A Word from Your Pastor - September 22

Dear Parishioners:
 
As I write this column, my Mother, Elaine Hayes, is facing heart surgery.  The current plan – which changes according to the “numbers” of various tests – is for a mid-week operation.  Whatever happens, this will be a week that changes the life of my family dramatically.  If all goes well, Mom will have a long rehab.  If it goes otherwise, my family will be facing a new situation in our own experience of family life.  It all depends on God’s plan for us.  In a wonderful way, we are “ready” for whatever that plan may be.  [As it turned out, no surgery took place this week.  Mom's breathing was not up to par for major surgery.  The current plan is to do one stent on Monday and to hope that offers some relief. She will have to be stronger for anything more and how to get there is the question at hand.]

When I was 4 years old, my little sister Becky died at the age of 3, on December 12, 1963.  It was a devastating loss for my parents.  At the time, there were three of us “kids”: myself, my sister Becky and my brother Chuck.  After Becky died, my mother gave birth to my sister Susan in January 1964.  Following that, the rest were boys: Jeff, David, Kevin, Steven and Bill.  We were a family of eight on earth and one sister, Becky, in heaven.  Mom told me that ever since the death of Becky, she has not been afraid to die.  That is part of the reason why we feel “ready” for whatever the Lord’s plan may be.  The realization that Heaven awaits and that we have family here and there is a wonderful aspect of our Catholic Faith.

Mom has been in the hospital off and on since July 24th, with a two-week stay at Whetstone, and just a couple of days at home before a return to the hospital August 24th.  She celebrated her 76th Birthday on August 31 in her hospital room.  In that time, we have experienced much support from you and from many, and we are grateful.  We ask for your continued remembrance of our family in your prayers.  Mom said how grateful is and she said she would use what she needed of those prayers and then share them with any others who needed them.  That reminded me of her mother, my Grandma Keeley, who prayed three rosaries every day, one for me, one for the rest of the family, and one for anyone else who needed it.  Shared prayer is a great gift, and the awareness of the power of prayer to sustain us and to give us strength is a powerful help along life’s journey whatever its turns.

This past week, also, the priests of the Diocese of Columbus have had a convocation with Bishop Campbell at Mohican.  My own participation was limited by my Mom’s situation, but I am sure that we will all hear about matters of consequence for the parish and the Diocese.  We are part of a community of Faith that is interdependent with the Church throughout the world.  Our bishop and the pope remind us that we must not be too parochial in our way of thinking.  [Due to my Mother's situation, I did not get to participate in the convocation.  I was with my family and spent most of my time in the hospital room where Mom has been since September 12th.]

So, the invitation of the week is open our minds and hearts to the bigger picture.  We have to keep Eternity in mind, since death will come to us all.  We also have to realize that we are part of a world that needs our witness of Faith.

 

 

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.

CHAPTER THREE     MAN’S RESPONSE TO GOD

ARTICLE 1          I BELIEVE      III. The Characteristics of Faith

Faith is a grace        153 When St. Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus declared to him that this revelation did not come “from flesh and blood,” but from “my Father who is in heaven.”  (Matthew 16:17; cf. Galatians 1:15; Matthew 11:25.) Faith is a gift of God, a supernatural virtue infused by him. “Before this faith can be exercised, man must have the grace of God to move and assist him; he must have the interior helps of the Holy Spirit, who moves the heart and converts it to God, who opens the eyes of the mind and ‘makes it easy for all to accept and believe the truth.’” (Dei Verbum 5; cf. Denzinger-Schonmetzer 377; 3010.)

Faith is a human act           154 Believing is possible only by grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit. But it is no less true that believing is an authentically human act. Trusting in God and cleaving to the truths he has revealed are contrary neither to human freedom nor to human reason. Even in human relations it is not contrary to our dignity to believe what other persons tell us about themselves and their intentions or to trust their promises (for example, when a man and a woman marry) to share a communion of life with one another. If this is so, still less is it contrary to our dignity to “yield by faith the full submission of... intellect and will to God who reveals,”  (Dei Filius 3: Denzinger-Schonmetzer 3008.) and to share in an interior communion with him.

155 In faith, the human intellect and will cooperate with divine grace: “Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace.”  (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II, 2, 9; cf. Dei Filius 3: Denzinger-Schonmetzer 3010.)

Comment:  The Year of Faith has been a journey of reflection on both the content and the act of Faith.  As we draw toward its close, it is fitting that the area proposed for our attention is the act of Faith itself.  This serves as an invitation to renew the commitment with a new depth of understanding.  How will you renew your own commitment of Faith?

 

Focolare Word of Life for September 2013: 

“Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” (1 Jn 3:18)

http://www.focolare.org/en/news/category/parola-di-vita/