Bishop Reed: Work on the fundamentals

By MICHAEL O’CONNELL 

CFP Correspondent 

 It’s that time of year again. Spring, Lent and the start of the baseball season are frequent topics of discussion in mid-March – and the convergence isn’t lost on clergyman Robert Reed. 

“At the beginning of the baseball season, the coach has to bring players back to basics,” Bishop Reed, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Boston, told the virtual audience at the 20th annual Worcester Diocesan Catholic Men’s Conference on March 20. “Just to remind them of the three-point stance, the mechanics of throwing, the timing of the swing, the importance of keeping your eye on the ball. It doesn’t matter how great a season a player had last year. He has to begin spring training with the basics because, before you can do anything spectacular out there, you have to have the simple, elemental things down. 

“Well,” Bishop Reed added, “the same is true in the spiritual life. Lent is a time for us to get tuned up – to get back to the basics. To learn again the fundamentals, so we can become saints.” 

Bishop Reed delivered a mid-afternoon talk called “O God, Just Give Me One More Chance.” While the title may sound like a player begging to pinch hit, the bishop cast himself more as a coach, trying to prime the men sitting in front of their computers to up their games. Bishop Reed’s presentation covered a lot of points, starting with his devotion to Catholicism and extending to our “marvelous act of friendship” with Jesus, the sanctity of confession, and an open call for younger men to consider entering the priesthood (“it’s fun”). 

All he ever wanted to do was to become a parish priest, he said. 

“I don’t know about you, but I just love being a Catholic,” Bishop Reed said, dropping hints of the Boston accent he picked up growing up in Swampscott. “I love the music, I love the stained-glass windows, I love the smells, I love the Latin, I love the history, I love the ritual, I love the nuns, I love the Pope.” 

After being ordained as a priest in 1985, Bishop Reed branched out into broadcasting. Since the 1980s, he has presented a weekly radio program that airs on Sunday mornings, “The Catholic Hour.” He later became the president of the CatholicTV Network and CEO of iCatholic Media Inc. 

As a priest, TV host and conference presenter, Bishop Reed talks regularly about sin and faith. These two concepts were front and center in his men’s conference presentation. 

“If there’s anything I’m deeply qualified to talk about, it’s sin,” he said. “Sin enslaves me.” Sin, he added, enslaves us all. It produces compelling desires, he said, and it will damn us unless we “allow grace to intervene.” 

“Recognize that our savior is to be desired more than anything in the world,” Bishop Reed said. “If we really choose to turn our backs on him in a small way or more deadly ways, we always have access to his grace. When our sins are forgiven, we are freed from both the damnation and the domination. We are freed indeed, and that’s what Jesus wants to offer you.” 

Bishop Reed said faith, in effect, is like skydiving. It’s an exhilarating activity that requires a series of commitments before making a giant leap out of a plane. You have to free your inhibitions step by step – undergoing training, trusting that your parachute is packed properly, getting yourself to the airport, boarding the plane and then, finally, jumping. 

If any one of those steps isn’t followed – fully – you don’t jump.  

“To be fully free indeed, Jesus Christ must set you free. We have no man-made parachute. What we do have is a savior and a dear friend. Because he died for us, there’s an amazing grace available for us,” Bishop Reed said. 

His parting words of advice were to bone up on fundamentals – to prepare for a long, challenging, fulfilling season. 

“God didn’t inspire you to be part of this conference today just to give you information,” Boston’s auxiliary bishop said. “He is extending an invitation. Trust him. He died and rose again to make you free indeed. Treasure his friendship. It’s real. He wants you and me to live our lives in a state of grace.”