Bulletins by St. Clare Parish (Page 15)
August 28th – Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
“When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your
brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors, in case they may
invite you back and you have repayment. Rather, when you hold a
banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed
indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will
be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous” (Luke 14:12-14).
With these words, Jesus turns social convention upside down.
Specifically directing his hearers not to invite those who could lavish
them with gifts and flattery, but to welcome the marginalized, who
cannot repay their hosts, the exalted will be humbled and the humbled
exalted.
It is worth consideration of what it is that motivates us. Who do we aim
to please, what kind of people do we welcome into the circle of our
lives, our parish, our Church?
August 21st – Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time
We might wonder what was behind the question put to Jesus, “Lord,
will only a few people be saved?”. Was the questioner hoping that the
number who would be saved would be very small? Or, perhaps, the
person was looking for another answer, namely, that salvation was
offered to many.
Interestingly, Jesus’ answer is both. While many of those who were
called will not be able to enter God’s kingdom, even more people–
from the farthest reaches of the earth – will find welcome there. For
Jesus, it was not a matter of religion or geography, but of one’s
willingness to “enter through the narrow gate,” to welcome Jesus’ way
and live it.
Even though He uses this imagery, the circle Jesus draws includes all
kinds of people, rather than trying to exclude anyone. This inclusivity
extends to us and is a challenge for us also to draw the circles of our
lives broadly, allowing as many people in as possible. I say that it is a
challenge, because many of us are comfortable only with those whom
we consider to be like ourselves.
Our richly diverse parish family is rich because of its diversity. And
still we rejoice in our unity in the Lord. May the tapestry of our lives
be the same.
August 14th – Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Jesus said to his disciples: “. . .Do you think that I have come
to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on a household of five will be divided, three
against two and two against three; a father will be divided
against his son and a son against his father, a mother against
her daughter and a daughter against her mother, a mother-inlaw against her daughter-in-law and a daughter-in-law against
her mother-in-law” (Luke 12:51-53).
These “divisive” words of this weekend’s gospel passage are not so
much a prediction as they are a reflection of real events in the lives of
first century Christians. At the time the gospel was being written, faith
in Christ was tearing up families and communities. The evangelist puts
on the lips of Jesus words that can shock us even now: “I have come to
set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” (verse 50).
In the twenty-first century, we could ask ourselves if there is anything
about Jesus, the Gospel, or our Catholic/Christian faith that is so
important that it could affect our lives as it did in the time of the
apostles and the young Church. Do we experience faith in Jesus as the
anchor of our lives, or as something peripheral, on the margins?
August 7th – Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
This Thursday, we will observe the Feast of Saint Clare of Assisi,
Patroness of our parish. Our annual celebration gives us an
opportunity to reflect upon the Franciscan charism of Clare and how
we continue to be faithful to it more than 800 years after she began her
ministry.
Looking back to her life and ministry, we look to the many families
that form our one parish family. As Saint Clare joined with Saint
Francis to renew the Church, so it falls to us to give new life to our
Parish, our Diocese and our Church.
We join together in preparation for our Diocesan Synod, the first in our
41 years as a local Church. We are one with Catholics across the
United States in renewing our understanding, appreciation and faith in
the mystery of the Eucharist, which was so dear to Saint Clare.
On Thursday evening, we will have a special parish celebration of the
Eucharist at 6:30 pm, followed by a reception in the Rectory Garden.
Last year’s Feastday Mass was a diocesan gathering during the 40th
Anniversary Jubilee Year. This year, our celebration will be more
modest, a parish-wide gathering. I hope you and your families and
neighbors will be able to be with us. Weather permitting, we will be in
the tent for Mass. It is not too late to let us know of your intent to be
there: https://forms.office.com/r/TLV3ekRe6g
July 31st – Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
In today’s passage from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, we hear a
simple summary of both the Old Testament and the Gospel readings for
this Sunday: “Think of what is above, not of what is on earth”
(Col. 3:2). Otherwise, we will find it impossible to follow Jesus’
teaching: “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be
rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions” (Luke 12:15). And in
another place, we read that “the love of money is the root of all evil”
(1 Timothy 6:10).
It is very important that we keep all of this in mind and in the proper
perspective. Money, possessions and “things” are not evil in
themselves. It is, rather, what importance we give to them. If our goal
is, in biblical terms, “piled up wealth,” then we will come to no good
end.
Because we live in this world, we cannot do without money and the
things that money can buy. We need to tend to the proper upkeep of
our homes, our church, our school and other buildings that house the
work that we do. Our recent parish expenditure on a new roof for the
church is not an end in itself, but to foster our gatherings for worship.
The same is true of any upkeep and improvements that we make,
including the upcoming project to air condition our school buildings.
But our buildings are not an end in themselves and neither are very
modest savings that the parish has after paying off the new roof.
As we consider our personal and family relationships with our material
possessions, may we see them, too, as means to good ends, allowing
each and all of us to “think of what is above” and to be good stewards
of the gifts that we share.
July 24th – Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
It has been said that “prayer is conversation with God.”
If this was our experience, it is likely that many of us would pray more
often and more heartfelt. Our Catholic Tradition has handed on to us
many formal prayers; one could fill a library with compilations of
prayers and litanies. While these may all be helpful to us when we
cannot give voice to our own prayers, reliance on formal prayer can
also become a crutch, serving as a buffer between our minds and our
hearts.
The story of Abraham’s bargaining with God (“What if there are no
more than twenty [innocent people]?) and Jesus’ instruction to “ask,
seek and knock” give us the pattern for the prayer of our lives. The
Lord’s Prayer, on the other hand, gives us the broad outline for our
prayer: It is directed to the Father of Jesus, tries to align our will with
God’s and seeks forgiveness that is rooted in our willingness to forgive
others.
Sometimes, our prayer might express frustration and sadness; and at
other times, joy and thanksgiving. But isn’t this the way between
friends? Yet that is what God, in Jesus, has become for us: “I shall no
longer call you servants”. . .but friends (John 15:15). Let us speak to
our friend, the Lord and, like Mary in last week’s gospel reading, listen
to the words He speaks to us.
July 17th – Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
So often, this Sunday’s gospel passage has been seen as Jesus expressing
His preference for prayer over action, Mary over Martha, since Mary had
“chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.” Based upon
this, many believers have striven to be Mary, instead of Martha.
Yet if we consider this passage in light of our reading this weekend from
the Book of Genesis, we hear of the value of hospitality, as shown by
Abraham when the Lord appeared to him.
It seems that we should choose to be either Martha, the doer, or Mary,
the listener; we must strive to be both, as we read in the Letter of Saint
James: “Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will
demonstrate my faith to you from my works” (James 2:18).
Prayer, contemplation and listening to the Lord’s word must be
accompanied by action, as inspired by Luke 11:28: “Blessed are those
who hear the word of God and keep it.”
May these weeks of summer give us opportunities to do both.
July 10th – Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
“And who is my neighbor?” This question was posed to Jesus by the
legal expert who “wished to justify himself.” I am certain that the man
did not go away feeling good about himself, because he had wanted to
use the law to narrow the definition of who had to be counted as his
neighbor. Instead, Jesus shows the foreigner, the Samaritan, to be
neighbor to the man who was robbed on the road to Jerusalem. In the
end, one’s neighbor is the person in need and, at the same time, the
person who has the ability to address the other’s situation. Truly loving
one’s neighbor as oneself opens to us a sense of relationship, belonging
and connection with all people.
Jesus’s words to the scholar of the law are also spoken to each of us:
“Go and do likewise [treat others with mercy].”