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This link will keep 'parishioners-at-large' in touch with current creative liturgy sources and resources that respect a variety of 'traditions' within the Church.

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Daily Scripture

+ 20th Week in Ordinary Time

I’ll do it myself.

Readings: Ezekiel 34:1-11 Psalm 23:1-6 Matthew 20:1-16

Therefore, shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: because my shepherds did not look after my sheep, but pastured themselves and did not pasture my sheep, I will claim my sheep from them and put a stop to their shepherding my sheep. I will save my sheep, that they may no longer be food for their mouths. [Ezekiel 34:10]

There is much talk about a vocation shortage—fewer young men entering the seminary and fewer still persevering to ordination. Not withstanding some notable exceptions this has resulted in the lowering of standards for ordination. Moreover, priests and candidates for the priesthood are being ‘imported’ from other countries whose needs are as urgent as ours.

The prevailing accent seems to be on the need to have a sufficient number of priests to ‘say Mass’ and provide for the sacramental needs of the faithful. But surely in the light of the Second Vatican Council, priests need to be more than presiders at Mass and providers of the sacraments, as important as are these roles.

The earliest experience of the Church can be instructive in this regard. The notion of presbyter provided the early church with presiders for worship and leaders for base communities. Celibacy was not an issue and there was no clerical caste. The gifts of the faithful were recognized in such a manner that men and women, married and single fulfilled the spiritual needs of the community including the sacramental needs.

Notwithstanding the inadequacy of the notion of shepherding people (sheeple?) the need remains for qualified men and women to minister to the needs of the community.

Ezekiel warned the priests and assured the people of Israel that God would find away to pasture his people.

Ezekiel’s words need to be taken to heart again and in fact we already see that God is indeed providing a way through the action of the Holy Spirit in the lives of men and women, married and single, who are tending to the needs of the faithful.

Quiet Love

Thursday February 21, 2008

This poem in prose was composed by me as my annual Christmas message and greeting but the Spirit did not move my soul until the feast of the Baptism of Jesus. And so my Christmas ‘cards’ did not get to the post office until two weeks ago! I share it now with my website visitors. It is entitled, ‘Quiet Love.’

_______

When I was a child,
I used to think of God as an old man
high in the sky
with a long white beard stretching over the earth,
sweeping silk silver-lined clouds.
A sort of Santa Claus—a gentle soul
but not adverse to “making a list and checking it twice
to find out who’s naughty or nice.”

Such talk among adults is silly isn’t it? —fodder for Gnostics or agnostics and even atheists? Perhaps, but I think God enjoys a bit of banter now and then.
And I suspect that God is often amused
at the attempts of great and small,
of prophets, priests and popes among them
to pin on God a personality
and put words in God’s mouth
as if such were possible
though I do believe artists and poets have come close
in their playful pursuit to depict
the movement of love through the lens of ancient sages
down through the ages—quiet love.

‘The Great Mystery’
is the name our Native American ancestors
gave to God because they knew
God is mysteriously part of everything and everyone—quiet love
penetrating the depths of eternity from one end to the other
birthing us to life
at every moment—day and night.

I believe that Jesus gave birth to God in humanity
uniquely as no one else in human history—as movement, as life, as goodness,
as love.
I think of Jesus as the incarnation of ‘quiet love.’

I think too of all the people confined to silence, not by choice,
in cells of solitude, prisoners of their body
the windows of their minds closed to the familiar faces of yesterday.
Quiet love silenced by the slow deterioration of the mind
or worse, empty souls, searching for someone to love,

And the many who have lost their way on lonely streets
or in caves of dark despair
waiting for quiet love to free them from the isolation of insignificance
or the dysfunction of worthlessness or ironically, iconic vanity.
Waiting for quiet love to touch them.

Meanwhile the pundits preach
from pulpits, of their political superiority
a gospel of narcissism to be sure,
spreading their feathers like pheasants looking for a mate —and a vote.

And what of the evangelical ‘merchants’ with gold rings
in search of fine pearls instead of tending to lost sheep
bruised by wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Stealthy ‘guardians’ of sound doctrine and dogma
stern monitors of stoic rites and rituals
moved more by fear of the unknown than by awe of the Mystery,
assuring firm adherence to rules and rubrics
that harken back to other ages—the dark ages
lest they be quickened by a new movement of the Spirit
God Spirit—quiet love.

Yet quiet love seeps through the cracks and crevices
of ancient times and places
and over time we come to know our origin
and our destiny
in quiet love—
that will not be silenced.
c Kenneth E Lasch 2008