In an essay adapted from a talk about Catholic Liturgy in 1997, Cardinal Avery Dulles recalled a banner affixed to a pulpit from which he had just preached during a Mass in Baltimore. The banner, which he read while kneeling in a main pew following Mass, bore the inscription, "God is other people." If the then-Father Dulles had a magic marker, he wrote, "I would not have been able to resist the temptation to insert a comma after the word, ‘other.’"

The point is that God is Transcendent, the Infinite Other. Man is but a creature. Salvation history does not begin with the call of Abram, whose name was changed by God to "Abraham." Salvation history began with mankind’s creation by God, followed by man’s fall from grace, followed by God’s pledge to redeem his creature, man.

Cardinal Dulles, in the same essay, explained the two meanings of the banner (one without the comma, the other with it) as signifying opposite tendencies in contemporary liturgical piety. One, he called "otherworldly"; the other, "this-worldly." For the first, "liturgy is made in heaven." Handed down by God, it cannot endure fragmentation or modification in substance. Thus, he wrote, "the Ritual is sacred and inviolable." It invites acceptance and embrace; it elicits "a sense of numinous awe" as it touches upon what is truly holy – the perfectly "Other."

From the second perspective, as regards those who are "this- world," the Liturgy is primarily an enterprise of feeling, spontaneous expression and entertainment. In this view, Liturgy "exists for the sake of the worshippers," and seeks to praise God chiefly through psychological reassurance.

Even though the above categories are extreme, they are nonetheless real, and as such become "flashpoints" in complex "cultural battles" – thus making Liturgy an occasion for partisan debates about many areas of religious experience, most of which hardly pertain to Liturgy.

Concerns such as the above constitute some of the challenges which newly ordained priests, such as the five men whom we gladly welcome into our Archdiocese of Hartford, will be called upon to meet, sooner or later. "Sooner," it appears, rather than later, in view of the updated English Roman Missal, scheduled for general use this coming Advent. Yet, as these newly ordained men have learned in their seminary days, although the Liturgy is "never static" (in Cardinal Dulles’s words), it nonetheless is founded on Tradition, which is not merely a "burden of the past" (as one of the century’s greatest theologians, Cardinal Henri de Lubac, argued) but "a vital energy, a propulsive as much as a protective force" – just the opposite of a relic. Indeed, Tradition, to be ever new, must constantly refer to its sources, so rich in content, that they have hardly been adequately mined even after two millennia of Christianity.

In a sense, our new priests, Fathers Iain Highet, Diego Jimenez, George Mukuka, Anthony Smith and Robert Turner II, though relatively young of age, have been sent us by the Lord to continue and to intensify mining the infinite treasures of Christianity – the Tradition. Their mission is to speak and act in persona Christi – "in the person of Christ" – as the ancient descriptive of the New Testament priesthood expresses the mystery. Whenever they preach a homily at Mass or offer the Sacrifice of the Mass, it is Christ who acts through their instrumentality. The same is true of other sacraments.

The above-stated theology has applied (past tense) for many, many years, with respect to the jubilarians celebrating various anniversaries of service within the Archdiocese this year. As we welcome five new priests, we thank the Lord for our jubilarians and wish them Godspeed.

God, Creator and Redeemer, is not "other people," as Cardinal Dulles rightly concludes in his essay cited above, but this does not mean that he dwells only "in remote seclusion." Our faith assures us that he makes his presence known to us through the ministry of priests, especially in the sacred Liturgy.