A Word from Your Pastor - October 19

Dear Parishioners:

Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.  This is the central advice Jesus offers us in regard to discernment of how we spend our resources and how we respond to the world around us.  As the Gospel account of today’s Mass shows, this world places demands on us as it supplies the coin by which we pay the taxes that are due.  So, too, God reveals to us that He wants back from us what He has given.  He wants us to return to Him the gift we have received.

At the present moment, once again, the teachings of our Catholic Faith are held up for scrutiny and often ridicule.  How do you respond to this?  We are entrusted with the Truth.  Our Church has endured and held fast to the Truth across two millennia.  The martyrs of every age have given their lives in witness to the Truth.  Even in our day, there are men and women and children who sacrifice their lives because they refuse to deny Jesus, Who IS the Way, the Truth and the Life.

In this time of testing, I invite you and your family to hold fast to a witness of the Faith.  Although you may have to endure ridicule for your fidelity, know that the prize is greater than this suffering.  God is worth your life.  The Church is teaching the Truth, often a Truth that is unpopular, but that remains true nonetheless.  Don’t be fooled by the media.  The Church has one purpose in the world: to witness to the Truth.  Those who hear the voice of Jesus seek the Truth.

The Synod in Rome is a gathering of representatives from the whole world.  This Synod is not re-defining our Faith.  Its purpose is to work together with the Holy Father, Pope Francis, to find a way to speak the Message of the Gospel to families in order to lift them up.  The results of this year’s gathering will set the agenda for another Synod that will meet next year.  It will also likely help to shape the content of the Gathering of Families that will take place next year in Philadelphia.  In the meantime, it invites all of us to hear the Gospel and to put it into practice with the family in mind.  How is your family creating a culture of Faith?  Have you begun to listen to the voice of the Shepherd?  How do you spend your resources?  Do you give to God what is God’s?