[NOTE: This is the text of Bishop Mark Hagemoen’s address – delivered by diocesan Vicar General Kevin McGee – to members of the legal profession who gathered Dec. 7, 2023 at St. Thomas More Chapel for a “Red Mass and Dinner.” The Mass is held to pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit for all who administer justice in the community organized by the St. Thomas More Lawyers’ Guild of Saskatoon.]
RELATED: Lawyers Guild, STM College renew ties as Red Mass returns – STM News (LINK)
Greetings to Our Minister of Advanced Education, Chief Justices and Justices, Judges, Lawyers, STM Administration and Students, Clergy, Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
Greetings all of you as we celebrate the “Red Mass” here at St. Thomas More College. So, ironically, the reason why we have not met together for this event for a few years (the COVID pandemic) is now why I am not with you this evening. However, I am actually doing fairly well. Perhaps testimony to the Gospel message of today – by our journey through our trials and wounds – we are more able to withstand adversity and cope with the challenges. In the language of the Gospel – the wounds of Christ are the way to the presence and work of the Holy Spirit, who brings strength, forgiveness and healing to us.
I am struck by the choice of Biblical readings for this Mass. In the case of the First Reading, the Prophet Joel provides for us a rather spectacular and perhaps foreboding description of ‘the future days’ – seemingly apocalyptic, when, “… The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day … everyone [will call] on the name of the Lord [to] be saved…” This language of the Old Testament prophets – is a language emphasizing the change and healing that will come to the world. However, the greatest change and healing is not outside, but is to be within ourselves – our mind, heart and soul. This has always been the struggle for God’s people, and it still is today. I am hearing more voices in the public forum – religious and non-religious – who are speaking for the need of ongoing growth and personal healing as the basis for larger societal growth and healthy right-relationship. Of course, this is a key feature of Indigenous teaching regarding learning and healing together.
In the Second Reading we hear the acknowledgement of this interior journey and struggle in the words of St. Paul to the Romans that, indeed, we continue to groan inwardly as we await healing and redemption – not just personally but for our world.
It seems to me that the vocation of people who share in the work of understanding and applying the law of our country – lawyers, judges, and those who share in the work of policing and applying civil regulations for the right functioning of our civil affairs – are to help individuals and communities to wrestle with new challenges and sometimes, crises.
With the competence, skill, and wisdom given you by God – you generously share your personal ability and call to service of others. May I underscore that ‘wisdom’ in the Bible is equated with ‘righteousness’ – which has the meaning of having ‘the mind and heart of God’, or in the Gospels – the ‘mind and heart of Christ Jesus.’ Indeed, yours is a very important vocation of service to God’s people, and thank you so much for dedicating yourselves to this – in the good times and in the bad… or at least, more difficult! In today’s polarized and at times angry world, this is a difficult thing to do. But, of course, more essential than ever.
To inspire and illuminate this last theme, may I conclude with a few quotes that I shared a few years ago – given the experience of the last few years and our current context regarding our common call to be protagonists of hope as we carry out practical functions and oversight of legal and civic affairs:
These are the words of Cardinal John Henry Newman:
- “If we are intended for great ends, we are called to great hazards.”
- “We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.”
- “The truth has been upheld in the world not as a system, not by books, not by argument, nor by temporal power, but by the personal influence of such men and women as have already been described, who are at once teachers and patterns of it…”
And, one quote from St. Thomas More:
- “Education is not the piling on of learning, information, data, facts, skills, or abilities-that’s training or instruction… but is rather a making visible what is hidden as a seed… To be educated, a person doesn’t have to know much or be informed, but he or she does have to have been exposed vulnerably to the transformative events of an engaged human life… One of the greatest problems of our time is that many are schooled but few are educated.”
Thank you, judges, lawyers, and government officials, officers …. for your bringing to bear not only your schooling and learning, but your commitment to and engagement in various and sometimes difficult civic and community affairs. Yours is an important vocation of God, in service of others. Thank you for this.
Blessings to you all as we prepare to celebrate another Christmas season. I will see you at the next Red Mass!
In Our One God,
+Mark Hagemoen
