I find myself in a twinning relationship, whether I like it or not. I have spent approximately one-fourth of my life as an ordained priest at Versailles and Frenchtown. I have relationships with both parishes and with both school systems, Versailles and Ansonia. I have come to know you and you have come to know me. The bond between you and me drew you to celebrate my retirement with a huge and large party. This same bond draws me to help you when you need help. If the Parish Priest says that he needs help, the relationship I have with you takes me to help. This mutual bond, we call twinning. I have similar bonds with my sisters and brothers, that we interact with each other and share our lives. I have seen this bond at work within your families.
The bond that I experience with you flows out of personal contact. Before this, however, it comes from the common bond established by Christ with us at our baptisms. This relationship, initiated at baptism, has intensified in me by my ordination into the ministerial priesthood. The love of Christ, manifested in the sacraments, impels me into twinning relationships (See 2 Corinthians 5:14).
This sharing in Christ’s priesthood in ordination did not come to me for my own benefit. It came to me for the good of the Church. By it and through me, Christ has chosen to give life to his Church. It comes to me as a charge and responsibility. It says to me, “Go out and enter into relationships with God’s people. Relate to them as an older brother. Twin with them in the faith you share.”
The sharing in Christ’s priesthood through baptism did not come to any of us for personal benefit. The baptism that each of us has received came to each of us for the good of the whole Church. By baptism, Christ has called each and all of us into relationship, or twinning, with each other, whether we live in Versailles, Ansonia, West Milton, Europe, Mexico or any place else.
This relationship builds itself on mutuality, on what we share. We share human life, divine faith, belief in the Catholic faith. We have these things in common. In addition, each of us has individual gifts that we bring into this relationship, just as we have individual gifts we bring into other human relationships. Husbands and wives, for instance, bring differing gifts to marriage and family.
What we share, we receive back. What we hoard, we lose (See, for instance, Luke 9:24-25). The twinning relationship, like any other mutual relationship, does not involve money. Rather, it involves the total person because it involves love. Because husband and wife share family and love family, they spend money on each other and family. If they have to count how much each has received from the other, the relationship will probably end in divorce.
Five times over the past five years, in person-to-person contact, a group representing our parishes has interacted with a group representing the Diocese of Puerto Escondido. We have come to know each other. We have learned, each from the others, many things. We have shared culture. We have share intimately in the religious and sacrament lives of each other. Those of us who went to Mexico have shared in an ordination to the priesthood, an ordination to the office of bishop, confirmations, Fifteenth Year Blessings and many celebrations of the Eucharist. Those who came up to visit here experienced the wealth of the Relic Chapel at Maria Stein and Masses in English and Spanish. They also enjoyed our Poultry Days and shopping trips.
Has twinning cost the parish money? We have taken up three annual collections for missionary work in Puerto Escondido. We did take up a collection when a hurricane inflicted itself upon the people of the region. We did ask for help to defray expenses, but all this we have done by asking for voluntary donations. We spent money in a spirit of mutuality, much the way dating couples spend money on each other (See 2 Corinthians 8:13-15).
Let us return to the sacramental bases for twinning. God has given us all a share in the redeeming work of Christ in baptism. God has made us all into the Body of Christ in a more intimate union than that of the parts, limbs and organs of our human body. God has shared with us holy things and holy people, indeed, God’s own holiness. This sharing in holiness we call the communion of saints, where saints means holy people and holy things, holiness. If we do not share this, then we have a state of ex-communion.
The communion of saints speaks of relationships, connections among people, sharing lives and faith. It speaks of mutuality, of twinning. It has its basis in the work of Christ, who emptied himself for us and took on our humanness so that he could bring us into perfect relationship with his Father (See Philippians 2:1-11).