A light of sure hope

It is time for me to board a plane and return to my home diocese of Las Cruces, in southern New Mexico, USA, and I pause to reflect on a week of cele­brations on the 50th anniversary since the birth of the first Neocatechumenal Way community in Malta in my childhood home parish of the Immaculate Conception, Ħamrun.

Certainly, the highlight was gathering around Archbishop Charles Scicluna at St John’s Co-Cathedral, in Valletta, for the thanksgiving Mass on the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We witnessed firsthand the fruits of the Way that started as a little seed 50 years ago, on that eighth day of December, 1973, and today fills the cathedral to overflowing capacity.

I reflect on how my life has been catapulted from Malta to Newark, New Jersey, where I received my formation to the priesthood at the Redemptoris Mater Archdiocesan Missionary Seminary, then to the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean for 15 years, then on to Miami for five years as auxiliary bishop and, now, in the diocese of Las Cruces as its bishop for the past four-and-a-half years. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined such a trajectory! And, all along, it has been an adventure. Indeed, never a dull moment.

Archbishop Charles Scicluna at the Thanksgiving Mass. Photo: Archdiocese of Malta

At 28 years of age, I considered myself to be a successful young man in terms of worldly achievements. The Lord was gentle with me and he allowed me to pursue the plans of my career. It was not until 1989 at a World Youth Day gathering with Pope Saint John Paul II in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and a subsequent gathering with the initiators of the Neocatechumenal Way in Zaragoza that I first started discerning a vocation to the priesthood. God had different plans for me.

I dragged my feet in the beginning, until I realised that the experience I was going through was not simply a matter of feelings. I fell in love with the missionary aspect of the Church.

The Lord was calling me to serve the Church as a missionary priest. And, at each step along the way, God gave me the grace to say yes to his invitation, and I am grateful.

Today, the fruits of the Neocatechumenal Way have matured; they are sweet, in terms of marriages rebuilt, an abundance of youth and young adults, a generous presence of children, liturgical celebration, musical expression and active participation. A Church that is visibly already missionary in experience, reaching beyond the shores of this little island nation first evangelised by our father, St Paul.

What joy, what expressions of generosity and what gratitude was directed at God by all in attendance. Heartfelt gratitude was expressed by the archbishop to Eusebio Astiaso, his wife Giulietta Cascino and the team of catechists who had planted that seed of the announcement of the Good News, the kerygma, 50 years ago, and who painstakingly nurtured its growth along the years through thick and thin so that, today, in the midst of a society that has become clearly secularised and struggling to maintain its Catholic identity, a light of sure hope may shine so brightly in our midst.

PETER BALDACCHINO, JCL, Bishop of Las Cruces – New Mexico