This weekend, St. Patrick's Church had the honor of hosting The Friends of the Orphans fundraiser called Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos on behalf of over 3500 abandoned or lost children in Central America. During this evening, nineteen children from Nicaragua joined us at the liturgy to play music and represent the children as far north as Haiti and Mexico to as far south as Costa Rica and Bolivia, in raising over $3000 for their cause here at the parish.

Celebrating this liturgy was Fr. Ron Hicks, a priest from the Archdiocese of Chicago and the director of NPH. During his homily, Fr. Hicks illustrated for us the importance of this program as represented by an 11 year old girl from El Salvador who was abandoned by her family. The family claimed that the girl was, and I quote, "useless." The girl had severe back problems; her spine was twisted. The family did not see her as someone who could help contribute to the family cause and so they sent her to the orphanage as someone who they did not want, someone they had chosen to abandon.

When asked by a group of visitors whether she liked staying at the orphanage, the girl replied that the orphanage was not a good place to live… it was a great one, where she was embraced by her peers and given a second chance at life. This girl's view represented that of over 15,000 children for whom the Chicago Archdiocese has cared during the last 50 or so years.

At the end of our particular liturgy, a group of students from our Catholic School gifted the kids with care packages of school supplies, clothes and other treats from the United States. Fr. Ron commented, in his experience, that this was the first time that his kids were given gifts by a parish, let alone by the kids of a Catholic school. And during the Nicaraguan cultural dance that followed, our kids picked up names and addresses of the nineteen orphans so that they could have instant "pen pals" to whom they would write. Some of our eighth grade girls were "smitten" by some of the Nicaraguan teens; I told our kids that they should become religious sisters who could live in Nicaragua for the rest of their lives in order to serve these orphans for a long, long time (I don't think they bought it, but I'm always trying to promote vocations, so there!).

I was thinking about the manner in which we served these children from Nicaragua, especially in light of two lectures offered this week on behalf of Catholic Education. The first presentation was offered this weekend at a Catholic School Summit for the diocese. At this conference, an image was attributed to Pope John XXIII, an image that connected the life of Catholic education to the sign of the cross. In this image, the prayer to the Father symbolizes the education of the faithful person that enters the mind. In this image, this education travels from the mind to the heart, where the faithful pray to the person of the Son. In this image, the faith of God, which travels from the mind to the heart is spread to the people of the world, which becomes the prayer to the Holy Spirit.

In this image, the knowledge of faith demands itself to be sent throughout the world so that the presence of God is made manifest. This is the goal of Catholic identity - to not just know the faith but to live it.

The second message was given this weekend by Pope Benedict XVI in Washington, D.C. to the heads of educational institutions in the United States. In this speech, Pope Benedict refers to this kind of Catholic identity as a type of diakonia (or service) to the faith, which echoes the same themes attributed to Pope John XXIII. Pope Benedict said the following:

This same dynamic of communal identity - to whom do I belong? - vivifies the ethos of our Catholic institutions. A university or school's Catholic identity is not simply a question of the number of Catholic students. It is a question of conviction - do we really believe that only in the mystery of the Word made flesh does the mystery of man truly become clear (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 22)? Are we ready to commit our entire self - intellect and will, mind and heart - to God? Do we accept the truth Christ reveals? Is the faith tangible in our universities and schools? Is it given fervent expression liturgically, sacramentally, through prayer, acts of charity, a concern for justice, and respect for God's creation? Only in this way do we really bear witness to the meaning of who we are and what we uphold.

Clearly, then, Catholic identity is not dependent upon statistics. Neither can it be equated simply with orthodoxy of course content. It demands and inspires much more: namely that each and every aspect of your learning communities reverberates within the ecclesial life of faith. Only in faith can truth become incarnate and reason truly human, capable of directing the will along the path of freedom (cf. Spe Salvi, 23). In this way our institutions make a vital contribution to the mission of the Church and truly serve society. They become places in which God's active presence in human affairs is recognized and in which every young person discovers the joy of entering into Christ's "being for others" (cf. ibid., 28).

