(Fr. Fausto’s Homily on His 50th Year as a Priest: June 14, 2012)
Two themes permeate the Liturgy of the Word: Hope and Eucharist. The first reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Rom 8:18-25) speaks of hope, the virtue of the pilgrim. The second reading from St. Luke’s gospel narrates the Institution of the Eucharist by our Lord Jesus Christ (Lk 22:14-20). As a pilgrim on the way to a thousand hopes – to heaven-, I need the Eucharist! I need food and drink for the journey; I need the Eucharistic Bread and the Eucharistic Wine. I treasure the last phrase of Jesus when instituting the Eucharist – and the Priesthood: “Do this in memory of me.†Through 50 years I have tried to celebrate the Eucharist daily in memory of him.
50 years! With other eleven Dominicans (nine of them American and two Spanish) I was ordained a Dominican Priest by the Bishop of Richmond, Virginia, John Russell on the morning of June 14, 1962 at St. Dominic’s Church in Washington, DC.  This evening of June 14, 2012 we are celebrating the 50th Anniversary of this Ordination at St. Dominic’s Priory in Macau. I spent the first year of my priesthood finishing my theological studies at the Washington DC Dominican House of Studies. The next 46 years of my Dominican priesthood, I lived passionately by teaching and preaching in Manila, except for two years (1977 to 1979) that I was in Madrid for postgraduate studies and lived here two wonderful years of my priesthood (I was assigned then to our Convent of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary, and stayed very often with my parents and my sister Laure, who had come to the Spanish capital from our lovely town El Oso, Avila).The last two and a half years of my 50 years as a priest. I am living them here in Macau peacefully and serenely with a great fraternity of eighteen simply professed students and six Dominican priests.
As I look back to the 50 years of my priesthood, one thing keeps coming to my mind: God loves me very much – as He loves each one of you very much! God is love. He is our Mother/Father who loves us and asks each one of us to love him in return – with the love He gave us in the first place.
God has shown his gracious love to me throughout life. He created me to his image and likeness. He redeemed me through Jesus, his Son and our brother. In the Church, He made me his child – Bernardo Fausto – through Baptism. He continues feeding me with his Body and Blood. And without any merit from my part, he called me to be his priest in the Order of Preachers. As the song says: “Qué detalle Señor has tenido conmigo: Yo dejé casa y pueblo/ por seguir tu aventura./ Codo a codo contigo/ comencé a caminar./ Han pasado los años/ y, aunque aprieta el cansancio,/ paso a paso te sigo/ sin mirar hacia atrás. “What a gesture, O Lord, you had with me!/ I left home and town/ in pursuit of your adventure./ Side by side with You/ I started walking./ The years have passed/, and although fatigue accompanies me,/ I follow You step by step without looking back./ What a gesture, Lord You had with meâ€. The greatest sign of God’s love for me is my priesthood. On the morning of June 14, 1962, at the Church of St. Dominic in Washington DC, Jesus told me: “You are a priest forever.†Sacerdos in aeternum!
This evening of June 14, 2012 at St. Dominic’s Priory Chapel, I tell our Lord: “Thank you very, very much! Thank you for helping me to love you in return. I love you Lord!†And, because love means having to say “you are sorry,†yes I am sorry Lord for my sins, too many to count through these 50 years. For your continuing forgiveness and mercy I thank you Lord. Above all, I give thanks to you for calling me, for blessing me always, for making me hopeful. I thank you in particular, for giving me a wonderful family back home, brothers in the different Dominican communities I lived – in Avila, in Madrid, in Washington, in Manila and now in Macau, perhaps the last stage of my life, (Well, who knows? May be East Timor is calling!). Thank you Lord for giving me wonderful parents and brothers and sisters, many friends and many Dominican brothers!
I thank the Lord in particular for keeping me a Dominican priest for 50 years. If I did not leave my priestly vocation, it was because of God’s undeserved grace – and my mother Florencia persistent prayer. My little contribution was (according to a close friend of mine) prayer. Well, I do not know: maybe, if at all, a very imperfect prayer-life! Certainly as a student, I learned from St. Teresa of Avila: “Never leave prayer. There is always remedy for those who prayâ€. Even when I was limping or in darkness, I did try to pray to the Lord, and especially to his Mother and our Mother Mary and our Dominican saints plus St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross, and God came to my rescue. Indeed, solo Dios basta: Only God suffices!
I continue trusting in the help of Mother Mary. I am deeply grateful to St. Dominic, my other father, the joyful friar. To him, I ask with my brothers daily: “Imple Pater quod dixisti, nos tuis juvans praecibusâ€; that is, “fulfill your promise, that you would help us with your prayers.â€
Prayer is the language of hope. Prayer is always a prayer of hope, of Christian hope of which Saint Paul speaks in our first Reading. No one can live without hopes, and the best hope is hope in you, Lord: in your love, in your grace, in eternal life with you and our loved ones. Indeed, as St. Augustine says, “You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until we rest in You.â€
On the last stage of his life, St. Albert the Great asked himself often: Nunquid durabo? Will I be faithful to the end? I pray and hope that I will be faithful up to the end. When one is young one believes that he can conquer the world. When aging catches up, one realizes more and more that really we can do little by ourselves and, therefore, we try to rely mainly on God’s mercy. Our brother St. Thomas Aquinas meditated often the Psalm which asked the Lord: “In my old age, do not abandon me Lord†(Ps 70).
Like any other virtue, hope cannot walk towards God without the feet of love: Christian hope is a loving hope, a hopeful love. Hope prays, and love prays too! Love is what matters most in life! “In the evening of life, we will be examined on love†(St. John of the Cross). On my 50th anniversary as a priest of Christ, I hope, above all, in Christ’s love. Jesus continues asking his priests – asking me again today – the question He asked Peter thrice: “Do you love me…?†(cf. Jn21:15-17). Lord, help me to say “Yes, I do†– with my lips, my heart, my life!
The Gospel Reading focuses on the Eucharist as Memorial of the Last Supper and pledge of heaven. The Eucharist is the center of our Christian life and the priority – with preaching the Word – of my priesthood. The Eucharist is the Breaking of the Bread. I ask the good Lord to help me – and you – be broken like the Eucharistic Bread, and be shared with and in the service of others.
To all of you, my Dominican brothers and sisters, my brothers and sisters in consecrated life, my co-professors and friends at the University of Saint Joseph (I also remember here my many friends at the University of Santo Tomas, Manila: many of them have sent messages telling me that they are praying for me on this day); to all of you I express my deep gratitude.
Someone has said that to say “thank You†is like giving a flower. Emerson tells us that “the beauty of the flower comes from its roots.†From my roots, that is, from the bottom of my heart, to each one of you here present I say, thank you very, very much,¡ muchÃsimas gracias!
May God, who always pays well, bless you abundantly!
Fausto Gomez Berlana, OP
St. Dominic’s Priory
Macao, June 14, 2012