A Word from Your Pastor - September 6

Dear Parishioners:

The themes unfolding for this season in the life of our Parish and School are Faith, Family and Mercy.  Faith is our very reason for existing as a Parish and a School.  We believe in Jesus Christ.  He is our Lord and our Savior.  He is the source of our strength and His Love is the power behind all that we are and do.

How do you and your Family reveal to one another and to the world around us that Faith is your center?  The Catholic Church offers us clear teachings that help us to ensure that our Friendship with Jesus is visible.

Mass on Sunday is the first priority that every Catholic Family ought to have.  It is not an optional part of the practice of the Faith.  If you think it is optional or if anyone ever gave you the impression that it is not important, now is the time to rethink your understanding.  To consider it not necessary or option would be like deciding whether you want to put gasoline in your car engine or not.  The Catholic community gathers and receives its power from Jesus in the Mass.  Other means are available to supplement this as needed, but there is no substitute.

Do you want your children to obey the 4^th Commandment (Honor your father and mother)?  They you must honor the Lord by obedience as a family to the 3^rd Commandment (Keep Holy the Sabbath—that is, for Catholics, attend Mass on Sunday and on all Holy Days of Obligation).  Faith is “caught, not taught.”  Your children need to see you practicing your Faith in very ordinary and practical ways.

Faith also requires that parents fulfill the promises they and the godparents made at the Baptism of their children: to raise the children in the ways of Faith.  What forms of prayer and devotion does your family have?  This needs to be an ordinary part of everyday life.  It ought to be part of your daily routine, just as care for the body and the emotional life of your family is something you attend to each day.  Do you feed and clothe your children?  Do you give them a place to live?  Do you smile and hug and affirm them?  Do you scold them and correct them for misbehavior when necessary?  So you are also responsible to nourish them spiritually, to clothe them in Christ.

Beyond the family, the domestic Church, you are part of the Universal Church as it is manifested locally, as part of St. Timothy Parish and the Diocese of Columbus.  Faith takes us out of ourselves into the neighborhood and into our shared efforts to care for our brothers and sisters.  We are also called to care for the environment, planet Earth, which is our common home. Faith has something to say about this.

We are called to be a Community of Welcome and a Community that enters into the tasks of the New Evangelization.  How are you responding to what the Spirit is saying to the Churches?