Bishop Beckman celebrates first Easter Vigil at cathedral, welcomes 69 into Church
By Gabrielle Nolan and Dan McWilliams
The Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus welcomed new catechumens and candidates from ages 8 to 80 at the Easter Vigil Mass on April 19.
Bishop Mark Beckman celebrated the Mass, which began after lighting the Paschal Candle from the Easter fire outside the steps of the Knoxville cathedral.
Concelebrating priests from the cathedral were Father David Boettner, rector, and Father Martin Gladysz, Father Jhon Mario Garcia, and Father Danny Herman, associate pastors. Joining them was Father Elijah John Joseph, from the Benedictines of Divine Will.
Deacons of the Mass were Deacon Walt Otey, master of ceremonies; Deacon Mike Mescall, deacon of the altar; and Deacon Fredy Vargas, deacon of the Word.
As the bishop and priests entered the cathedral, members of the congregation began to light their hand-held candles, illuminating the darkened church. Pews quickly filled, and there was standing-room only for the three-hour-long liturgy.
Bishop Mark Beckman prepares to light the Paschal Candle from the Easter fire outside the Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus on April 19 as Deacon Fredy Vargas (left), Deacon Walt Otey, server Jay Coatney, and parishioners look on. (Photo Gabrielle Nolan)
Bishop Beckman preached the homily after the chronology of Old Testament readings, epistle, and Gospel readings.
“I have noticed when families gather, one of the significant things that happens is that they begin to tell stories,” he said. “‘Remember when…’ And the story begins. In my own family, those stories get repeated over and over again. We know what the story will be before it finishes, remember when. And I’ve often wondered, why do we tell the stories over and over again? Because they speak to us about who we are. It is the story of our family and the things that have shaped and formed us and made us who we are today.”
“Tonight, as we gather on this most holy night, we have just listened to the great stories of our faith,” the bishop continued. “We, tonight, gathered here are the family of God who have been shaped by these stories and formed by them, the very Word of God spoken to us, which gives us our identity and tells us what we are about tonight.”
Bishop Beckman turned and spoke directly to the 27 catechumens who were to be baptized.
“These great narratives proclaimed here in this cathedral church tonight are to become now your stories in a very intimate and personal way,” he remarked. “The Lord, who created this whole universe in its beauty and mystery and majesty, calling light out of darkness, separating waters, bringing forth vegetation, creating humans in the divine image, and then the great Sabbath rest, claims you tonight as His beloved daughters and sons. Just as God claimed His beloved people, so long living in slavery, so God will open a way tonight through the waters for you. Those Egyptians, which I see as the sins that afflict us and oppress us in life, will be left behind in those waters. You will find a new beginning with God’s grace tonight.”
“Abraham trusted the Lord’s goodness to him, and though Abraham did not have to sacrifice Isaac, we know tonight that the beloved Son of God gave Himself for each one of us,” Bishop Beckman continued. “And because of that tonight, as Paul puts it so eloquently, you die with Christ in the waters of baptism to share in the resurrection of the Lord. And perhaps the most important story of all is our great journey to the place where we thought death had won. And what we discover there is the stone has been rolled back, and the tomb is empty. God the Lord has delivered us from the bondage of death, and we need no longer be afraid. Peter was overwhelmed with amazement. My prayer for each of you tonight is that that amazement of the power of God may touch you tonight in the waters of baptism.”
Bishop Beckman then addressed the whole group, 69 in total, who would receive the sacrament of confirmation.
“To those of you to be confirmed tonight, as you are touched once more by the power of God’s Spirit, may you, too, know the power of God who will free you by the grace of Christ even more, to know your status as a beloved daughter or son of God most high,” he shared.
At the conclusion of his homily, the bishop invited all of those present who were already fully initiated into the Catholic Church to think of this day as a birthday.
“We remember our birth into Christ and the waters of baptism. And for all of that, we give praise and thanks to God through Christ the Risen Lord. Amen,” he said.
