Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, 2024

Published: June 24, 2024

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor preached the following homily during the Jubilee Mass at St. Scholastica Monastery in Fort Smith on Monday, June 24, 2024.

Bishop Taylor

God has a plan for our world — a plan of salvation — and everyone of us has a role in that plan. He equips us from the womb with all the gifts of temperament, intellect and character necessary to fulfill that role, he helps us develop these gifts and he intervenes at key moments to help us discover his will for our lives.

He has also given us free will and enables us to respond to his call, but because his very nature is love he doesn't force our response to what is, in fact, the most important — and difficult — decision you or I will ever make. Important because this decision sets the course for the entire rest of our life.

Difficult because, as Jesus makes abundantly clear, his call always involves embracing the cross of self-sacrificing love. Jesus didn't say "take up the easy life and follow me.” People miss their true calling in life because what the Lord asks of them seems too hard, for instance chastity, obedience and conversion of life for those whom God is calling to become Benedictine sisters.

But for those like John the Baptist, whose birth we celebrate today, and Sisters Madeline Bariola and Rosalie Ruesewald whose 70th anniversaries we celebrate today, and for everyone who has embraced their role in God's plan, the cross becomes redemptive and a source of joy that gives our lives meaning and purpose.

It forces us to live for something bigger than ourselves and so, ironically, the cross is revealed as the only path to true happiness in this life — and in the next.

But this cross is not always pleasant — that's why we call it a cross — and no one lives even 25 years of religious life — not to mention 70 — without having to struggle a bit. Nor is the cross merely a synonym for adversity, which everyone has to face at some time or another, like it or not.

Embracing the cross is a freely, chosen act of sacrificial love that we could have avoided, even if in retrospect only to our detriment. And this applies not only to the big decision whether to embrace our God-given vocation in life but also to all the choices we make every day regarding whether to embrace or reject his cross as we live out our response to Jesus' call.

For John the Baptist this meant preparing the way for the Lord, calling people to repentance, stepping aside once Jesus comes on the scene and finally criticizing the government — the king — and paying for it with his life. For our jubilarians this too has meant preparing the way for the Lord, though in their case not in the wilderness of the Judean desert but rather in the spiritual wilderness of today's secular society.

The work of preparing the way for the Lord begun by John the Baptist and carried out by the rest of you Benedictine sisters is far from finished, and we now face new challenges that would have been unthinkable when our jubilarians entered religious life seven decades ago.

Today we celebrate John the Baptist's dedication and courage in facing the challenges of his day, and we celebrate — and thank God — for Sisters Rosalie and Madeline who have dedicated their entire lives to preparing the way of the Lord amid all the challenges that we face today.