A Word from Your Pastor - March 17

A Word from Your Pastor

Dear Parishioners:

Annuntio Vobis Gaudeam Magnum: Habemus Papam!  I announce to you a great joy: We have a Pope!  The Cardinal Electors have chosen as our new Holy Father: Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, S.J., Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina.  May God bless him in his new ministry and may we all see the Love of God revealed in the human face of the Universal Pastor.  May he be a gentle and loving shepherd who mirrors God’s compassion for His People.  He has taken the name Francis.  Let us pray for Pope Francis and for the whole Church.

As we enter into a new era in the life of the Church, it is fitting for us to renew our own commitment to be faithful to the ministries entrusted to us as individuals and as a community united in the Faith.  As your Pastor, I renew my own priestly commitment with my brother priests and with the Bishop each year at the Chrism Mass.  Many communities choose a time during Easter or on a special feast to make such a renewal.  Are you willing to take this step as a member of the Body of Christ?

Commitment to the Church is experienced by most of the faithful through the life of a local parish.  We belong to God and He entrusts us to one another through the life we share as members of this expression of Christian community.  Membership has its privileges – and its responsibilities.  We are responsible to and for one another.

In this Season of Lent and in this Year of Faith as we enter into a new Pontificate, I invite you and your family to consider your commitment to your parish.  Have you truly given all you have to offer to your brothers and sisters through a sharing of time, talent and financial resources? 

Do you believe God and Church are as deserving of your time as all your other pursuits?

Do you have gifts that would benefit members of the parish or others through the ministries of outreach we do as a parish, and are you freely sharing them?

Do you evaluate your generosity to Stewardship and to the many possible charities and give regularly?

In these days when we have been in the news, we have all be faced with the world’s way of seeing us and judging us in our life as Catholics.  Sadly, at times, we are more influenced by this presentation of who we are than we are by what Christ and His Church teach.  Can we look into our hearts and discover anew the call that God has given us to share a gift more valuable than anything else we may possess: our Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ?

Year of Faith October 11, 2012 – November 24, 2013

We continue our journey through the Year of Faith.  As one way of observing this year, each week a small section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is read before the start of Mass.  This is a small way of offering some food for growth in Faith throughout this year.

ARTICLE 2     THE TRANSMISSION OF DIVINE REVELATION

In the apostolic preaching...  76 In keeping with the Lord’s command, the Gospel was handed on in two ways:

— orally “by the apostles who handed on, by the spoken word of their preaching, by the example they gave, by the institutions they established, what they themselves had received—whether from the lips of Christ, from his way of life and his works, or whether they had learned it at the prompting of the Holy Spirit”;  (Dei Verbum 7.)

— in writing “by those apostles and other men associated with the apostles who, under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit, committed the message of salvation to writing.”( Dei Verbum 7.)

...continued in apostolic succession  77 “In order that the full and living Gospel might always be preserved in the Church the apostles left bishops as their successors. They gave them ‘their own position of teaching authority.’”  (Dei Verbum 7§ 2; St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 3, 3, 1: PG 7, 848; Harvey, 2, 9,) Indeed, “the apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, was to be preserved in a continuous line of succession until the end of time.” (Dei Verbum 8 § 1.)  78 This living transmission, accomplished in the Holy Spirit, is called Tradition, since it is distinct from Sacred Scripture, though closely connected to it. Through Tradition, “the Church, in her doctrine, life, and worship perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes.”  (Dei Verbum 8 § 1.) “The sayings of the holy Fathers are a witness to the life-giving presence of this Tradition, showing how its riches are poured out in the practice and life of the Church, in her belief and her prayer.” (Dei Verbum 8 § 3.)  79 The Father’s self-communication made through his Word in the Holy Spirit, remains present and active in the Church: “God, who spoke in the past, continues to converse with the Spouse of his beloved Son. And the Holy Spirit, through whom the living voice of the Gospel rings out in the Church—and through her in the world—leads believers to the full truth, and makes the Word of Christ dwell in them in all its richness.”  (Dei Verbum 8 § 3; cf. Col 3:16.)

Comment: The Revelation which the Church is responsible to hand on is from God Himself.  Since it is given to human beings, it takes the form of human expression: words and actions.  Revelation has God Himself as its source and it is communicated to each generation as human beings do: in oral tradition and in written texts.  Tradition is the act of handing on all that God has made known.  This is guided by the Spirit through the ages so that the full Truth of the Gospel may be received by each generation.  How have you learned the Gospel?  Who has told you about it and whose life has “proven” it to you in through a faithful witness?