A Word from Your Pastor September 16

Being Catholic is a great gift.  At times, due to the “bad publicity” and the “scandals” that are in the news, we can be tempted to doubt this gift.  At such times, we need to remember and to remind ourselves about the central aspects of our Faith: our Creed, the Sacramental Life we share, the Call to Holiness (through the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes), and the Life of Prayer that puts us in contact with God Who IS Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

There is no other Faith or Religion that has these elements in fullness.  We may not always live up to them, but they are our birthright – the Life that is given to us through Baptism.  If we attend to history, we will recognize that each one of these has been discovered through the course of the ages, going all the way back to our Jewish roots, and made ever more explicit through the Life of Jesus and the Salvation History lived out in the Church.

Relying on God, we can be renewed in our awareness of the gift of Faith and in our commitment to be a living sign of the truth of the Gospel.  We acknowledge our complicity in sin and our trust in the Mercy of God that frees us from sin, making available to us the Salvation won for us by Jesus Christ.

Sins committed by members of our own family impact us more and are more painful for us since we know we are called to do better.  It is so also with the Church.  On the other hand, there are times when we do show our best face to the world around us and serve as the witness of sacrificial Love that is ours in Jesus Christ.

The celebration of the Blue Mass, sponsored by our Knights of Columbus Council #14345, was a wonderful reminder to us of our capacity to witness to the wider community the finer instincts in all of us.  It was an honor to have so many members of the various organizations of first response, as well as Bishop Frederick Campbell, at St. Timothy.  Thanks to the Knights for their effort to bring this about.