After the homily, the catechumens processed around the baptismal font, joined by their sponsors. One by one, Bishop Beckman poured a pitcher of holy water over the heads of those being baptized. After each baptism, the choir sang “alleluia, alleluia.”
Confirmandi stand with candles lit beside their sponsors as they await to receive the sacrament of confirmation. Each confirmand wears a name tag of his or her patron saint. (Photo Gabrielle Nolan)
The sacrament of confirmation began after the baptisms. The individuals approached the bishop with their sponsor’s hand on their shoulder. As the bishop placed sacred chrism on the foreheads of those being confirmed, he sealed them with the Holy Spirit.
Bishop Beckman invited a hearty round of applause to welcome the newest members of the Catholic Church after the sacraments were completed.
Madison Sewell, who received the sacrament of confirmation, was inspired to become Catholic after the first time she stepped into the Knoxville cathedral.
“I just couldn’t take my eyes away from the altar. I wanted to be a part of everything,” she said.
She had been attending RCIA classes with her sponsor since last fall and had a positive relationship with her sponsor.
“I love her very much. The second that I decided I wanted to go on this faith journey, I already knew who I wanted as my sponsor, and I couldn’t ask for anyone better,” she remarked.
Ms. Sewell chose St. Gianna Molla as her confirmation patron because she could relate to her.
“She’s one of the patron saints of mothers, and she herself had a difficult pregnancy where she ended up passing after, and she’s also patron saint of miscarriages,” she shared.
Moving into the Easter season and beyond, Ms. Sewell said that she is looking forward to “just finally being fully a part of the liturgy in every sense of it.”
Natalie Sexton received all three sacraments of baptism, confirmation, and first Holy Communion.
“I’m 52 years old, and I was raised in the Catholic Church but had never been baptized, and so my daughter and I both were baptized and had our first Communion tonight together,” she shared. “We have just been on this faith journey through the process of learning more about the Catholic Church and mostly just confirming our faith. We just landed here today—it’s been beautiful.”
She described the Easter Vigil liturgy as “overwhelming.”
“It’s just such a beautiful service and such an inspirational place. You feel the Spirit here with you when this is happening because it’s such an impactful Mass. For someone like me who has been on the spiritual journey, it just kind of comes full circle. It’s beautiful,” she said.
Ms. Sexton chose St. Teresa of Calcutta as her confirmation patron.
“She was alive when I was a teenager, so she was not kind of an ethereal figure for me; she was tangible,” she remarked. “I remember her, I remember her work, I remember seeing news articles and seeing her in the newspaper, watching things on television about her. There was no one like her in the world at that time to me, and so she was such an inspiration. She tended to the casted-off people in the world, and people that society saw as having no value, and she gave herself, she gave her whole life to those people. It was just beautiful.”
As she continues on her faith journey as a new Catholic, Ms. Sexton is looking forward to her future.
Eight-year-old Penelope Freeman stands with her family after the Easter Vigil Mass at the cathedral. Penelope, a second-grader at Sacred Heart Cathedral School, was the youngest catechumen to receive all three sacraments of initiation at the Mass. (Photo Gabrielle Nolan)
“Just having more communion with Jesus Christ and more closeness, more understanding, more clarity of how His sacrifice will guide and lead me in my future, and how I will be able to understand my place based on His guidance in my life now that I am officially a member of the Church,” she commented.
The youngest catechumen to receive all three of the sacraments was Penelope Freeman, an 8-year-old in second grade at Sacred Heart Cathedral School.
Her mother, Karina Carbajal, said that her daughter’s experience at school led her to be baptized.
When asked about what she thinks about Catholic school, Penelope said, “I love it.”
She commented that she was “happy” to be baptized by the bishop, and that it was “amazing” to be confirmed at such a young age, for which she received special permission.
