Dear Parish Family,
We began our public phase of our five year Capital Campaign last week. I have personally reached out to number of families and have received very positive responses and commitments. I am very impressed with their generosity and am very grateful. I am also aware of a few who are hesitant to join hands with this effort of “Renew and Rebuild.” I respect their views and would invite them to find ways to deepen our “Faith Journey” as a Parish Family. Discipleship is a challenge. The Acts of the Apostles relates the struggle of the first Christian community and reading this can be very inspiring at this moment.
In today’s Gospel, we are reminded that we are worth more than many sparrows. Our Heavenly Father cares for us. His Son loves us. His Spirit fills us. Mankind tends to put a price on everything. The people in Jesus’ time were no different. While the cost of the life of a sparrow is cheap, God considers them precious and notes the one that perishes! So what about our life? Want to put a price on that? We are too precious for a price tag, except the sign of the cross that redeemed us!
But if each of us is created to be a place where God and his love can dwell, then any other fascination we have can be left aside if it begins to take over God’s place. So if I am attached to wealth, or fame, or my good looks, or my hobbies, or even my partner in life—in a way that makes God’s love take second (or third or tenth) place—then my life is disordered. But we are on battle ground here. The Media we consume avidly, push us to embrace a ‘commercial life style.’
Does this mean that you have to love God alone and not care about my friends, my family, music, sports, food, health, etc.? No, no, that is not it. Healthy love of all creation is the goal. But everything has its roots in love of God. All things get their own individual value from God’s indwelling. Each person, each blade of grass receives its full value of love because it proceeds from God’s gentle hand. So we can love them! And live a full human life!
There is a temptation to say that such a task is too difficult. Too many things get in the way and we forget all about God—who is our source! We need to remember that the peace that the world can give to us is not a negative or a bad peace. It is real and it is good, but it is fragile and inadequate. It is fragile because it can easily be taken away from us. Peace, as we experience it ordinarily in our lives, is generally predicated on feeling healthy, loved, and secure. But all of these are fragile. They can change radically with one visit to the doctor, with an unexpected dizzy spell, with the loss of a job, with the rupture of a relationship, with the death of a loved one, or with multiple kinds of betrayal that can blindside us. We try mightily to take measures to guarantee health, security, and the trustworthiness of our relationships, but we live with a lot of anxiety, knowing these are always fragile. We live inside an anxious peace.
As well, the ‘peace’ we experience in our ordinary lives never comes to us without a shadow. As Henri Nouwen puts it, there is a quality of sadness that pervades all the moments of our life so that even in our most happy moments there is something missing. Every bit of life is touched by a bit of death. The world can give us peace, except it never does this perfectly.
What Jesus offers is a peace that is not fragile, that is already beyond fear and anxiety, that does not depend upon feeling healthy, secure, and loved in this world. What is this Peace? It is the absolute assurance the we are connected to the source of life in such a way that nothing, absolutely nothing, can ever sever—not bad health, not betrayal by someone, indeed, not even our own sin. We are unconditionally loved and held by the source of life itself and nothing can change that. Nothing can change God’s unconditional love for us who are worth beyond a price!
Fr. Tom Kunnel C.O.