News from P.I.T. (Pastor in Training)
From the Pastor’s Desk
March 7 – Third Sunday of Lent
Today is the Third Sunday of Lent. This Sunday and the next two Sunday’s we celebrate the SCRUTINIES with those who will be baptized this year at the Easter Vigil. And while I write about the Scrutinies every year at this time, a reminder might be helpful. Even if these rites are not celebrated at the liturgy you attend, it can be wonderful to reflect upon the journey the Elect, those preparing for baptism at the Easter Vigil, as an inspiration and source of renewal for us in our journey. At the Mass the Scrutinies are celebrated, the A cycle of the Sunday readings are used. This week, the woman at the well, next week the man born blind, and the following week, Lazarus being raised from the dead.
These are ancient rites and they may, at first, seem strange to us. But they are profoundly rooted in our human experience. We need to examine (scrutinize) the areas of our lives where we are tempted, or seriously in, in what we do and what we fail to do. We really need healing and the strength that can come from the support of our sisters and brothers.
Unfortunately this year, due to the COVID pandemic, we have not been able to conduct the RCIA as it usually is done. Missing has been the group coming to Mass together and after the homily being dismissed to gather together and reflect deeper on the Word of God they just heard. The formation sessions have been held through Zoom instead of gathering each week in person. So, you have not had the opportunity to see those who are preparing for baptism and those preparing to be received into the Church. So, in these final weeks of preparation, I ask you to intentionally keep them in your prayers.
At this time of year, some households get turned upside down for the annual ritual of spring cleaning. More zealous housekeepers go to great extents. Bedding is taken outside and aired, bed springs rinsed of the year’s dust. Floors are waxed, rugs and furniture vacuumed, windows washed, nook and crannies dusted. Lent is our spiritual spring cleaning. We are called to go again to the center of our faith – our share in Christ’s death and resurrection. We are asked to examine how our conviction and practice may have gathered dust during the past year (especially since when have been dispensed from the obligation to attend Sunday Mass during the COVID pandemic). It is only human for us to get complacent, to slack off, to compromise with evil, to get comfortable with our sins. Do we really have to take out all the furniture for an airing? Yes, we do!
Have a blessed Lent!
Father Don
From the Pastor’s Desk
February 28 – Second Sunday of Lent
How easy do you find it to trust in God? I don’t know about you, but there have been times in my life that I have found it difficult to trust in God, believing that He really has a plan. When I have to conduct the funeral of a parent leaving behind small children, or the funeral of a teen who died by suicide or a drug overdose, I find myself asking God a lot of questions. Trusting in the paradoxes of God is challenging! For example, in today’s first reading from Genesis, Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac appears to make no sense at all. The promise to the patriarch seems to be in jeopardy since Abraham can realize the blessing of a great posterity only through Isaac. God’s command is apparently counterproductive. In this account however, the author informs us that this entire actions is designed as a divine testing. It is meant to evoke the patriarch’s wholehearted commitment to God. Abraham thus emerges as the paragon of faith and trust. He learns, painfully perhaps, that we are called to trust in the paradoxes of God.
In the second reading Paul also struggles with trust in divine paradox. He speaks of God as one who did not spare his own Son but handed him over to death for the sake of all humanity. Paul then quickly adds the human trust component to this paradox of live via death. If God has acted in this seemingly bizarre way, the “how will he not also give us everything else along with him?” Paul captures the depth of divine paradox in the death and resurrection of Jesus to elicit human trust in One who apparently does not go by the book! We are called to trust in the paradoxes of God.
The early Christian community saw Good Friday as the great paradox. The kingdom so eloquently proclaimed by Jesus was obviously in jeopardy, if not already snuffed out. However, Mark in today’s Gospel uses the transfiguration to establish the divine paradox. Jesus had earlier enunciated the plan of passion, death, and resurrection. In the transfiguration story, the three disciples share in the divine revelation yet come away discussing the meaning of resurrection. For Mark, the transfiguration makes sense only on the grounds that one presupposes the resurrection follows only after suffering and death. In Mark too, we are called to trust in the paradoxes of God.
The Eucharist provides a fitting setting for the theme of the paradoxes of God. It is the paradox that Jesus’ dying can lead to Jesus’ being raised. The bread and the wine become the symbols of divine paradox. They challenge us to transcend the world of effort and results to accept a God of concern who writes straight with crooked lines. In the Eucharist, too, WE are called to trust in the paradoxes of God!
Have a blessed Lent!
Father Don
From the Pastor’s Desk
February 21 – First Sunday of Lent
This Wednesday I begin a six-week reflection and discussion series “Living Your Baptism in Lent.” It is held on Wednesdays from 7:00pm – 8:30pm. You can participate in person or via zoom. Registration is on the parish website.
So why discuss baptism in Lent? Most people think of Lent as a time of penance, giving up some pleasure, going to confession, fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. Lent is that, but it is also more. Lent is also a time for the faithful to PREPARE to renew your baptismal promises on Easter Sunday. Most people give little thought to their baptismal promises because most people were baptized as infants and your parents and godparents made the baptismal promises for you at a time you were not cognizant of the meaning of those promises. When you were baptized, your parents and godparents said “yes” for you to the following questions:
• Do you reject sin so as to live in the freedom of God’s children?
