Many blessings on your 4th of July travels and plans. For those still in town we will still have Mass at both Sacred Heart (8am) and St. Mary on the Lake (9:15am).
Lord you were present at the founding of our country. You are present now. Give us a spirit of gratitude for all you have entrusted to us. Give us a sense of responsibility to express that gratitude in our freedoms lived out well. Give us and our elected officials wisdom in continuing to guide our nation. Amen.
The Sacred Heart School Golf Outing will be this Saturday, July 6th. There is food available if you want to swing by Evergreen Golf Course just to stop in. While I don’t do any golfing, I always have a very enjoyable time running around in a golf cart all day long! (Someone has to have the hard job of being the drive-by heckler!) Always a fun day for a great cause.
St. Peter wrote us this encouragement: 1 Peter 2:4-5: Come to him, a living stone, rejected by human beings but chosen and precious in the sight of God, and, like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
As pastor I have to care for the physical brick and mortar stones that make up our campuses as well as the spiritual bricks and mortar that make up the Church. This latter reality is more primary than the first – physical structures don’t make sense without the spiritual ones being cared for. This is the heart of our parish Vision: To be a community of disciples committed to living Christian virtues, spreading the Gospel, and raising up the next generation of disciples. In particular to focus on the word community – the fact that we are never stand-alone Christians but always part of the body of Christ. When one member of the body suffers, we all suffer. When one is lifted up, we are all lifted up. When someone is missing it is like when a member of the family is missing from the dinner table.
This job is too big for me, or for any one person. But that is okay because within the Church if we are operating as community, it never becomes just the responsibility of one person but is shared. By virtue of who we are we look out for each other. It becomes just as natural for someone to let me know that their neighbor needs a visit as it is to let me know if a tree has come down in the cemetery. It becomes just as natural to say a prayer with the person you meet in the hardware store because they need it, just like you wouldn’t hesitate to help change a flat tire or drop off food for someone who has been sick.
It is easy when we haven’t seen someone for a while to wonder where they are and not follow up with them (and I have certainly been guilty of this). I am so edified by the many occasions when that temptation was resisted and I see our parishioners watch out for each other. There are many times when I know to go and see someone because a friend or family member reaches out. Or when someone becomes homebound and then we can have someone begin bringing Communion for the time they are at home. When our parish is living as a community no one falls through the cracks.
Come Holy Spirit! Help us to see one another as we truly are – fellow members in Christ, living stones being built into a spiritual house.
God Bless,
Fr. Todd
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