Math was never my strong suit, but I think 250 is 12.5% of 2,000.
What am I getting at?
We just celebrated the 250th anniversary of the founding of our nation, which was grounded in protecting and promoting a citizen’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We love our country, the freedoms and advantages it’s given us, and desire to see it and its citizens prosper.
And as long as 250 years is, it pales in comparison to how long our Holy Catholic Church has existed, founded by Jesus Christ Himself two thousand years ago.
Christ founded it for a reason, a purpose which we find in Paragraph 763 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “To fulfill the Father’s will, Christ ushered in the Kingdom of heaven on earth. The Church “is the Reign of Christ already present in mystery.”
Our Heavenly Father chose to raise humanity up to share in His own divine life. Christ fulfilled His Father’s Holy Will by founding a Church, preaching the Kingdom, gathering disciples, instituting the sacraments, and dying and rising to everlasting life.
The Church is not an afterthought, but the concrete means of continuing to carry out the Father’s salvific will: reuniting scattered humanity with God and each other in the Body of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. This happens every day in our Cathedral and in every Catholic parish throughout the world through the preaching of the Gospel, the sacramental life, and the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.
So as we celebrate 250 years, let us also celebrate the Church, who has been around much longer, through whom Christ bestows eternal life, authentic freedom, and true happiness.
With gratitude and joy for the days ahead!
Fr. Seth