A Word from Your Pastor - September 28

Dear Parishioners:

Our children are the hope of the future.  They are entrusted to us for a time, but they grow up and then their children become their hope.  In times past, the whole community was aware of this and cooperated in direct and sometimes more subtle ways to ensure that truth and values were communicated in a clear way to our children.  That system is gone.

Now, our children are exposed to many different visions of the world.  As a Parish, through our School and through our Parish School of Religion (PSR), we strive to teach our children the values of our Faith and to initiate them into a practice of the Faith that helps to keep them in touch with the deeper values we have received as our inheritance.

The problem we have now is that Faith is often treated as something optional.  Practice of religion is seen as something merely private and personal.  Quite the opposite is true.  We need to put our Faith into practice so that we can continue to be in touch with the resources that a living relationship with God offers us and so that we can witness to the prior right of God in our lives.  Practice of our religion and the effort to meet the obligations we have ought to be a priority.

Many of our children are receiving an ambiguous witness concerning Faith.  If they are sent to a Catholic School or enrolled in PSR or involved in Youth Group, then they have some resources at their disposal that their peers may not have.  That is good.  However, if there is not a consistent family practice of the Faith, those advantages may disappear. Parents are the first teachers of their children in the ways of Faith.  In the Rite of Baptism, we pray that they may be the best of teachers, living and acting in such a way as to share Faith with their children.

How are you doing as a family?  Is every member of your family worshiping God on Sunday?  Catholics do this through the weekly celebration of Sunday Mass.  This is not an optional part of practice of the Faith.  It is essential.  If families send their children to learn about the Faith but fail to attend Mass each weekend, they cause confusion.

In October, we do a count of all who are present at Mass.  You are invited to be counted among those present each week.

Our efforts to promote the New Evangelization also continue this year.  Seminarians from the Pontifical College Josephinum and some of our own parishioners are planning a neighborhood visit Sunday, October 5th.  Are you ready to share your Faith?