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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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A national Catholic lay newspaper covering events not usually covered or presented with a clerical bias in the local diocesan press or but of concern and interest to Catholics.

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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.

Easter Sunday 2008

Sunday March 23, 2008

Too good to be true?

As children of Abraham, “our father in faith,”
we hold in common with believers
of every race and nation,
that God is the origin of life:
eternal blessing,
original blessing,
the one whose unconditional love knows no limit
and has no equal.

As childen of God
we believe that we were loved into being,
creatures of the earth but
“in the image and likeness of God.”
male and female, Jew and gentile,
black and white, yellow and brown,
Greek and Irish, Italian, French, Russian,
Indian, Latino, Korean and African
and therefore that God is our “progenitor”
and because God breathed life into the earth,
the earth is our “mother” and
in the words of St. Francis,
the sun and moon and stars and all the planets
are our sisters and brothers
and we are sisters and brothers to one another too,
each of us unique,
clay in the hands of the potter,
neither clones of God nor clones of the earth,
but deftly designed and carefully crafted,
no two of us alike on the surface
but all of us alike at the core where God dwells;
each of us destined for union with God
in mind and heart, soul and spirit.

Our first parents did not believe it.
“Too good to be true!” they said.
So they sought after another truth,
their own truth; fiction became their fact.
Their sin not that they wanted to be like God
but that they failed to accept their likeness with God.
They chose darkness over light, blindness over sight,
and banished themselves into the exile
of disillusionment and despair.

But that wasn’t good enough for God
who said, “That’s not what I intended
and it’s not what I want.
I loved you into my likeness to know me
to show forth my my goodness,
and to be happy with me forever.”
How could you have missed the point?
Uncreated love creating human love
hoping for love in return in human form;
infinite goodness wanting only the best for humanity
love without measure;
divine wisdom entrusting herself to human habitation
without recompense,
except for the joy that comes in giving.
Divinity and humanity—a perfect combination.

And through the centuries,
God never gave up on this progeny
but spoke to them relentlessly and eloquently,
offering a covenant through Moses on tablets of stone
But the people griped and grumbled,
preferring another exile to a new exodus.

Then God spoke through prophets and priests:
“I will establish a new covenant;
I will write my law on their hearts.
They will know instinctively
that they are mine and that I am theirs.”

Now go back home and rebuild your temple and your homes.
Enjoy the fruit of the land and the work of your hands,
but never forget that the earth is your mother
and I am your Father but we are one,
and remember that all your efforts
are also the work of my hands.

But the people could not feel the gentle beat of God’s heart
and turned again to the beat of their own hearts,
carving for themselves, different idols,
constructing other towers of Babel,
erecting new pillars of pride.

Then God said, “Enough already!”
and sent Jesus to model for the people
what undying love meant by dying for love.
Oh, it’s not that God willed the death of Jesus__
God is not a sadist and Jesus was not a masochist__
God asked only his faithfulness—to life.
so that we could see how compatible and incomparable
are faithfulness to life and freedom to live.
- Some people think ‘life’ is a magazine!-
How could Jesus be other than faithful
in the presence of infinite truth and ultimate justice;
unconditional love and perfect beauty?

The world could not bear such honesty;
“Too good to be true!” they said.

And so they did him in
thinking him at best a schemer,
or at worst a blasphemer,
lifting him up on a cross,
obedient to life unto death.
But God lifted him up in glory never to die again,
“Death has no more power over him.”
Some people think that to obey means to surrender to power,
but for Jesus it meant to succumb to love.
And so the end was just the beginning.

The earth proclaims the greatness of God
and all creation exalts in God’s glory.
Jesus remains the perfect exemplar and the everlasting covenant
who unites heaven and earth
and all humanity to the eternal Word.

May we succumb to the grace of the Easter feast
and be for all humanity,
a sign that Jesus is truly risen from the dead.