Great Homily - A Pastor Says Goodbye to His Parish
The following is a transcript of Fr. John Riccardo’s final homily at Our Lady of Good Council in Plymouth, Michigan.
With God’s grace and Fr. John’s leadership, Our Lady of Good Council has experienced tremendous spiritual growth and has become a preeminent example of a deeply vibrant, passionately evangelical, and Christ centered parish.
The Archbishop of Detroit, Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron, has released Fr. John from his pastoral assignment to start a new ministry - Acts XXIX.
And so, Fr. John had to say goodbye to the people of his parish that he served for 12 years and he did so through this final homily.
Click the video to watch the entire homily or read the transcript below.
Praise.
Sorry.
Thanks.
And an Appeal.
These are the four things on my mind on this last chance I have to celebrate mass with this amazing parish.
First: Praise.
Praise to God.
So as I've been anticipating this weekend, and praying for all of you, and for what it is that the Lord has done here over the last 12 years, and thinking forward already anticipating the 100th anniversary, which will celebrate next year, a set of passages have come to mind.
One of them is 1 Corinthians 3 where Paul writes:
“I (Paul) planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.
So, neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.”
So, I've been thinking of all the pastors who've served here before I have and thanking God for the gift that they've been to this parish community and the gifts that they were for me.
Thinking of Fr. Michael as he prepares to assume the mantle tonight at 12:01 and I'm thinking back to all these encounters that I've had with countless people in our parish.
I can remember a note that a woman left on my windshield. I think it was a woman because of the handwriting. It was about eight years ago and all it said was, "I think I'm finally beginning to understand."
That was probably the single greatest note I've ever gotten here.
I felt like it was a collective voice from someone who spoke and said,
"It's beginning to make sense."
But what Paul says is what I feel.
I don't know if I've planted anything in anybody. I don't know if I've watered anything that somebody else planted.
What I do know is that whatever it is that's happened in our lives, it was God that gave the growth. And so, the praise goes to God.
Which is all the more remarkable given what it is he has to work with, namely, like me.
So, I've been praying often with another passage that Paul writes in 2 Corinthians where he says this:
"For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ is Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus's sake. For it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not us."
The man who wrote those words, was a murder. That's what Paul was.
Paul describes himself as a man who was a blasphemer and who was arrogant.
And so I imagine Paul oftentimes reflecting on the day after he was done preaching or doing all the mission work that he was doing talking to the Lord and simply saying,
"Lord, how in the world is it possible that you can shine through a man like me?"
And yet such is God, that he can do that.
That he can use broken vessels, earthen vessels, like me, like you, to reveal himself.
When Paul says, "The God who said let light shine out of darkness,” he's not simply referring to what God said at the beginning of creation.
“When he called light into existence.” e's talking about his own heart, the darkness Paul's talking about is his heart.
And yet God is so extraordinary,
so remarkable,
so amazing,
so wondrous,
that he can shine through people like him,
and through me.
So praise to God.
Which leads me to the second word: Sorry.
It's really not so much sorry. It's really more like repent. Not you repent, but me repenting.
So, I pray often with a passage that Peter wrote, 1 Peter 5 where he says:
"So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ as well as a partaker in the glory that is to be revealed. Tend the flock of God that is your charge, not by constraint but willingly, not for shameful gain but eagerly, not as domineering over those in your charge but being examples to the flock."
To be a priest, and especially to be a pastor is to regularly come under scrutiny.
People say all sorts of things. But trust me, I don't know anybody who's more critical of me than I am.
And I am painfully aware of who I am. Of all my faults, all my failures, all my sins, all my selfishness.
And so for all the ways and all the times that you have experienced
my unkindness,
my impatience,
my lack of charity,
my simply not being there,
if you and when you needed me,
for the times when I've behaved more like a hireling, as opposed to a good shepherd,
I want to sincerely repent and very humbly ask your forgiveness.
Third word: Thanks.
Thanks to all of you, and this whole parish family, but thanks in a particular way to a rather remarkable set of men and women.
If I can ask my brothers and sisters on our parish staff...if you'd come forward and stand around me and behind me.
You're almost done doing this.
About six years ago, God gave me an image when we were all together. And the image was transformative for me, for us, for this parish, and for countless other parishes.
In fact, it's really, in many ways, it's the image, which is at the heart of what it is that myself and some of those behind me are going to be doing when we leave here and begin this work that we're doing called Acts XXIX.
The image was something like this: That this parish, every Parish, for that matter, it's like a body, a human body, the hands, the feet, the eyes, the ears, the arms, the legs. It's all that.
That's who you are. You're the ones that are out there, if you will. But the spinal cord of the body, that's them.
If the spinal cord of a body is pinched in any way, if it's impaired in any way, the body can't function well. The hands don't feel. The feet can't move. The back's in pain.
And the reality is that in most organizations, those of you who work in the secular world, you know this, and I can assure you that in most parishes that I've ever encountered, the spinal cord isn't pinched a little bit, the spinal cord is snapped.
And so, in order for the body to function, the spinal cord has to get healthy.
And so together, all of us have been working remarkably hard for the last five and a half, six years especially, so as to become what this staff or what used to be a staff has become.
We don't call it a staff anymore. We call it a team.
Actually, we don't call it a team, either, we call it a family.
