A Word from Your Pastor - November 9 Dedication of St. John Lateran

Dear Parishioners:

Just in case you have not noticed, life at St. Timothy Parish and School is incredibly full and busy.  We have our usual meetings and gatherings of all the groups and the ordinary activities associated with parish and school.  We have also experienced many deaths of loved ones in our community and beyond, with the funerals and luncheons that offer consolation and support.  Our children are entering into fervent preparation for the Sacraments – First Reconciliation, Confirmation and First Holy Communion.  We are also doing “catch-up” for children who have not received Sacraments and whose families are renewing their efforts to train their children in the ways of Faith.

All of this is prelude to my admission of the fact that I have been personally harried by the busy-ness.  If you have contacted me (or tried to) and you have not heard back from me, I assure you that it is nothing personal.  I try to save messages that I pick up by e-mail or phone to respond when there is a lull.  But I don’t always manage to keep track of my lists of messages.  Sorry!  If you need something, please do keep trying.  After Mass on a Sunday is not a good time for anything but general information.  My mind does not hold all the little details the way it once did!  Email is the best way.  It sits in my “In” box until I get to it.  (Current count is 215 messages, down from 500 or so a day ago.)

When we are busy, we need to recollect ourselves and remember just why we do what we do.  What is the most important to us may get lost in the details of the busy-ness of our lives.  The Feast of St. John Lateran, which we observe today, is a reminder that we are God’s Temple as a community of believers.  The Basilica of St. John in the Lateran is the Cathedral of the Diocese of Rome, the mother church of all churches.  As we recall this structure and its history, we seek to build up our own parish and to share the Good News of the Kingdom with one another.  The primary reason for our existence as a Parish and a School is to promote the growth of God’s Kingdom.

The Opening Prayer of Mass today offers a wonderful vision:  “O God, who from living and chosen stones prepare an eternal dwelling for your majesty, increase in your Church the spirit of grace you have bestowed, so that by new growth your faithful people may build up the heavenly Jerusalem.” May we cooperate with the grace God gives in answer to this prayer.

Today, also, we welcome the New Evangelization Club of the Pontifical College Josephinum, who along with members of our own parish Evangelization Committee, will literally take the Gospel to our streets.  May we all learn to cooperate with the breath of the Spirit and to be the witnesses God calls us to be.