Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. As we open our hearts to the sanctifying power of God’s grace, his image shines from within us with ever greater intensity. When God sees and loves in us what he sees and loves in his Son, then, truly, we are giving God the glory!
With Christ living in us and among us, we can no longer live for ourselves but we live for others. When we give of ourselves as God has given to us, we give him glory. I think of the many ways that happens here at Holy Family: liturgical ministers tireless in your service, you parents who work with catechists to form your children in the faith, those of you who assist those the needy through St. Vincent de Paul. In these and other ways you reflect God’s glory by reflecting his generosity.
Rendering to Caesar
But did Jesus not also say we should render unto Caesar what is his? He did say that and we do indeed have an obligation to be good citizens – not only law abiding but also citizen concerned for the common good of our country, our state, and the communities where we live. People with a strong, active, and healthy faith tend to be those good citizens that our country and communities need.
So it is not surprising that Holy Family Parish reaches out well beyond its campus to serve the needs of the wider community – for example, your choice food pantry, bread and beans casseroles, support for the Women’s Center of West Baltimore and much more. In serving the common good you glorify God who loves and cherishes every human life and seeks the salvation of all.
Looking to the Future
As you look to future, I hope you are filled with confidence. Despite the many challenges all around us, the Spirit of the Lord is moving across the face of the earth. Many are discovering or rediscovering the importance of the faith. Many are returning and many are coming for the first time. Especially encouraging is the surge of interest in the faith on the part of young people, especially young adults. My prayer is that Holy Family Parish always be a holy family of faith, swinging wide open the doors of faith, the doors of hope, and the doors of love. Happy Anniversary and may God bless you and keep you always in his love.