Although Penelope said it was “scary” to receive Jesus in the Eucharist for the first time, her mother said it was what she wanted to do.
In a family affair, Ms. Carbajal received the sacrament of confirmation, while all three of her children received the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, and first Communion.
“They asked, especially my 16-year-old,” Ms. Carbajal said. “It was such a calling in her heart that she was destined to do this, and she had the desire to do it. And that says to me, I’m doing something right.”
Palm Sunday
The faithful at the Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus gathered outside for the start of the Palm Sunday Mass on April 13 as Bishop Mark Beckman blessed the palms carried into the church by the priests and people.
All four cathedral priests—rector Father David Boettner and associate pastors Father Martin Gladysz, Father Jhon Mario Garcia, and Father Danny Herman—concelebrated the Mass. Deacon Walt Otey assisted.
Bishop Mark Beckman blesses the palm branches outside the cathedral before the Palm Sunday Mass as Deacon Walt Otey assists. (Photo Gabrielle Nolan)
Bishop Beckman, Deacon Otey, Jerry Bodie, and the assembly read the parts in the Passion narrative from the Gospel of Luke 22-23.
In his homily, the bishop recalled his seminarian days in Belgium and a distinctive feature of the artwork he saw there.
“As some of you may know, I had the opportunity in my studies for the priesthood to study in Belgium at the Catholic University of Louvain. And one of the things that I discovered when I went to Europe was the great works of art that have characterized much of our western history,” Bishop Beckman said.
“And many of those great works of art, as you might well imagine, are depicting various scenes from the Gospels. One of the things that I found fascinating in Belgium, the great Flemish masters painted those biblical scenes with great beauty and vividness, but when they painted the scenes of the New Testament, they painted their own buildings and villages in the background, and they painted the people of their villages as members of the Gospel scenes, including things like dogs lying around. They depicted the events of the Gospel unfolding, using their imagination in the settings in which they lived and breathed and worked.”
In some ways, “that is so fitting,” the bishop said.
“And the Gospel that we proclaimed today, which all of us participated in on this Palm Sunday, we all took our parts, didn’t we? And in some real way, the invitation today is not to see these events as something that only took place 2,000 years ago but to recognize that we all play our part in the unfolding of the great story of salvation,” he said. “So, where do I find myself today in the Gospel? Am I like Peter, who at times does not want to admit that I follow the Lord? Am I like Judas, who betrayed him? Am I like Pilate, condemning the innocent to death? Or am I like the women, who followed Jesus and watched where he laid? Am I like Joseph, who wrapped His body in the cloak and performed an act of mercy for someone who had been killed?”
Bishop Beckman reminded his listeners that “every act of kindness, of goodness, and of gentleness done for the least of our brothers and sisters is done for the Lord.”
“I think most importantly of all, we are invited today to identify with Jesus Himself,” he continued. “Am I becoming more and more profoundly united to Him? Is it His love that shapes my life? Do I allow the power of His cross and resurrection to make of me a new creation? Am I willing to walk my own path of Calvary in order to enter more deeply into the mystery of His risen life?
“We’re a living portrait of the Gospel today, aren’t we? Our faces, our lives, are woven into the story of God’s salvation today. May the Lord who brought us to this place continue to bring it to fulfillment through Christ, Our Lord. Amen.”
The bishop spoke of his many travels throughout East Tennessee and his first visits to many parishes.
“I have been traveling all over the diocese confirming young children and seeing all of our parishes. I’ve been to about 35 of our 50 parishes so far,” he said. “It is such a joy now to be back with you here at the cathedral for Holy Week. I will be here throughout the week celebrating these great mysteries with you. What an important and wonderful week it is to celebrate the mysteries. I pray that it will be blessed for all of you this week. It’s wonderful having all of the cathedral priests at this liturgy and their presence here in shepherding you. Also, the gift of our beautiful ministry of music always moves me to tears, so thank you all for all that you’re doing to help us well celebrate today.”
