Good morning, Digital Neighbors! Happy Tuesday Friends & Refugees, Early Birds & Later Dayers, Conversants & Lurkers, Misfits & PHAM, Awakening Wonders & Curious Questioners, ADD Irregulars, WSN Curators and all your Cultural Curmudgeons. Today I punt on the morning rambling, I penned this for our Sunday bulletin and I share it here. I know many of you are not Catholic or Christian so it may hold little interest for you, but it gives those of you who don’t know me an idea of where I come from as person and priest. It may not be your cup of tea (I need more coffee) so YMMV. Enjoy or don’t, either way I pray you have blessed day. Peace.
Dear parishioners,
One of the reoccurring quips that I like to make in homilies is the challenges we experience in loving God and neighbor. We find it difficult to love God even though He is perfect, good and true because we do not see Him. We find it difficult to love our neighbors even though we do see them because they are not perfect, good or true. Such are the most fundamental challenges to our growth in love. The church as the Body of Christ and the Bride of the Lamb desires nothing more than that her members grow in love of God and neighbor. While we profess the perfection of God, we do not profess the perfection of our own faith or our celebration of it. We are all pilgrims on a path of spiritual growth towards communion with God and neighbor.
Over these next few weeks, I would like to examine with you the precepts of the church. Most older Catholics will remember these from our childhood catechesis. These precepts are invitations and expectations of the community faith for its member to live a more abundantly life in Jesus. From the Catechism 2041: The precepts of the Church are set in the context of a moral life bound to and nourished by liturgical life. The obligatory character of these positive laws decreed by the pastoral authorities is meant to guarantee to the faithful the indispensable minimum in the spirit of prayer and moral effort, in the growth in love of God and neighbor.
The indispensable minimum—let that truth tumble around in your thoughts and feelings. Our church is trying to ensure for all of her members the bare minimum on which to build a life of discipleship in Jesus. While one might be capable of leading a good life without ever seeking God in worship, no one can build a life of disciple apart from worship. We are called to be far more than just a good person; we are called to be disciples of Christ who imitate and mirror the heart of the Master. No one doubts that humanity needs redemption. All around us we see the ruin caused by sin and indifference. Jesus is the remedy for sin and indifference. He washes away our sins in His own blood and the invitation to “follow me” is meant to draw us out of indifference into a life of worship, service and sacrifice.
The first precept (“You shall attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation." ) requires the faithful to participate in the Eucharistic celebration when the Christian community gathers together on the day commemorating the Resurrection of the Lord.
Nothing replaces the foundational and essential necessity of worship for a disciple of Jesus. God doesn’t need worship, WE DO. We want to acquire the heart of the Master that allows us to trust the Father and be filled with Their Spirit. We want to grow in our awareness of our absolute dependence upon God and His overflowing generous love for each of us. We want to be drawn into the life of Jesus so that His sacrifice at the Last Supper and on the Cross becomes our sacrifice. If we make the Mass foundational, we can build a life of discipleship upon it that withstands the storms and trials of life.
Peace,
Fr. Tom
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
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XIII
The Proud Minister
One day there came into the Garden a man in torn clothes badly bruised and cut, who said to the Lover, “In the name of the Beloved I demand your help.”
So the Lover and the Disciple let him in and dressed his wounds and prepared the best of the vegetables from the Garden for him to eat. When his wounds had been dressed and he had eaten and rested the Lover asked him how he had fallen into this plight, to which the man replied, “I was Minister of the Beloved in a city near this place, where I preached His gospel and expounded His doctrine to the people. I pointed out to them how their sins had made them wholly hateful to the Beloved and how therefore they were utterly beyond the range of His love and He would condemn them to eternal torments, whereon some fell into despair and wept bitterly but many were angry. One day the magistrates called me before them and begged me to leave the city and preach elsewhere for they said I had made many people so angry and desperate that they feared there might be a riot and they might not be able to protect me but that I might suffer some injury. I, however, very zealous for the Beloved and believing that the magistrates only feared that their own sins might be proclaimed, preached the more vehemently, denounced the magistrates and made it abundantly clear that the whole wicked city was foredoomed to eternal punishment by the just provision of the Beloved. Whereon a mob, stirred up no doubt by the corrupt and venal magistrates, fell upon me with sticks and stones, nearly killing me and driving me out of the city in the state in which I came to you.”
“My friend,” said the Lover, “this was not a good deed of yours, for besides denying the unfathomable compassion of the Beloved, you have by your obstinacy caused these people to commit a grievous sin, and this cannot be pleasing to the Beloved, that through you who profess to be His minister the people should become worse. Surely you remember that He Himself said, ‘If they persecute you in one city flee to another.’”
Therefore the man was very angry, and cursing the Lover, said, “I see that I have had a very false report of you and I do not believe that you are a servant of the Beloved at all. When I came to you so injured for the Beloved’s sake you set before me only herbs and fruits although the garden is full of birds which you could have killed to make me a worthy meal. I shall proclaim everywhere that you are no true servant of the Beloved but a mere falterer who dares not suffer in the cause of the Beloved. Be sure that you are foreordained to eternal torments who suffer nothing here.”
For the man was so blinded by his own pride that he could not perceive the scars on the hands and feet and the brows of the Lover nor how the cloth beneath the armpits of his tunic was dyed with a red dye. So he went out of the Garden cursing and shouting.
But the Lover looked sad and said, “A man like this does much harm to the cause of the Beloved, for by thus speaking falsely about the Beloved he may bring men to fear Him but none to love Him, and by love alone can any man approach the Beloved.”
