More than two dozen sacraments highlight St. Gregory the Great Easter Vigil Mass

“With all the issues that I mentioned in the homily, and in the world today, isn’t this an awesome sight?”

That question by Father Leon Biernat was answered by thunderous applause from a congregation which filled St. Gregory the Great Church in Williamsville for Easter Vigil Mass, March 30.

The sight Father Biernat was referring to was the large number of people in this Saturday night receiving first sacraments, formally welcoming them into the Roman Catholic Church. Eight people were newly baptized into the faith, while four others previously baptized into other Christian denominations completed their conversions to Catholicism. Ten people were sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit in confirmation. Last but certainly not least, four people – a mother and her three children – all received their first Communion.

It is believed by officials at St. Greg’s to be the largest number of initiates they’ve ever celebrated at an Easter Vigil Mass. Father Biernat, earlier in the Mass, shared statistics which contrast from the bumper crop of new Catholics being celebrated. He cited a survey released earlier this year by Pew Research Center which indicates 80 percent of U.S. adults say religion is losing influence in public life. That survey adds that among those who responded that religion is losing influence, 49 percent added that they find that waning influence to be a bad thing.

He then cited a Gallup survey released in February which indicates only 47 percent of Americans are “very satisfied” with their lives.

“I also mentioned on Holy Thursday night, we saw in the news, that we fell off the Top 20 list of the happiest places to live in the world. We’re now number 23,” Father Biernat said. “And they particularly cited in that study that it was the people 30 years of age and younger who are dissatisfied with their life, dissatisfied and not happy.”

But, he continued, he was about to baptize people who “are on fire with the Lord.”

The broader theme of Father Biernat’s homily, summarizing the readings during the Liturgy of the Word, was that God makes the impossible become possible. 

“In the midst of all those statistics I gave you, and within that culture where 80 percent are saying religion really has little meaning, and declining meaning, no longer influential, we welcome 26 to our church at St. Greg’s, to the Catholic Church throughout the world here,” he said. “God makes in this place and time what might seem impossible … possible. God really is hope.”

Father Biernat also relayed a message to the initiates: as a parish family, “We love you, we support you, we need you.”

Making the impossible possible is perhaps one of the expectations people have of God during the season of Lent, Father Biernat also stated. But he then raised the question, perhaps it’s not about the people’s expectations but, rather, what expectations God has of us?

“Those expectations to be, just like the women who went to the tomb, to go out and call others to that discipleship, to meet the risen savior, Jesus Christ,” he said. “We do this in a world that desperately needs it.”

Listen to Michael Mroziak reporting: