June 21, 1998Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Fathers' Day |
A FATHERS DAY MESSAGE
Fathers are special people. They have the wonderful opportunity of helping to mold the lives of their children into the image and likeness of Jesus. To do so we must try to be the personification of love. We, too, are human and will at times fail, but it is so important that the successes outweigh the failures. Those who child development say the father is a child's initial experience of God. Someone to honor, love, respect, stand in awe of. Frequently, young people in serious trouble have had very little experience, if any, of a loving father. So fathers, on this special day, when you are recognized as a special member of the family, be aware of your importance to those little ones by being the loving, caring model you are called to be for your children. And children, honor your fathers. Return their love with love, obedience, cooperation, and understanding. You, too, may one day be a father and will know the challenge of joining their mother in raising your own children. The bottom line for fathers and families is love one another.
By Deacon Bud Agniel, guest writer.
Today is the 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time in the liturgical year. In St. Luke's gospel writing, Jesus challenges his disciples to follow him even when the going is difficult because "whoever loses his life for my sake will save it." Jesus tells them that he will stand by all those who stand by him before the world. We must never be afraid to stand up for what is right. After all, Jesus is Lord and will vindicate all who are loyal to him. We have his word.
On the third Sunday of June each year, we celebrate Fathers' Day. Fathers deserve special recognition as heads of families and for all the effort put forth in loving care of family members. We congratulate all Fathers of the parish and assure them of a special remembrance in prayer. We wish them happiness, good health and many blessings.
Dear Friends,
This weekend we honor those we name as Father. This past week we read the scriptures from Matthew's gospel that invite us to address God as Father. For most folks the word father conjures up a positive image. Unfortunately, for too many it brings forth painful memories. In either case, Fatherhood has to do with children. Maybe this Sunday we can
reverence Fathers by praying for their children. I received the following from Thom Croxton. He was kind enough to pass it on to me and so I share it with you.
A PRAYER FOR THE CHILDREN
We pray for the children
Who sneak popsicles before supper,
Who erase holes in math workbooks,
Who can never find their shoes.
We pray for those
Who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
Who can't bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers,
Who never counted potatoes,
Who are born in places where we wouldn't be caught dead,
Who never go to the circus,
Who live in an X-rated world.
We pray for children
Who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
Who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.
And we pray for those
Who never get dessert,
Who have no safe blanket to drag behind them,
Who watch their parents watch them die,
Who can't find any bread to steal,
Who don't have any rooms to clean up,
Whose pictures aren't on anybody's dresser,
Whose monsters are real.
We pray for children
Who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,
Who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,
Who like ghost stories, who shove dirty clothes under the bed,
Who never rinse out the tub,
Who get visits from the tooth fairy,
Who don't like to be kissed in front of the carpool,
Who squirm in church or temple and scream in the phone,
Whose tears we sometimes laugh at and
Whose smiles can make us cry.
And we pray for those
Whose nightmares come in the daytime,
Who will eat anything,
Who have never seen a dentist,
Who aren't spoiled by anybody,
Who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
Who live and move but have no being.
We pray for the children
Who want to be carried and for those who must,
Who we never give up on
And for those who never get a second chance.
For those we smother and .
For those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.
ORDINARY TIME
Now that the solemnities of Trinity Sunday and Corpus Christi are over the liturgy returns to the Season of Ordinary Time. This is the liturgical season between now and the start of a new liturgical year in late November when Advent begins. Green is the color of the vestments worn during ordinary time. It is a symbol of life and growth. While there are no major feasts on Sunday for quite a while, the liturgy invites us to grow in God's grace as we follow our Lord and hear God's Word inviting us to further growth. In this Sunday's Gospel Our Lord challenges us by saying: Whoever wishes to be my follower must deny his very self, take up his cross each day, and follow in my steps. Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. If we follow Jesus' example and carry out His teaching in our daily lives, ordinary time becomes extraordinary as we experience God's grace that makes us more Christ-like.
FOR THE GREATER HONOR AND GLORY OF GOD
THEME: DISCIPLESHIP - Jesus never hung out a recruiting poster. He did not advertise. He did not offer bonuses for joining. He did not have a toll-free number or a Web site. He did, on occasion, give out free meals. His pitch, however, was quite simple and straightforward: Whoever wishes to be my follower must deny his very self, take up his cross each day, and follow in my footsteps. Every day. Recruiting incentive? Faith - the get-up-and-go kind of faith that Abraham had, as Paul reminds us in the second reading. Uniform? Paul tells us to clothe ourselves in Christ Jesus, the uniform of the day every day. The cross and Christ are inseparable. So equipped, we are ready for anything: life or death. However, if we are faithful children of God, it's not really life or death; it's life with God, now and forever.
THE SUFFERING LORD
Aren't we Jesus' disciples? Aren't we one with the
Lord in His suffering and resurrection? It's
relatively safe in our nation to respond, "Yes."
Certainly safer than for Christians suffering and dying
in other areas of our world. Few if any of us have
even experienced the religious bigotry some of our
parents or grandparents knew. Or their parents, some
of whom braved real hardships for their faith in their
homelands. Today there are among us those who have
lived through violence and misery in their native lands
only to experience another kind of suffering here:
exile and hostility as unwelcome strangers. They're
"different," and they compete for jobs here. Some of
them are cheated and abused and threatened constantly
with denunciations and expulsion. They carry their
crosses every day. Many of these "have-nots" are
rejected by the "haves" in our society, including some
of us who share the same baptism and the same table of
the Lord - a living contradiction. The question, then,
is how willing are the rest of us to share their
burden, to help them carry their crosses, to see in
their faces the face of our suffering Lord?