La misma dinámica de identidad comunitaria -¿a quién pertenezco?- vivifica el ethos de nuestras instituciones católicas. La identidad de una Universidad o de una Escuela católica no es simplemente una cuestión del número de los estudiantes católicos. Es una cuestión de convicción: ¿creemos realmente que sólo en el misterio del Verbo encarnado se esclarece verdaderamente el misterio del hombre (cf. Gaudium et spes, 22)? ¿Estamos realmente dispuestos a confiar todo nuestro yo, inteligencia y voluntad, mente y corazón, a Dios? ¿Aceptamos la verdad que Cristo revela? En nuestras universidades y escuelas ¿es "tangible" la fe? ¿Se expresa férvidamente en la liturgia, en los sacramentos, por medio de la oración, los actos de caridad, la solicitud por la justicia y el respeto por la creación de Dios? Solamente de este modo damos realmente testimonio sobre el sentido de quiénes somos y de lo que sostenemos.

Así pues, está claro que la identidad católica no depende de las estadísticas. Tampoco se la puede equiparar simplemente con la ortodoxia del contenido de los cursos. Esto exige e inspira mucho más, a saber, que cualquier aspecto de vuestras comunidades de estudio se refleje en una vida eclesial de fe. La verdad solamente puede encarnarse en la fe y la razón auténticamente humana, hacerse capaz de dirigir la voluntad a través del camino de la libertad (cf. Spe salvi, 23). De este modo nuestras instituciones ofrecen una contribución vital a la misión de la Iglesia y sirven eficazmente a la sociedad. Han de ser lugares en los que se reconoce la presencia activa de Dios en los asuntos humanos y cada joven descubre la alegría de entrar en "el ser para los otros" de Cristo (cf. ibid., 28).

The scripture readings for today very much parallel this theme of serving the Christian faith as the key to Catholic identity. As the seven original deacons of the Church were called to serve their local communities by living the life of the Good News, so we are called to live this same type of Christian service. As Christ comforts our troubled hearts that strive to do God's will on earth, he encourages us at the same time to become diligent in living the Christian life set before us. Christ states, "Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father." To do the will of God is to live the diakonia of faith, to serve the faith with our heart, minds and souls. This is the intent that I believe our Holy Father wished to convey concerning the Catholic identity that all of us are called to bear.

And look at the results of a life filled with Christ. Here within our small community, St. Patrick's raised some $3000 for the sake of poor orphans in Nicaragua. We have stocked the shelves of our Food Pantry on a constant basis for the sake of our hungry parishioners. We live the life of faith by serving at the local Shepherd's Table and by defending the lives of the vulnerable through our Right to Life Programs. We have strived to teach our kids not to just learn the faith but living it by offering them opportunities to serve our community and the various institutions we support on the local level. We try to live the charism of the code of the ordained deacon to believe what we read in the scriptures, to teach what we believe and to practice what we teach.

I would like to conclude today's homily by quoting the final words of Pope Benedict to the nation's educators that assembled in Washington, D.C. His words are a most fitting way to summarize the theme of serving the faith, to become deacons of our Catholic identity. The Holy Father speaks the following:

To all of you I say: bear witness to hope. Nourish your witness with prayer. Account for the hope that characterizes your lives (cf. 1 Pet 3:15) by living the truth which you propose to your students. Help them to know and love the One you have encountered, whose truth and goodness you have experienced with joy. With Saint Augustine, let us say: "we who speak and you who listen acknowledge ourselves as fellow disciples of a single teacher" (Sermons, 23:2).

A todos ustedes les digo: sean testigos de esperanza. Alimenten su testimonio con la oración. Den razón de la esperanza que caracteriza sus vidas (cf. 1 Pe 3,15), viviendo la verdad que proponen a sus estudiantes. Ayúdenles a conocer y a amar a Aquel que han encontrado, cuya verdad y bondad ustedes han experimentado con alegría. Digamos con san Agustín: "Tanto nosotros que hablamos, como ustedes que escuchan, sepamos que somos fieles discípulos del único Maestro" (Serm. 23,2).

May we all serve as the stewards of the Catholic faith, both in the manner of what we read in the Word of God, what we preach and what we teach. This is the manner that we show our Lord the depth to which we preserve our Catholic identity.

And this is our prayer.