A Word from Your Pastor September 23

Humility comes to us in only one way: we must be put in our place.  Humus is the part of the soil – the ground beneath our feet – that is the decomposition of plants and animals that have given up their own life principle.  For us to be made humble, we have to be deconstructed.  Our own shaping of the world around us must correspond not to our own preferences, our wants and desires, but to God’s plan for us.  God’s Will is always for our good.

Humus makes new life possible, because it gathers in for new plants and the animals that feed on them the water and nourishments that allow life to grow.  So when we are humbled, we are cooperating with the grace that God supplies to enable us to grow into the Life that He offers.  We are truly “grounded” in our own being because we rely not on what we have created on our own, but on the building blocks of what God creates us to become.

Is your Faith being challenged?  Are you having to revisit what you thought you had already figured out?  Are you hearing an invitation to allow what is happening around you to humble you?  That is the meaning of the chaos in which we find ourselves these days.  Each one of us must respond to God directly, asking Him to open our minds and hearts to His plan for our lives.

This weekend we begin our Parish School of Religion (P.S.R.).  St. Timothy School has been in session for a full month.  The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (C.G.S.) is also underway.  These educational opportunities are to assist parents in their duty to raise their children in the ways of Faith. 

As our catechetical efforts enter into full swing, all parents are reminded that the only way our children learn and internalize what is taught is to observe it also in their families’ practice of the Faith.  God calls us to be present at Mass each Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation in order to give Him His due.  Gathering as a Christian community, the family of God, hearing the Word, celebrating the Eucharist and being sent forth into the world to share what we have received are our Catholic way of life.  We owe it to God and to our children always to be attentive to our duty.  May we begin this new season well and be a sign to the world of the truth of the Gospel.