During their annual Epiphany of the Lord gathering for Mass and brunch on Jan. 8, John Carroll Society members heard messages of hope from two speakers.
Deacon Darryl Kelley, the homilist at the Epiphany Mass at St. Patrick’s Church in Washington, encouraged the faithful to take a message of joy, comfort, and salvation from the visit of the three wise men from the East to pay homage to the newborn Jesus.
“We should react to his presence within us,” Deacon Kelley said during his homily at the Mass, encouraging the congregation to rely on the sacraments and the Catholic faith to draw closer to Jesus.
He said that just as the three wise men journeyed for months from the east to pay homage, following the star, so too people should respond to the birth of Jesus and reject the action of King Herod, who saw in the newborn child an adversary who must be destroyed, which led to his slaughtering of infant boys in Judea. One way to respond to the Lord, according to Deacon Kelley, is to reach out to the “nons,” who are unchurched people, a growing demographic in the United States of individuals who consider themselves “spiritual but not religious,” he said.
Established more than 65 years ago, the John Carroll Society is an organization of Catholic professionals in The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington who gather throughout the year. St. Patrick Church, founded in 1794 as a parish for Irish immigrants who were working as stonemasons building the White House, has also been something of a launching point and spiritual home for the John Carroll Society, since its longtime chaplain, Msgr. Peter Vaghi, served as pastor there before being appointed pastor at Church of the Little Flower in Bethesda.
Father Andrew Wakefield, pastor of St. Patrick’s, served as the main celebrant of the Mass. The concelebrants included Msgr. Vaghi, who had just celebrated his 75th birthday on Jan. 7; Jesuit Father James Van Dyke, the president of Georgetown Preparatory School in North Bethesda, Maryland; and Jesuit Father Joseph Lingan, the president of Gonzaga College High School in Washington. Assisting at the Mass was Deacon Kelley, an adult convert to the faith who serves at St. Philip the Apostle Parish in Camp Springs, Maryland.
One of five brothers in the Lingan family who became purple-clad Gonzaga Eagles, Father Lingan graduated from Gonzaga in 1975, was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1990 and returned to teach there in 1991. He came back to his alma mater during the summer of 2021 to lead it. He served as keynote speaker at the brunch that followed Mass, with about 120 John Carroll Society members and guests, at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington, located a block away from St. Patrick’s.
During a time of war in Ukraine, racial unrest and division, growing political dysfunction and disharmony, and a global pandemic, among other societal problems, Father Lingan gave a talk designed to be provocative but also hopeful. “Every time is a challenging time,” he said.
“This is our time to set the world on fire,” Father Lingan said. He emphasized that since the season of Advent has concluded with the Lord’s Nativity and the Christmas season, so people’s waiting is over, and they must take action in accord with their faith. “Don’t’ be complacent,” he said.
The former history teacher encouraged those gathered at the breakfast to consider that their time is short on the world, when one considers the history of humanity.
The Jesuit exhorted those gathered to think of life as “100 percent gratuitous,” a gift. Father Lingan said that when people die and meet the Lord face to face, He will ask them, “What did you do with the gift I gave you?” The priest said people should want to be prepared with the answer that their lives give to this question.
Just as Jesus Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit helped to transform the 12 apostles, who were ordinary and undistinguished Galileans when they were called by Jesus, so too people need to use their time well in this world, Father Lingan said.
