The Holy Land Pilgrimage in Review

On Wednesday, July 10th, Father Biju Michael, President, Salesian University of Jerusalem, and Michael Morison, pastoral associate,  presented a PowerPoint slide program with accompanying discussion as a review of the parish pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In June nine parishioners plus six other pilgrims from the East Coast, Ukraine and Jerusalem spent ten days in Israel and Jordan visiting in the "Footsteps of Jesus".  OLMC pilgrims were in attendance at last night's presentation, and shared their experiences with enthusiasm.  Approximately 60 people attended to see photographs of sites throughout the Holy Land.

A second pilgrimage is currently being planned for June 2014.  Eager travelers have already started to consider the upcoming trip and to sign up for further information as it becomes available.  For further information, contact Michael Morison at the Rectory (388-4190 or olmcpa@gmail.com).

Photo source:  S. Morison

Sunday Gospel Reflection, July 14, 2013: Do this and you will live...

Do this and you will live...

What must I do to inherit eternal life?

All of our readings for this Sunday point to a pretty good answer to this question, because, as Moses tells the people in Deuteronomy, what God expects or requires of us is pretty clear:  keep his commandments. And what are his commandments?  They can be summarized in one word:  love.  Love God; love your neighbor.  We already know this – it is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts – we just have to embrace it with all that is in us.  It’s not really about “how much” we love, so much as it is about whether our hearts are open to God and to other, and our mouths are ready to speak the good news with conviction, encouraging all to seek God so that their hearts may revive! (Psalm 69).  And the Letter to the Colossians expands upon our understanding of that good news:  in him all things hold together.  If we are looking for connection, we will find it in Jesus, love expressed perfectly, the consummate example of what it looks like to keep God’s commandments perfectly.  Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God, Paul says – and thus, he is also the image of fullness, God’s desire to share his love with us.

Luke’s Gospel brings this all home explicitly:  Love the Lord your God, and your neighbor as yourself, Jesus tells the scholar of the law.  Do this and you will live.  Jesus illustrates his point with the story of the Good Samaritan, but one wonders if the scholar understands the depth of the answer he is given, which boils down to this:  If you live love to its fullest, you will have life that is greater than just breathing; you will have life that transcends this space and time; indeed, you will begin to enter heaven.  Any animosity toward other is inconsistent with God’s fundamental law of love; the Samaritan clearly knows what God requires of him and is committed to it.  Jesus invites us to greater connection in his exhortation that we strive to live God’s love, an effort that will offer us glimpses of participation of heaven on earth.  Do this and you will live…

This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.

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The Power of Your Name

The Power of Your Name

Lincoln Brewster

Surely children weren't made for the streets

And fathers were not made to leave

Surely this isn't how it should be

Let Your Kingdom come

Surely nations were not made for war

Or the broken meant to be ignored

Surely this just can't be what You saw

Let Your Kingdom come

Here in my heart

And I will live

To carry *Your* compassion

To love a world that's broken

To be Your hands and feet

And I will give

With the life that I've been given

And go beyond religion

To see the world be changed

By the power of Your name

The power of Your name

Surely life wasn't made to regret

And the lost were not made to forget

Surely faith without action is dead

Let Your Kingdom come

Lord break this heart

And I will live

To carry *Your* compassion

To love a world that's broken

To be Your hands and feet

And I will give

With the life that I've been given

And go beyond religion

To see the world be changed

By the power of Your name

Jesus Your name

Is a shelter for the hurting

and Your name

Is a refuge for the weak

Only Your name

Can redeem the undeserving

Jesus Your name

Holds everything I need

And I will live

To carry Your compassion

To love a world that's broken

To be Your hands and feet

And I will give

With the life that I've been given

And go beyond religion

To see this world be changed

By the power of Your name

And I will live

To carry Your compassion

To love a world that's broken

To be Your hands and feet

And I will give

With the life that I've been given

And go beyond religion

To see the world be changed

By the power of Your name

The power of Your name...

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Sunday Gospel Reflection, July 7, 2013: Because of your name...

Because of your name...

It is our very dependence on God – our knowledge of his infinite capacity to care for us, our assurance of our place in God’s heart – that enables us to become laborers for the harvest, bringing the news of God’s kingdom to all.

In the book of the prophet Isaiah, when the people of Israel return from exile, they find a homeland destroyed, a city ruined.  Yet God calls upon them to see God’s capacity to comfort them, to care for them in their need:  as a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you, he tells them.  God invites the people to relationship, meeting their needs with generosity, so that all humanity can, collectively and individually, sing praise to God’s name and recognize God’s tremendous deeds (Psalm 66).  This is the new creation of which Paul speak in his letter to the Galatians:  a state of being in which man is no longer reliant upon worldly values, but rather is wholly dependent on God, finding meaning in the cross of Jesus Christ, knowing that, through Jesus, God brings grace to humanity.

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus sends out the seventy-two on a mission to teach, heal, and preach.  He does so knowing they will act in his name.  Their ability to heal is dependent upon Jesus and is contingent upon their dependence:  God is working through them and in them, healing and casting out demons because of his name.  God similarly works in and through us.  We, too, are called to be in like relationship with God, dependent, knowing with confidence that Jesus is with us as we go out to proclaim (and live) the kingdom of God, today and every day, reaching others with the Word, caring for them with God’s healing love, touching them with our lives, lives dependent on our grace-filled relationship with God.

This post is based on Fr. Pat's scripture class.
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Prayer for the 4th of July

Prayer for the 4th of July

On this Independence Day I am reminded of all those who have sacrificed for my freedom, following the example of your Son, Jesus Christ. Let me not take my freedom, physical or spiritual, for granted. May I always remember that my freedom was purchased at a very high price. My freedom cost others their very lives.

Lord, today, bless those who have served and continue to give their lives for my freedom. With favor and loving kindness, meet their needs and watch over their families.

Help me to live my life in a way that glorifies you, Lord. Give me the strength to be a blessing in someone else's life today, and grant me the opportunity to lead others into the freedom that can be found in knowing Christ.

Amen

Photo source, Text source (St. Paul Catholic Church, Kensington, CT)

The Cost of Discipleship

The Cost of Discipleship

"When he was challenged by Jesus to accept a life of voluntary poverty, the rich young man knew he was faced with the simple alternative of obedience or disobedience. When Levi was called from the receipt of custom and Peter from his nets, there was no doubt that Jesus meant business. Both of them were to leave everything and follow. Again, when Peter was called to walk on the rolling sea, he had to get up and risk his life. Only one thing was required in each case--to rely on Christ's word, and cling to it as offering greater security than all the securities in the world."

"To be called to a life of extraordinary quality, to live up to it, and yet to be unconscious of it is indeed a narrow way."     

--Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship. 

Note:  Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor and theologian who was arrested and executed in a Nazi concentration camp. His book The Cost of Discipleship, centered on the Beatitudes, explores what it means to respond to the call of Christ.  Ultimately, Bonhoeffer’s theology of “costly discipleship” led to his death.

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