The Liturgy
Jeremiah spoke of our redemption through the Savior's
suffering and death; St. Paul states that through this
redemptive act, all of us regardless of origin, status
or gender are brothers and sisters in Christ. Luke
explains how this redemptive act was God's expression
of love for us. We need to respond to this act of love
by daily striving to know and understand the Lord
through our prayerful reflection of the scriptures.
1) Zechariah 12, 10-11
2) Galatians 3, 26-29
3) Luke 9, 18-24
"There does not exist among you Jew or Greek, slave or freeman, male or female. All are one in Christ."(2) If we have indeed become one in Christ we may have to take up the cross each day and follow in the steps of the Lord.(3) Stewardship implies sacrificial giving. But any sadness we encounter in this world is as nothing compared to the glory of the resurrection. As valuable as all our time, all our talent, and all our treasures may appear, they are nothing. "Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will save it."(3) All that we have is from God. All that will survive is that which goes toward God.
Next Sunday the reading's will be: 1)1 Kings 19, 16. 19-21; 2)Galatians 5, 1. 13-18; 3)Luke 9, 51-62.
Father's Day Blessing...Some years ago there was a proposal presented to our bishops to inaugurate a Feast of God the Father....However, they rightly decided against establishing a feast focusing on the Fatherhood of God because all Christian prayer is directed to the Father through the Son, Jesus. There is no need for one day to highlight what we do every day in acknowledging that all life, all holiness comes from Him who is our Father through Jesus Christ His Son. Just as the Holy Scriptures describe, we are made in the image and likeness of God; and so we salute those humans who very effectively mirror the divine paternity in their continued efforts for their families. The ritual of Baptism says it well:
God is the Giver of all life, human and divine. May He bless the fathers in our midst. With their wives they are the first teachers of their children in the ways of faith; may they be the best of teachers bearing witness to the faith by what they say and do in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen
SAINT OF THE WEEK: June 22 - Saints John Fisher and Thomas More. Saint John Fisher was born in 1469. After completing his theological studies at Cambridge in England, he was ordained to the priesthood. He was later made the Bishop of Rochester and wrote a number of theological works. Saint Thomas More was born in 1477 and was educated at Oxford. He married and had one son and three daughters. While Chancellor for Henry VIII he wrote a number of works (including Utopia). Thomas More's life was made famous through the movie, "A Man for All Seasons." Both these men were beheaded by order of King Henry VIII in 1535.
Both of them resisted Henry VIII in the matter of his divorce. John Fisher was beheaded on June 22 and Thomas More on July 6.
MILLENNIUM MOMENTS
During 1998, the year of the Spirit, we should try to have a revitalized sense of theological hope that encourages us to remember the goals which give meaning and value to life and help us to recognize the signs of hope present in this century, especially in medical advances, in awareness of environmental responsibility, in efforts to reconcile people, in deeper commitment to the cause of Christian unity, and in dialogue with religions and contemporary culture.
LITURGY CORNER
For your summer hammock reading, I recommend the Catholic Update in the book rack. Written by Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles, its topic is our participation in the Mass. He offers refreshing insights.
GOOD NEIGHBORS;
GOOD DISCIPLES
Lord, help us reach out to all our neighbors, next door, down the street, around the world. Remind us to take time to visit the lonely, to run errands and provide rides for the elderly, to cheer the sick, to reach out to the troubled, to give to the poor, to be your hands and feet, your eyes and ears, above all your heart. Help us to be Christ to others and to see Christ in others. Help us to be true disciples.
Thank You, Dad
Thank you, Dad, for giving us
A very special gift.
It's the most important gift of all,
That only love can give.
You read us the Bible at bedtime
and taught us how to pray.
You made sure we made it to church
every Sunday.
And even though we acted like
we didn't hear a thing,
When I'm in church today,
I hear an old familiar ring.
I've learned a lot through all these years,
through the good times and the bad.
I want you to know, I thank God every night
for you, Dad.
I can't imagine how it would be
to live life day by day...
Not knowing God, not knowing love,
not knowing how to pray.
It would be so cold, so lonely, so sad
a life I know.
And it's all because of you, Dad.
God's love - we've been shown.
So, Dad, we want to thank you
on this very special day.
Because of you - we now know
the true meaning of Father's Day.
--Poem written by Terri Lewis
What the Experts Say...
About the Ministerial Priesthood:
Because of the priest's more prominent place and office in the rite [of the Mass], its form sheds light on the ministerial priesthood proper to the presbyter, who offers the sacrifice in the person of Christ and presides over the assembly of a holy people. The meaning of his office is declared and detailed in the preface for the chrism Mass on Thursday of Holy Week, the day celebrating the institution of the priesthood. The preface brings out the passing on of the sacerdotal power through the lay on of hands and, by listing its various offices, describes that power. It is the continuation of the power of Christ, High Priest of the New Testament. --General Instruction of the Roman Missal, #4.
TO HELP PREPARE FOR GOD'S WORD
Readings for next week,
June 28, 1998
Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Copyright © 1998 Liturgical Publications of St. Louis, Inc.