So, we have spent countless hours in addition to everything else that I've asked them to do, to do the hard work of team building can work hard at being vulnerable with each other and learning to trust each other really trust each other.
So that we can really go at it with each other, and we go at it with each other.
Because when you trust each other and you're vulnerable with each other, you can argue really well. And when you argue well, it's fantastic because it helps you achieve the goal.
And this team behind me has one goal. And the one goal is:
To bring every person in our community into a life changing encounter with Jesus.
Some of you know this, but I don't know that all of you do. They all, we all, have been for some time now gathering every single day Monday through Friday at 11:30.
From 11:30 to 12:00, we close the office. We close the office so that we can pray for you, and all of your intentions, and all your needs, and everything that God is asking us to do in this parish family.
Because we're convinced, we know, we're smart enough to understand that unless God builds the house, we're working in vain.
And so we're driven by prayer and everything that we do that prayer, that's what's made us from a staff into a team and now a family.
I've never worked with people like this.
This is an extraordinary body of people and I don't know that it can be replicated.
But if you want to know why this parish is such a great Parish, the men and women who are standing behind me they're the reason.
They make this place go.
And they never, ever, ever get the gratitude, the acknowledgement, the appreciation, the love, or the support that they deserve.
So, I'd ask you to join me and standing and showing them our appreciation.
You can sit because I got one more word: an Appeal.
So, I'm of the mind - I'm fairly certain time will tell that the future of our parish in a very real way is connected with the future of our parish school.
Given all that's going on and the culture in which we live, we're in dire need here in this community and all throughout the Archdiocese and all throughout the country
to have seriously radical Catholic schools where the given is in place the given being serious education, formation and intellect in mind
to prepare a child for all that's coming in high school and college and far beyond but that's not why Catholic schools exists.
Catholic schools exist so as to make disciples.
And our parish school exists so that we can bring our children and their moms and dads together with our whole team that works at our parish school into an encounter with Jesus,
which will forever change their lives so that they can grow to use the gifts which God has given them become the leaders,
which God has called them to be,
so as to transform the culture and accomplish God's vision which is to get his world back.
Here's the key: for our parish school to thrive, we as a parish need to be generous.
So, I'm pastor for six and a half more hours, technically speaking, and it's really easy right now to talk about money.
We need you to be generous.
So, our parish, the reality is, is carried financially speaking more or less, by a very small number of people who give remarkably generously.
But if in fact our whole Parish would be touched by the Holy Spirit to respond to the Father,
and all that he's done for us in his son,
that we would come to truly understand that you and I have been rescued
from death, and hell, and Satan,
and our hearts were open to give, then we could do really extraordinary things.
We don't ask people to give for any other reason, quite honestly, then because God is deserving of everything. That's why.
And we don't need money to turn the lights on - although that helps.
We need money to accomplish the mission of leading people into an encounter with Jesus.
And there are countless people all around us out there who have yet to encounter Jesus, and because they haven’t, they live in darkness.
Because they live in darkness, they have no hope.
Because at the end of the day, it's either God and His love, or it is nothing at all, and there is nothing in between.
So, here's my dream: My dream is that in about two years Fr. Michael calls me and he says,
"Hey, it happened."
And I say,
"What happened?'
And he says,
"Tuition at the parish school this year, it's free
and we were finally able this year, to pay all our teachers a wage that they would have made if they taught in public schools, like they justly deserve.
We don't have to ask them to work sacrificially anymore because God moved people to respond generously and now we pay."
You might think that's a pipe dream but there's a diocese - an entire diocese in Kansas - where every single child goes to Catholic grade school and Catholic high school for free.
Because God has moved their hearts to be generous.
We've taken the lead as a parish in so many ways, and so many different areas, not just in the Archdiocese of Detroit but far beyond setting a trend for other parishes to imitate and emulate.
But we got one area where we could still use some work and the one area is giving.
So my prayer as I leave here is that Our Lady, Our Patroness, moves us to understand what it is that her son, our Lord has done for us and our hearts, and our hands, and our minds, and our lives are more open than they ever have been before,
so that we can give in such a way so that all those who have yet to meet Jesus might come to know Jesus starting, most especially, with our youth
and under the leadership of our Sister Melissa, who's building on the shoulders of those who came before her,
just like I am on the shoulders of the pastors that came before me,
I'm confident this will happen.
And this will become the model school not just in the Archdiocese of Detroit, but far, far beyond.
Lastly, let me just tell you what a great gift it's been to be your pastor.
I have loved these 12 years. And you guys have been my family - more than my family.
Just ask them, they'll tell you.
And as I said a month ago or so I feel like I'm handing my child to another to take care of.
But as sad as that is the joy that I have no one that the hands into which I'm placing all of you are the hands of a man who is a great friend, a very dear brother, a good man, and a great priest makes all the difference in the world.
And I know you will welcome Fr. Michael and love him the way those of you who were here 12 years ago when I came loved and welcomed me because that made all the difference in the world.
I would beg you the first time you see him simply to tell him "We are so happy you're here and we look forward to following the Lord with you and walking with you."
So, I don't know anything better to say as a final word to you then what my mom used to write to me when she would sign her letters:
"Until we meet again in prayer in the heart of Jesus."
To donate and help fully fund the parish school at Our Lady of Good Counsel, click here.
To learn more about Fr. John Riccardo’s new ministry, visit www.actsxxix.org or watch the video below.
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