theROCK

Living for the Lord

"None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself. For if we live, we live for the Lord, and we die for the Lord; so then whether we live or die, we are the Lord's."

I cannot think of a more fitting scriptural reading as we honor the diaconate gifts given to us in the ordination of Kurt Peot and the farewell to Deacon Jim Matthias. both are great gifts to us and our larger church. Before I go further, I ask you to keep both of them in your prayers. Which brings me to the idea of prayers themselves. We often are told to pray for one another, we pray for those who are sick in the community, we pray for the "poor souls" in purgatory, we pray for the unborn.

Prayer is our communication thread with God and all the community of saints. Recently, I have emphasized we must see the world with one eye on earth and one in heaven. It is the only way our fractured society will  ever heal. With that in mind, we have those who specifically dedicated themselves to be examples of "living for the Lord." Let us remember that ordained deacons serve in a special way, as heralds of the gospel: to bring good news to the sick and poor, to preach words of life to our family of faith. When we join with them in prayer, we too are living for the Lord and with the Lord.

When a deacon is ordained, he is ordained to serve. What this means is that a deacon is willing to open his heart to those who he serves. This is a calling, this is a gift. We at St. Dominic Catholic Parish have been graced not only with many deacon vocations, but with men of extraordinary character and willingness to serve. May God bless our deacons and all deacons of our archdiocese.

One Heart

Happy mid-summer! How did we get to mid-August so quickly? What happened to the summer that we longed for although with limited activities? I know that all of us have been challenged in many ways with physical distancing, adjusting to masks, and making major revisions in our summer vacations. Have you seen the signs on lawns, “We will get through this together.” Are we? 

The Feast of the Assumption of Mary reminds me of this. It is the day we commemorate when Mary “went to sleep” and was raised to heaven, body and soul. More importantly, it was the greatest joy for her to be reunited with her Son, Jesus. Inseparable. Closely united. Alternatively, we can use the Latin term, “Cor Unum.” One Heart. We can imagine the tremendous celebration in heaven when they were reunited. 

Since I was named after the Blessed Mother, I looked up the name Mary with the new interpretation. It means, “Beloved.” Yes, Mary was the beloved of God, and of her son, Jesus. She invites us to that deep relationship with Jesus so that we, too, might experience being His beloved.

It is that unity that Jesus invites us to daily. We are each on a journey of discovering Him in our life. What did you learn about yourself in the past months? What carried you and strengthened you in times of fear and anxiety? Did you feel nudged to come closer to our Lord; to place your trust in Him? Did you feel a need to reach out more to your family members, friends, and relatives? 

I come from a close-knit family. My brother-in-law has a re-occurrence of cancer. When one whom you love suffers, you also suffer. Family pulls together. We rely on the prayers of loved ones, and we want to make every moment together an experience of “one heart.”

Be Enlightened by Jesus

The Gospel for today is a well-known passage: the Parable of the Sower and Seed. And while every reflection I have ever heard on this Gospel focuses on contemplating what seed we are, I want to draw our attention elsewhere. I want to focus on the section that scares us, the section that we tend to ignore because we aren’t quite sure what to do with it.

When asked why He speaks in parables, Jesus says, “Gross is the heart of this people…they have closed their eyes lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and be converted.” This is a harsh condemnation for the people in Jesus’ community. But as I read these words, I cannot help but find them applicable even now.

We have become a people so defined by our political affiliation that we can’t have friends with opposing views, or have civil discourse on matters of global significance. Instead of letting the Gospel dictate our politics, we have let our politics dictate our Gospel. We have fashioned Jesus in the image and likeness of party values, forgetting that it is us who were fashioned in His image and likeness. It is us who close our eyes and ears to the parts of the Gospel that don’t fit with our political doctrine. It is us whose hearts have grown gross and refuse to be converted by the entirety of the Gospel message.

But we are called to be disciples. We are called to see what others do not see, to hear what others do not hear, to be enlightened by Jesus first, party affiliation second…or last. We are called to be the unifiers, to stand in the middle ground, to be mediators and bridge builders. This is challenging work in a system that makes it ‘either/or.’ But as Christians, let us be the ‘and.’