Pastor's Letter -- September 19, 2021

Greetings to you my beloved parishioners!

The First reading for this weekend paints a picture of some scheming by evil people against one perceived as the just one. According to these unnamed wicked, the just one’s manner of being opposes theirs, reproaches them for transgressing against the law, and convicts them of violating their training. As such he rouses their ire. Instead of changing their conduct, they plot the downfall of this just one by mocking his high opinion of himself and testing his reliance on God. This, unfortunately, seems to be classical human behavior. How often do we get jealous when we see a brother or sister who is trying to live her or his Christian faith in all sincerity? Some of us even go to the extreme of maligning this seeming righteous brother or sister or even calumniate them because they chose to be different in the practice of their faith. Instead of humbling ourselves and praying to be true to our faith like this brother or sister is we prefer to assassinate their character or look for any weakness with which to undermine their genuineness. We see holy people as threats because they make us more conscious of our own sinfulness. And instead of humbling ourselves and asking God for mercy, we try to justify or rationalize our wrongdoing by painting these holy people as bad or less than they really are.

Like the just one in the book of Wisdom, Jesus was perceived as a rabble-rouser, one that went against the norm. He was a pot stirrer of some sort, who did not fit into what was the acceptable way of being. And because he was a supposed misfit, he became a candidate for elimination. They reviled and tortured him, and the cross became their preferred way of getting rid of him. Jesus was aware of what fate awaited him in Jerusalem, yet he does not run away. In this weekend’s gospel, he continues to call his disciples to change their outlook about the messiah. In the gospel text for last weekend, he rebuked Peter for thinking as human beings do, and not as God does. The follow up question would be, how do human beings think? Peter had difficulty with imagining the compatibility of suffering with the idea of a messiah. Like him, many Christians today are unable to reconcile the idea of enduring a little suffering, even if it is for an honorable cause, with the idea of a good God. They are prepared to walk away from God if it entails any sacrifice. They forget so easily that a cross-less Christianity is a Christ-less Christianity. In order for us to contemplate this truth the church puts the cross before us in this month of September in the celebration of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross and the Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows, both occurring on September 14th and 15th.

This weekend we see another dimension of how human beings think. Human beings think more about preserving their relevance by inordinate pursuit of worldly power and position. Our preoccupation is with the here and now, and we lose sight of eternity. We want to rule the world and hold position where our influence would be most felt that we forget that the world and everything we desire in it are passing away (1 John 2:17). While Jesus was still speaking about his impending passion, death and resurrection, the purpose for his Incarnation, his closest allies were arguing about how they ranked in relation to one another. This jostling for position of importance is symptomatic of an orientation that was this worldly. Just like the Twelve, we who call ourselves Christians, or Catholics, fight and quarrel over things that are very worldly. We argue and quarrel over matters that are tangential to our salvation while leaving the weightier and most important matters. We are jealous when others are preferred to us or chosen before us. We want to be the center of any discussion, and dominate any conversation. We think too much about ourselves and too little about others. We are not comfortable with difference and we seek to eliminate whatever is different or not in line with how we think things ought to be. The Lord reminds us today to be like little children. They are neither ambitious nor jealous; they do not scheme or plot evil against others who are not like them. We must never forget that we were not created for this world, but for the world to come. And we do not have a lasting city here, but we seek a city which is to come (Hebrews 13:14- 16). All these things, other than God, to which we attach too much importance, will not matter in the end. This awareness will help us think as God does, not as human being do.

May Jesus bless you, and may Our Lady protect you! With blessings from my heart,