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Now, more than ever, the Church needs men who have a desire to do great things for Christ, to build up his Church.

Like Mary, the Church also has a memory – a living memory – a memory which is not a mere repository of the past but rather a memory through which Christ and the great events of salvation emerge into the present as a living reality, so that you and I can share in them, whenever the Word of God is proclaimed and the divine mysteries are celebrated.

If, in God’s grace, we overcome the dangers of procrastination and presumption, then we will be prepared to welcome anew the birth of Christ at Christmas, and in welcoming Christ at his first coming, we will be eager to greet him at his second, when he will come in glory to judge the living and dead.

Dear brother bishops, as disciples of the Savior who assumed our human nature in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, let allow the Holy Spirit to unite us that we may speak with one voice and one heart in proclaiming the Gospel of Life and in defending human life from the moment of conception until natural death, and at every stage in-between, to the glory of the God who made us and redeemed us.

As a teacher of the faith, Pope St. Leo was both clear and pastoral. He was not a speculative theologian but he knew how to draw from the sources to clarify the Church’s faith.

As your friends, we commit ourselves to pray for vocations to your community, that the good work which the Lord has begun in you may continue and be brought to fulfillment in the Kingdom where he lives and reigns, world without end. Amen.

Let us climb the sycamore, let us get Jesus’ attention, let’s invite him in. Then let us rejoice as salvation comes to our house! That is all we truly need!

Let us ask Mary, who carried the Word made flesh in her womb to open the Scriptures for us this morning, so that we may bask in the great events of our salvation, events that unfolded in the land made holy by the footsteps of the Redeemer.