From Our Pastor's Desk
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From Our Pastor's Desk
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Today we celebrate World Mission Sunday. It is our yearly opportunity to honor our life as Catholics through the special call we received at Baptism to be missionaries. It also reminds us of the service offered by the Church’s missionaries in bearing Christ’s message of salvation to all people in all lands. In line with this you can do three things to help a missionary to carry our his or her work, you can pray for a missionary, you can send a word of encouragement to a missionary, and you can support the work of a missionary.
The Gospel for this Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time is wonderfully appropriate in revealing the lifechanging joy that can come to us as followers of our Lord and Redeemer. We meet Jesus as He is traveling with His disciples and a crowd of people who want to stay in His company as long as possible. They pass a blind man sitting by the side of the road begging. His name is Bartimaeus. Obviously, he has already heard of Jesus’ message and miracles; so, he shouts out, acknowledging Jesus as the Son of David and asking for His pity. The people try to quiet him; after all, he is loud and annoying and trying to get Jesus’ attention. But Jesus hears Bartimaeus and tells the others to send him forward. “He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus. Jesus said to him… ‘What do you want Me to do for you?’ The blind man replied to Him, ‘Master, I want to see.’ Jesus told him, ‘Go on your way; your faith has saved you.’ Immediately he received his sight and followed Him on the way” (Mark 10:50-52). This man, a blind beggar, would have been of little account to his neighbors. Yet he was able to see more clearly than many who followed Jesus. He already believed that He was the Messiah and trusted Him to heal his blindness. The way he jumped up to run to our Lord and then instantly followed Him when he received his sight reveal just how much Bartimaeus rejoiced, not only in having his eyes opened, but also in his faith. Unlike many who believe, he did not hesitate to express his gratitude with exuberance. Let us willingly show our belief in the Christ who heals spiritual blindness as joyfully as Bartimaeus – for all the world to see. On this World Mission Sunday, let us also “speak” of our faith, through our prayers and financial help to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. Our generosity on this Sunday, combined with what is offered in churches and chapels around the globe, join us to the efforts of missionaries who proclaim the Gospel and serve the poor. Fr. Paschal Chester, svd Pharisees who wanted to test him. They asked Jesus to pass a judgement on the Mosaic Law. “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” Moses had permitted divorce because of the hardness of heart of the chosen people. The condition of a woman was at the time ignominious. She could be put aside by her husband for virtually any reason. Moses requires the husband to give the wife a certificate of reputation (‘a bill of divorce’) so that she might be free to marry again. The Prophets spoke out against divorce when they came to the Promised Land.
Jesus took this opportunity to affirm the indissolubility of marriage, as God originally intended at Creation. He quotes the words of Genesis which we find in today’s first reading. “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one.’ So they are no longer two but one. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” When Jesus elevated matrimony to the dignity of a sacrament, He was doing something completely unprecedented. Christ elevated the natural reality of Christian marriage to an extent that the spouses receive divine life through the sacrament. It is what sustains their work of mutual perfection. This is what has to inspire their children from the moment of Baptism. Those who marry begin a new life in the company of the Lord. God himself has called man and wife to follow this path of holiness. For a Christian marriage is not just a social institution, much less a mere remedy for human weakness. It is a real supernatural calling. A great sacrament, in Christ and in the Church, says St. Paul (Ephesians 5:32). May the Lord bless marriages, and all couples who are in difficulty. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Fr. Paschal Chester, svd |
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