The Annual Investiture Mass

On Thursday September 27th we celebrated our annual Investiture of the Choristers. Below is found the full text of Monsignor Mayo's Homily:

Dear Friends,

Today with the church throughout the world we celebrate the witness and work of St. Vincent de Paul, who with great apostolic courage worked tirelessly on behalf of the poor. Vincent is remembered in several places in our cathedral: He is numbered among the New Testament Saints found on the West Mural in the Apse and he is in the stained glass of the East transept window in the 9 o’ clock position. In both cases, he is depicted as cradling an infant in his arms, recalling his particular service to countless orphans and abandoned infants.

Remembering Vincent de Paul today could not be more appropriate. In yesterday’s Salt Lake Tribune we read the staggering news that 13.5% of Utah’s population is living in poverty, and the even more troubling news of a heavily populated county where one out every four children are living below the poverty line.

The advocacy organization KIDSCOUNT recently reported that between the years 2005 and 2010 the number of children living below the poverty line in Utah rose a shocking 45%: from 11% in 2005 to 16% in 2010.

These figures come from a very prosperous nation and don’t begin to account for the ongoing tragedy that is the lives of some many fellow human beings: slums in all of the world’s major cities are rapidly on the rise, and the gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow, prompting our Holy Father Pope Benedict to write extensively about this issue in his latest Encyclical letter to all of the world’s bishops.

St. Vincent took a different path in following the Lord Jesus. In hearing the gospel, Vincent became painfully aware that the Lord was present in the poor and that we, as his disciples must always be involved in immediately giving them comfort and finding broader systemic solutions to economic policies and practices that keep people trapped in poverty. Vincent recognized that to be a Christian, service to the poor is not a nice thing that one does occasionally: it is an essential practice that is regular, sacrificial and ordinary. St. Vincent wrote that “…we must try to be moved by our neighbor’s worries and distress. We must beg God to pour into our hearts the thoughts and feelings of mercy and compassion, and to fill our hearts again and again with these thoughts and attitudes.”

Our first reading today highlights the unusual path that Vincent followed: perhaps not wise by human standards, nor powerful nor ranking among the noble and proud of society. In our Gospel we read of Jesus of Nazareth being moved with pity at the sight of the crowds – the very heart of our own Lord broken upon seeing the difficult circumstances of so many and calling his disciples to work on their behalf. St. Vincent answered that call.

Dear Choristers, all of this is by no means disconnected from your service in this Cathedral Church. You are in fact the Royal and Priestly Choir of the Poor: you serve all who come to this place for comfort in grief, to mourn the loss of loved ones, anxious about the loss of employment or a home, trapped in homelessness, and more. You are not the musicians of the elite concert hall for the aesthetically sophisticated or the extravagant performance house open only to those of means and social status.

No: you are the musicians and servers in the Temple of the Great King and our Great High Priest, the one who emptied himself, who in his birth became poor, born in a feeding trough among animals in a barn; the God who became small and vulnerable for us. His birth, life, teaching, death and resurrection invite all of us to open our hearts – to change – to see in a greater concern for the poor the answer. It won’t be another economic system, or bureaucratic institution or political party: the solution will only come in the changed hearts of those who have encountered the Lord and now live not only for themselves but for others, and recognize the solidarity they share with all human life on this earth.

Boys and Girls you are remarkable and dedicated servants of this great King. We here today and so many others are the beneficiaries of your commitment and excellent service. Your service and music-making advances the subversive and still misunderstood message of Jesus of Nazareth, a message embraced by St. Vincent de Paul, and a call to both you and me to always seek first God’s Kingdom, to be agents of God’s great mercy, and to recognize and serve our loving and saving God in those who are poor.