4th Sunday
Installation of Fr. Binoy
St. Francis Xavier, Hunt Valley
February 1, 2026
What Is the Role of the Pastor?
I am very happy to be with all of you today to celebrate Sunday Mass, and on this occasion, to install Father Binoy as your pastor. Both Fr. Binoy and Fr. Xavier have been with you for about six months, and in that time you have come to know them as dedicated and energetic priests and religious. Let me also offer my thanks to you, the parish community of St. Francis Xavier, for welcoming these two priests so warmly, and for your own leadership, steadfast fidelity, and continued generosity amid the fluctuations and challenges of these past years.
On this day when Fr. Binoy is officially installed as your pastor, let us ask: What is his role? What is his mission among you? Perhaps we find the answer, not in a policy manual, but in today’s Gospel where Jesus proclaims the Beatitudes – his invitation to become like him and to share his perfect joy. Indeed, the principal role of a pastor is to enable us to accept that invitation to live the Beatitudes here and now, amid the challenges of daily life.
The Pre-eminence of Teaching
St. Matthew tells us that Jesus went up the mountain, sat down, opened his mouth, and began to teach both his disciples and the large crowd. Like Moses who received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, so Jesus teaches us the Beatitudes from “lofty mountain grandeur”. To be sure, the Beatitudes do not negate the commandments. Rather, ‘they are [an] invitation to perfect love’ – an invitation to journey towards the Kingdom of Heaven where ‘perfect love casts out fear.’
The pastor’s responsibilities are many and they are challenging. But there is one responsibility that is foundational to everything else, viz., his responsibility to teach, to bear witness, to invite – as Jesus did. When Fr. Binoy and Fr. Xavier mount this pulpit, they are to be like Jesus going up the mountain to teach – to proclaim in your hearing what Jesus once taught in the flesh. Yes, they will teach Christian morality, for repentance of our sins is the first step along the journey towards eternal life. But they will also invite you to open your hearts to Christ, to belong to him, and to see your faith, not as one more obligation among many others, but as the adventure of a lifetime, an adventure we are fortunate to share in, an adventure that takes us to the destination for which we were made. With joy and enthusiasm, your priests invite us to go on this adventure, not as disinterested tour guides, but as fellow pilgrims who accompany you.
By word and example, whether preaching at Mass or in the Confessional or in pastoral counseling, or in spiritual direction – they convey to you the invitation to become more and more like Christ – to live as he lived and to love as he loved, so as to share in the joy that our Savior shared with God the Father from all eternity. Loving like that amid life’s challenges is an adventure. It gives our lives purpose, meaning, and direction. It means consecrating to God’s service a way of thinking and a way of life that the world around us often considers useless and foolish. This adventure is also a mission of sharing the radiance of Christ’s perfect love with those around us: the searching, the alienated, the perplexed.
The Beatitudes: Christ Models and Defines Discipleship
Consider the first three beatitudes: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed those who mourn; blessed, the meek.’ They are the antithesis of earthly happiness – wealth, pleasure, and power. Real happiness consists in belonging to Christ: the Son of Man who had nowhere to lay his head, the Savior who mourned our sins in the Garden, the Lamb of God, who is “meek and humble of heart.” By depending on God, by mourning our sins and the sufferings of others, and by choosing friendship and kindness over dominance, we experience the true joy that is ours ‘when God the Father can see and love in us what he sees and loves in his Son.’
Consider the next three beatitudes: ‘blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the clean of heart.’ In a time of polarization, isolation, and anxiety, we long for union with God, and for the alignment with God will that makes us whole. In an era of anger and harshness, we seek God’s mercy and seek to be agents of reconciliation, even with our adversaries. In a culture marked by manipulation and transactional relationships, we seek to love God and others with a love that is singlehearted and pure. Righteousness, mercy, singlehearted love are essential to discipleship. Who, more than Jesus, is righteous, merciful, and loves without counting cost?
Let us consider the last two beatitudes: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers; blessed are those persecuted for the Kingdom.’ By the blood of his Cross, Jesus made our peace with God and one another. To be peacemakers means first to share in the peace of Christ – to be at peace with God and to spread God’s peace wherever we go. It is this attribute that makes us good human beings and holy Christians, at peace with God as we journey towards the Kingdom of Justice and Peace. And it is only in the peace of Christ can we share in the sufferings of Christ, whatever form they may take, including persecution for the faith.
Teaching, Sanctifying, and Guiding
Let’s wrap this up by returning to the role of your pastor and his team. Your pastor is a disciple before he is a shepherd. He is to model what it means to live the Beatitudes. And his chief responsibility is to place at your disposal all the means necessary for you to grow in discipleship – the Word of God, the Sacraments, prayer groups, instructions, and many other initiatives that make the teaching of Christ come alive in us. All his other responsibilities, for example, administration and fundraising, aim to create a community of disciples, a community of the Beatitudes, from which the truth and love of Christ radiates outward, far beyond the church and the parish property.
It is a big responsibility, a God-given responsibility, that cannot be done alone. Surely your pastor relies the help of a qualified staff and lay leadership, but also on the participation of all of you and each of you in fulfilling the mission of this parish . . . in making it ‘a dynamic parish’. Thank you for coming together, for coalescing around mission. Through the prayers of the great missionaries, St. Francis Xavier and St. John DeMatha, may this parish family grow and flourish now and for years to come!