May 13 marked the one year anniversary of Archbishop Bernard Hebda’s installation as archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis. He sat down with The Catholic Spirit to reflect on the past year and to share his goals and vision for the future.
In his homily, Archbishop Hebda said the Gospel from Luke, which included Mary’s visit to her cousin, Elizabeth, and Mary’s Magnificat canticle — and the feast of Our Lady of Fatima both point to “God’s extravagant love for the lowly and for the little ones.” That same love, he said, “surprises, sustains and challenges us.”
Father J. Michael Joncas, a priest of the archdiocese and the artist in residence at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, began the "Magnificat" score on Easter Monday and finished it two days.
Citing social justice efforts such as the new Dorothy Day Center in St. Paul, which has drawn the support of people of different religious traditions, the archbishop emphasized the importance of collaboration and being shrewd with resources while focusing on human needs. “If our work is to succeed, our work has to be God’s work,” he said.
“I think maybe I had been distracted for a bit, and thinking I could do all these other things to better the world, and was losing sight of the great work a priest can do," Archbishop Hebda said of his college years. "When I started going to daily Mass, that renewed my interest in serving as a priest."
