The Banquet of Salvation: Cardinal Burke’s Homily for the Installation of Father Ignatius Harsha

Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Installation of Father Ignatius HARSHA, O. Praem., as Rector of the Shrine Church

Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe

October 11, 2026

Is 25, 6-10

Ps 23, 1-3a. 3b-4. 5. 6.

Phil 4, 12-14. 19-20

Mt 22, 1-14

Homily

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

When we hear the Parable of the Wedding Feast, we are inclined to identify it exclusively with something which is to come.^[1] In the same way, too, when we hear the prophecy about the feast of rich food and choice wines, which Our Lord prepares for us on His holy mountain, we tend to think that the promise is yet to be fulfilled.^[2] In a certain sense, we are correct in our thinking, for eternal salvation, symbolized by the Wedding Feast and the banquet on the Lord’s holy mountain, will only fully be ours on the Last Day when Christ returns in glory to restore all creation to God the Father.

In another sense, however, we err, for God already lavishes upon us the rich graces of our salvation in the Church. In a true sense, the Church is the mountain upon which the Lord offers us the rich food of His teaching, His Sacraments, and His pastoral care and direction. Life in the Church is the wedding feast of the king’s son, to which God the Father invites all men and women and in which He nourishes them with His truth and love, most of all, with the incomparable food of the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of His Son. God the Son Incarnate, from His glorious-pierced Heart, pours forth, unceasingly and without measure, the sevenfold gift of God the Holy Spirit upon the Church, into the hearts of those whom He has adopted as true sons and daughters by the waters of Baptism and by the anointing of Confirmation. The Prophet Isaiah tells us that, when the Lord has provided for all peoples the feast of rich food and choice wines, we will all proclaim:

Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.^[3]

While it is true that these words will be proclaimed by us in the fullness of joy at the Lord’s Second Coming, it is also true that, these words express the joy of the salvation which is already ours in the Church, from Christ alive for us in the Church which is truly His Mystical Body.

The parable of the wedding feast of the king’s son, in fact, calls us to recognize the presence of Christ our Savior in our midst. The Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, stands for us as a permanent invitation of God the Father to share in the immeasurable grace of His own life, to share in the life of God the Son through the outpouring of the sevenfold gift of God the Holy Spirit. Sadly, sometimes we are like the invited guests in the parable. We fail to recognize the wonder of God’s grace, Christ’s life, offered to us in the Church. We are cold or indifferent before the glorious-pierced Heart of Jesus, from which there flows unceasingly and immeasurably for us, in the Church, an abundance of God’s grace.

Sometimes, we are like the guest who came to the wedding feast but without sufficient respect for the king who offers the feast. We pray half-heartedly, receive the sacraments routinely and without due attention and devotion, and view our pastors in the Church as if they were mere functionaries.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, by the parable of the Wedding Feast, reminds us to open our eyes to what God the Father is offering to us in the Church. By the parable, Christ teaches us to recognize humbly the tremendous gift of God Who invites us to share in His life in the Church. He invites us to reverence the many rich aspects of our life in Christ in the Church. Christ reminds us that the failure to recognize and respond to God’s invitation, His gift of eternal life in the Church, leads to the greatest spiritual suffering and even spiritual death.

Today, we have a wonderful occasion to marvel at the rich banquet of eternal life, which God provides for us in the Church, as we celebrate the Installation of Father Ignatius Harsha, Canon Regular of Prémontré of Saint Michael’s Abbey of Orange in California, as Rector of the Shrine Church. As Rector, Father Ignatius is responsible, together with the other Canons Regular assigned by their Father Abbot to the Shrine, for the pastoral care of the pilgrims and of those who serve the pilgrims: the staff and volunteers. Under the direction of the Executive Director, the Rector also collaborates with the staff of the Shrine in strategic planning, administration, and stewardship, ensuring that all the activities of the Shrine are deeply rooted in her mission as a holy place of pilgrimage.

The substance of his irreplaceable service is described in can. 562 of the Code of Canon Law, which reads:

The rector of a church, under the authority of the local ordinary and observing the legitimate statutes and acquired rights, is obliged to see to it that sacred functions are celebrated worthily in the church according to the liturgical norms and prescripts of the canons, that obligations are fulfilled faithfully, that goods are administered diligently, that the maintenance and the beauty of sacred furnishings and buildings are provided for, and that nothing whatever occurs which is in any way unfitting to the holiness of the place and the reverence due to a house of God.^[4]

In short, the Rector of the Shrine Church provides what is necessary for the spiritual care of pilgrims. Through his exercise of the pastoral charity of Our Lord, he, with the Virgin Mother of God, Our Lady of Guadalupe, leads pilgrims to Christ in the sacraments and through spiritual guidance. The Rite of Installation of the Rector is a sacramental which confers special grace upon Father Ignatius for the exercise of his priestly office of Rector.

Installing Father Ignatius as Rector of the Shrine Church, I, in the name of the pilgrims to to the Shrine, of the Board of Directors of the Shrine, and of the Shrine staff and volunteers, express deepest gratitude to the Right Reverend John Caronan, Abbot of Saint Michael’s Abbey, for the mission of the Canons Regular of the Abbey to the Shrine. Please pray for Father Abbot, for Father Ignatius and the other Canons Regular on mission to the Shrine, and for all the Canons Regular of Saint Michael’s Abbey, that they may always faithfully and generously respond to the divine mission entrusted into their priestly hands.   

As we celebrate with special joy today the Installation of Father Ignatius as Rector of the Shrine Church, let us recognize the rich banquet of salvation which God has provided and provides for His sons and daughters through the Shrine here. Let us thank God for all the graces which he pours forth upon us through the ministry of His priests, most especially in their offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. As we thank God with all our hearts, let us pray for the grace to be always clear and strong witnesses to Christ in our homes and neighborhoods, and in everything that we think and say and do. May we and all who come on pilgrimage to the Shrine always recognize Christ alive for us in His holy Church, may be drawn to Him, and may find in Him the rich banquet of eternal salvation.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Raymond Leo Cardinal BURKE

^[1] Cf. Mt 22, 1-14.

^[2] Cf. Is 25, 6.

^[3] Is 25, 9.

^[4] “Ecclesiae rector, sub auctoritate loci Ordinarii servatisque legitimis statutis et iuribus quaesitis, obligatione tenetur prospiciendi ut sacrae functiones secundum normas liturgicas et canonum praescripta digne in ecclesia celebrentur, onera fideliter adimpleantur, bona diligentur administrentur, sacrae supellectilis atque aedium sacrarum conservationi et decori provideatur, neve quidpiam fiat quod sanctitati loci ac reverentiae domui Dei debitae quoquo modo non congruat.” Codex Iuris Canonici auctoritate Ioannis Pauli PP. II promulgatus, can. 562. English translation: Code of Canon Law, Latin-English Edition, New English translation, tr. Canon Law Society of America (Washington, DC: Canon Law Society of America, 2017), can. 562.