The Healing Journey

September 19, 2024

“Those who follow in the Savior Redeemer’s footsteps, who seek the forgiveness of their sins, who have the courage to imitate him and to follow his teaching, can enter into the mystery of death with the hope that they will also one day open their eyes unto glory.”
— Bishop Frank Caggiano

Today we congratulate Bishop Frank J. Caggiano on the anniversary of his installation as our Bishop on September 19, 2013, and quote from one of the many inspiring homilies he has blessed us with over the years. This recent one was about the “great mystery of death.” Here is an excerpt:

“We no longer speak of someone dying, but we say that he or she is ‘passing.’ Many do not come to a celebration of the funeral rites. They come to a celebration of life. And perhaps that is to be expected because the world tells us in subtle ways that there is no need for a Savior or Redeemer because you and I are our own saviors and redeemers. The criterion of truth, the deliberation of what is good, is that my life is all about me….But what would any life—my life, your life, our lives—be, what hope could they have, if they don’t rest on a life greater than all of us combined?

“You and I come here each and every time we celebrate the Eucharist to enter into the Mystery of Christ’s own death and resurrection, and through the gift of his sacred Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, we receive the grace and benefits, the fruits of the redemption he offers us. He himself embraced death, and so those of us who are his servants, his students, cannot expect to avoid it. However, because he is our Savior and Redeemer, we can enter into the mystery of death with hope because death will not have the last word.

“The Savior Redeemer has the last word. And those who follow in his footsteps, who seek the forgiveness of their sins, who have the courage to imitate him and to follow his teaching, can enter into the mystery of death with the hope that they will also one day open their eyes unto glory.”

Bishop Caggiano pointed out that when their faith was outlawed, the early Christians would gather in the catacombs, where their dead were buried, to celebrate the Eucharist. And they later built their churches on the tombs of the martyrs “because they didn’t run from death, but knew death was the entree to the promises of the Lord.”

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