September 25, 2022 (26th Sunday in Ordinary Time)

“Christ Across the Chasm”

by Fr. Dominic DeLay, O.P.

[This is the text composed by the homilist prior to delivering the homily.]

Have you ever felt as though an uncrossable chasm separates you from someone, everyone, God, happiness? I imagine many of you new students feel somewhat alone these days. In today’s gospel story, the rich man feels in the afterlife the isolation that poor Lazarus felt at the rich man’s doorstep. There are more and more American Lazaruses each year, and the chasm between the poor and the rich grows wider and deeper. In our nation, a chasm has opened up between races, religions, political parties, and a host of other categories of people and ideas. In our Catholic Church, there are chasms. Can these chasms be crossed?

Whether we’re feeling alone in the world or feeling too much like the rich and complacent addressed in today’s prophecy from Amos, we’re tempted to ignore the urgent needs and wide chasms in the world and “improvise our own accompaniment,” as the prophet says, to go it alone, to do our own thing.

In our Catholic Community at Stanford, our goal is not to improvise our own accompaniment, not to walk alone or let others walk alone. This wonderful building would be but a beautiful chasm if it weren’t for the people in it, breathing life into this space, walking together. If anyone here hasn’t become familiar with the terms synod, synodal, or synodality, you’ll get to know them here. Hopefully, you’ll get to experience them. Synodality literally means walking together, journeying together. We don’t walk alone.

Our Catholic Community at Stanford is working hard at making synodality concrete right here. We have synod teams continuing to include everyone in discussions and renewal around various aspects of our life together: prayer, education, socials, social justice, service, and communication. There’s even a team dedicated to spiritual accompaniment. We don’t walk alone.

We’re one community, though we also celebrate our diversity, including our diverse states in life. Stanford Catholic undergrads have their own activities and leadership team, the Catholic Leadership Team or CLT. Stanford Catholic grad students and their families have their own thing, with some special organizing within the business and medical schools and the inclusion of post-docs and interested young adults who aren’t students. Then there’s what we call the permanent community. The permanent community is made up of Stanford faculty, staff, and alumni and their families, as well as local or not so local individuals and families, including those who participate online from around the globe, all of whom dedicate themselves with students to our mission to the university.

Our Intra-Community Council or ICC, a kind of parish council, brings together undergrad, graduate, and permanent community members to help us all walk and worship together. We have a faithful finance council as well. And a passionate, dedicated staff. Our Catholic Community at Stanford is diverse, yet we walk together.

The center of our life together is Sunday Mass here in Memorial Church, but we regularly traverse the small chasm between here and our second home in Old Union, where on the third floor we share a lounge, meeting room, library, community room, and chapel with other religious groups. It’s a great place to meet students of other denominations or faiths. Who knows what chasms might be bridged on the third floor of Old Union?

We also have an office there next to the offices of other religious groups. The dean and associate deans of Stanford’s Office for Religious and Spiritual Life have offices there. I encourage you to get to know the dean and associate deans, who come from various religious traditions but serve everyone. The beautiful courtyard in front of Old Union is also a common place of meeting and encounter for us. There are many other places on campus where we gather. Occasionally, we’ll even celebrate Mass out on Wilbur field, like the crowds Jesus sat down on the grass to feed them.

But back to Memorial Church. What happens during the Mass here? Small things are done differently in each Catholic parish, according to architecture, regional and cultural customs, diocesan guidelines, and the like. And how does Memchu’s non-denominational character affect our worship? How do we express our unity in Christ, our unity with each other and with the whole Catholic Church?

The first thing you might notice when you enter is that there’s no holy water. We had just started putting out holy water near the entrance before our Masses when the pandemic hit. Maybe it will make a comeback before long. As you approach your pew, you might have that Catholic genuflecting reflex kick in. But where’s the tabernacle, you wonder? Again, not a Catholic church, except maybe when we’re here. While I don’t think it’s commonplace for members of our Catholic Community at Stanford to reverence the altar, you should certainly feel free to bow to the altar.

Mass begins, and we join or voices in song, singing full-throated even when we think we’re not good singers, unwittingly devising our own accompaniment despite what the prophet says today. If you pray with the Sunday scriptures ahead of time, and I hope you do – they’re easy to find on the U.S. bishops’ website – you’ll notice some differences in the translation we use on Sundays. It’s Canadian Catholic translation, which is more inclusive and more literal. Occasionally, after the priest or deacon preaches a short homily, we’re blessed with a preaching from Teresa or Sr. Gloria, a valuable and beloved custom supported by our San Jose bishop Oscar Cantu.

You’ll notice that our current practice is to take the missal’s option to pray the Apostles Creed, often turning to the Nicene Creed during Lent. You might also notice that we don’t have a collection during Mass. That’s Memchu policy. But don’t worry: we’re as Catholic as it gets. The collection is extremely necessary for our community. Greeters hold collection boxes outside after Mass, and there are online ways to make our important offering.

Because Memorial Church is without kneelers and has a hard, slanted floor, our diocesan-approved custom to express our unity during the eucharistic prayer is that those who are able stand. If some choose to kneel or need to sit, no problem. We can still be of one heart during the prayer. Whether standing, kneeling, or sitting, we all bow together when the priest shows the consecrated bread and wine. It’s a beautiful gesture of reverence and unity. Catholics of the San Jose Diocese remain standing before communion during the part where we pray together, “Lord, I am not worthy…"

While Bishop Cantu disallowed communion on the tongue for the first couple years of the pandemic, it’s now allowed again, but the bishop asks us to take extra precautions. Those who wish to receive communion on the tongue meet the priest at the end of communion by the angel ambo, where the priest can easily sanitize his hands when needed. Again, our goal is to be of one heart, even when we express our common faith differently.

Everything we do leads to and goes forth as a community from our Sunday celebration of the eucharist. And so, at the end of Mass, we are sent forth to proclaim God’s love to all whom we encounter during the week. May no one at Stanford walk alone.

Can we bridge the chasms in our world? When we walk together in Christ, yes. St. Catherine of Siena saw Christ as the bridge between heaven and earth. Through us, Christ can be the bridge across all those other chasms as well.