Final Welcome Mass hosts 500

By DAWN PROSSER
Director of Communications
 
Bishop John E. Keehner celebrated a Mass of Welcome Aug. 12 at the Sioux City Cathedral of the Epiphany for a crowd of nearly 500. It was third and final Mass of Welcome held this summer so that the new bishop could start to meet the faithful of the diocese. Similar Masses were held previously in Fort Dodge and Storm Lake.

Following each Mass, a reception was hosted at each site with a meal and opportunity to greet the bishop. At the Cathedral Parish, multiethnic foods were offered by the parishioners including tacos, pupusas, egg rolls, Vietnamese dishes, hot dogs, hamburgers and desserts. Hispanic dancers provided entertainment in traditional dress for the event.

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Mass
As the Cathedral is a very diverse parish, readings and music were offered in English, Spanish, Latin and Vietnamese with the Kyrie was chanted in Greek. The Cathedral choir led the music.

In his homily, Bishop Keehner referenced the Gospel reading story of the lost sheep from Matthew 18. The bishop admitted it sometimes doesn’t make sense to abandon 99 sheep to look for one lost animal.
“From the human perspective, of course it makes no sense,” he said. “It should come as no surprise to us that Jesus is speaking, not from our human perspective and our human understanding of what is important but from God’s perspective. And from God’s perspective, the one who is lost takes precedence.”

As the Gospel passage stresses the importance of each sheep, representing the importance of each human being, it can be difficult to grasp the concept as an individual.
“What I find difficult at times is to believe that this love is focused precisely on me. That Jesus chose to die precisely for me. And that is the case, I believe, for many of us … We so generalize his selfless love that we forget that it impacts us on a personal basis.”

The bishop stressed that when humans stray, sin and lose their way, Jesus searches for them because of his love for them.

“If Jesus loves you and me in this way, then we certainly must seek to follow his example,” Bishop Keehner said. He invites us to love the person who is different from us, the person who speaks a language different from our own, the person we think we can never hope to understand but breathes the same air we breathe …”

He said as bishop of the diocese, it is also his role to both minister to those who attend Mass each week but also to look for and care for the lost and forsaken, “to welcome the stranger and the outcast. I’m not sure how to do that but I’m certainly willing to learn. Perhaps that is something that we can learn together over time as a diocesan church.”
Food and entertainment were offered after the Mass at the Cathedral.“As we celebrate this Mass today at this Cathedral Church dedicated to the mystery of the Epiphany – the manifestation of Christ to the nations, let us remember that Christ reveals himself to us as a shepherd who leaves the 99. So deep is his love for you and for me, so willing is he to make sure that we are never forgotten, we are never abandoned, we are never left behind,” the bishop concluded.

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