Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Every year, on Thanksgiving Day, we stir up again our reasons for living in gratitude: the gift of life and of new life in Christ, the gift of family and friends, the gift of meaningful work, of housing, food and the preservation of dignity. This year, in the Archdiocese of Chicago, we have reason to be grateful for a new archbishop, Blase Cupich, shortly after his installation at Holy Name Cathedral on Nov. 18.
I have a particular reason to be grateful to many people, as Iâ??ve written already, and, most of all, to God who calls and shapes us throughout the years. Often when I am being interviewed these days, I will be asked about my â??legacy.â? The interviewer is trying to make sense of my years here by fitting them into a narrative, a story line. I am not sure what that should mean for a bishop of the church, whose life is defined by Christ on one side and the people on the other. Life is not a self-directed project but a consistent response to what is asked by those you love. In the end, as we all know, history is what God remembers.
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