To be people of faith (Fr. Ernest Larken), for the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

  History challenges us at this moment. If we’re just going to talk about the past, then we’re indulging in nostalgia. If the past challenges the present moment, then the past comes alive and the remembrance is dynamic and living. [On this Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel,] we are challenged to live the way God seems to be calling us to live in this day – very much like our Blessed Mother who was a woman of faith. Mary is the perfect model of a woman of faith who constantly accepted what happened to her, not unthinkingly, not without processing and trying to figure out what God is doing and saying, but always accepting the reality with trust and with hope.

   Like Mary, we are called to be contemplative and prophetic. These are big words and they may frighten us, but they translate into being people of faith who are willing to work for a better world right now. Not only in the next world but right now as well. And we have as our inspiration and model and support the great Lady who was so prayerful and yet was also a strong woman who said that God was siding with the poor and casting down the mighty and building up the lowly. That’s where we want to be. May this celebration encourage us to be people of faith who are willing to work as Mary did.

--Fr. Ernest Larken, O. Carm.

Happy Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel,

the Patroness of our parish!

Image source: Br. Mickey McGrath, Magnificat, available for purchase in many forms (prints, mugs, etc.) at: https://www.trinitystores.com/artwork/magnificat
Quotation source