Bishop Anthony B. Taylor, a native of Fort Worth, delivered this homily on the feast of the Sacred Heart June 7 in Fort Worth for the celebration of his fifth anniversary as bishop.
When my sister and I began to plan this celebration with our family here in Fort Worth, of my fifth anniversary as bishop of Little Rock, there was a conflict on the parish calendar of Holy Family Parish in which I was baptized (though at the time it was called St. Alice’s), so we scheduled this Mass for a day earlier than originally planned, and it is obvious to me that the Lord had a hand in all this because without even realizing it at the time, my celebration ended up on the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
So here we are celebrating my anniversary on the day on which we celebrate the love of Jesus — symbolized by his Sacred Heart: on fire with love (flames coming out of the top of the heart) and ringed with the crown of thorns to remind us that true love is costly because it involves self-sacrifice.
I know all of us Taylors remember the picture of the Sacred Heart that still hangs in the living room of the house in which we were raised — more than 50 years after it was consecrated to the Sacred Heart by Father McGurk. Though Dad had invited Father McGurk in passing without setting a date, he came to our house completely unannounced in the early evening of Dec. 20, 1962.
Father McGurk went through the house blessing each room and then the certificate on the back of the picture of the Sacred Heart was signed by Father McGurk, Mom and Dad and by me, a third-grader in cursive, and printed by my next three brothers aged 7, 5 and 4, the latter two with a very shaky hand. Turn the picture over and you can still see it today.
Our aunt and uncle happened to be visiting us from St. Louis with their kids. Apparently it was a little too chaotic for Father McGurk — with 10 hungry kids in the house under 9 years of age four days before Christmas — because when Dad invited him to stay for dinner he said he had “to run.” But that’s how it is in a house blessed by the Sacred Heart of Jesus. That’s how it is in a home full of love.
And then as some of you know, my first assignment as a newly ordained priest 33 years ago was to Sacred Heart Parish in Oklahoma City. Sacred Heart was also the last parish I served there and it was from Sacred Heart that I was called to become the bishop of Little Rock.
So the Lord’s message to me is loud and clear: Every priest is ordained to be an “alter Christus” — another Christ — but he wants me to be this in a more specific way: to be another Sacred Heart of Christ, to love others as Jesus loves them.
Today’s readings drive this home for me, who have been chosen to be a shepherd of the Lord’s flock. In our first reading God rescues his scattered sheep, gathering them from foreign lands, and so a good deal of my ministry during 33 years of priesthood has involved serving immigrants. As he seeks the lost, binds up the injured and heals the sick, so also I must do if I am to be a faithful shepherd especially, as we heard in our Gospel, to the one in 99 who is so lost that anyone else would have just written him off as lost for good.
Jesus’ love knows no limits and so neither should the love of one who is called to be another Sacred Heart of Christ. God’s love for us is outrageous. He loves us so much that he’s willing to risk anything — leaving the other 99 unattended to come after that one — to come after us. And then he calls all of us who have been so blessed as to have been found — you as well as me — to now risk whatever it takes to go after others who are lost and need to be found today.