• Do you reject the glamour of evil, and refuse to be mastered by sin?
• Do you reject Satan, the father of sin and prince of darkness?
• Do you believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth?
• Do you believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord who was born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified, died and was buried, rose from the dead, and is now seated at the right hand of the Father?
• Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting?
The question then as we have grown up is how well each of us have understood, embraced and lived those promises that were once made for us by our parents and godparents? The Lenten theme of conversion is also an important part of our understanding of Baptism. Conversion is a LIFELONG process and Lent helps us to remember that. Lent is about responding to the grace of Baptism. Lent is a time to intentionally respond to God’s call. At our baptism we were given the Holy Spirit. Lent invites us to consider the movement of the Holy Spirit already in us.
Whether you are able to join my presentations and discussion, use the above questions to reflect on your baptism this Lent, and be PREPARED to renew YOUR baptismal promises this Easter.
Have a blessed week!
Father Don
From the Pastor’s Desk
February 14 – Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time
In addition to today being the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, it is also World Marriage Sunday. How appropriate – Valentine’s Day! I will share with you some points about the day from the Secretariat of Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops:
- The readings for today highlight our need for Jesus as the Divine Physician. The Old Testament reading from Leviticus lays out the law for those who have contracted leprosy: such persons would be declared unclean, turned out from society, and made to live apart from others in efforts not to spread the disease. If a person were to touch a leper, they would then be declared unclean as well, facing the same restrictions.
- Jesus, “moved with pity…stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, ‘I do will it. Be made clean.” The act of Jesus actually touching a leper would have shocked those around him. Love reaches out and touches others. Jesus touches this man, regardless of the risk of being ostracized himself. True love does not count the cost. Jesus gives all for all, unreservedly because his love knows no limits.
- Every marriage is meant to be a little icon of the love of Christ and his bride, the Church. The love shared between a man and a woman in holy matrimony points us to the self-emptying, self-sacrificing love God has for each one of us.
- The promises that married couples make to each other illustrate what this love looks like lived out in the day to day experience: to have and to hold, exclusively, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, to cherish, to honor until death. A person gives everything to his or her spouse.
- The continuation of living life amid a global pandemic may have some married couples reflecting that this has been a season of “for worse, for poorer, and in sickness.” There are many married couples who are suffering right now: marital strain, illness, unemployment, etc. The sacrament of marriage provides the grace necessary to weather the storms of marriage and family life.
On this World Marriage Day, I thank all married couples for the witness of their sacrificial love “to have, to hold, to honor”!
Have a blessed week!
Father Don
From the Pastor’s Desk
February 7 – Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Why me? That is the universal question everyone asks when faced with suffering! That suffering can be physical with a terminal diagnosis. That suffering can be the loss of a job or home. That suffering can be the emotional pain and grief of losing a loved one or a divorce. That suffering can be the loss of broken family relationship. The list can go on and on. And “why me” seldom if ever leads to a satisfying answer. And so today we hear of the plight of the Old Testament figure, Job.
At the time of Job, suffering was seen as punishment for sin. It still is by many today. In the time of Job, there was no understanding of an afterlife of happiness, and hence no hope of God’s “making it up to you” for suffering. This compounds Job’s misery. He has lost the only happiness he thinks possible – in spite of being a good and righteous man. It seemed that God was punishing him for no reason at all.
As Christians, we are taught to live by faith, and usually we do. When doubt casts a shadow over our faith, it’s especially unsettling. We feel a second loss – loss of confidence in the faith we counted on. However, doubt IS NOT THE SIGN OF A WEAK FAITH OR A SINFUL SPIRIT. It’s NOT an insult to God, nor is it an act of disloyalty. Pope Francis wrote that “trusting in God does not mean never arguing with Him.” Thomas Merton wrote, “Faith means doubt. Faith is not the suppression of doubt. It is the overcoming of doubt, and you overcome doubt by going through it.” Paul Tillich wrote, “Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; it is an element OF faith.” In other words, do not doubt that God can handle your doubt, whether occasioned by suffering or by something else.
The valuable question about our personal suffering is not “why?” Instead the valuable and practical questions is, “What am I going to do with it?” We can chose the “woe is me” path, or we can chose, like the suffering of Christ himself, to accept and offer our suffering WITH Christ and then our suffering has the power to accomplish good. When suffering comes your way, and it will, pray to God for the grace to offer your sufferings for the good of others.
Today Boy Scout Sunday is celebrated. We look forward to the time when our Cub and Boy Scout Troops sponsored by Our Lady of Mercy can meet again at OLM.
Ash Wednesday is two weeks away. Please remember to pre-register to attend a Mass or Scripture Service. Also, due to COVID, the sign of the cross with ashes will not be traced on your forehead. Instead, ashes will be sprinkled like a “pinch of salt” on top of your head.
Have a blessed week!
Father Don