From the Pastor 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time
From the Pastor 26 th Sunday in Ordinary Time
St. Paul offers a formula for living the way we are supposed to live as Christians in the Second Reading. Paul writes, “Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves.” Doing that is a challenge for most all of us. Yet, that is one of the secrets to being a good steward and living as Christ wants us to live.
To truly live that way requires a dramatic conversion. All of us know people who are so self-centered that they often are not even aware that they are totally unwilling to compromise or to even recognize the value of those around them. Achieving this kind of self awareness, of what kind of a person we are, is a significant step on our faith and life journeys.
Screenwriter and playwright William Nicholson once wrote, “God does not necessarily want us to be happy. He wants us to be lovable, worthy of love, able to be loved by Him. What makes people hard to love? It is called selfishness. Selfish people are hard to love, because so little love comes out of them.”
That is our challenge, to love others in such a way that we become lovable as well. Christ told us over and over that the secret to being His disciple and the secret to being a good steward is to “Love your neighbor.” That is how to be the kind of person Paul calls us to be as well.
Pastoral Pondering
Septemberfest - We will be two weeks past the Septemberfest when this bulletin is actually distributed, but I wanted to share what a tremendous blessing the event was for the parish. We regularly come together for religious events as we certainly should, but to occasionally have events that bring people together simply for fun and fellowship is vitally important to the life of the parish. It was wonderful to see so many families come together to celebrate our 20 th Anniversary and to enjoy food, fun and fellowship. I never realized how long people would wait in line for a funnel cake!
I want to thank everyone who had a hand in organizing the event, especially Beth Zuhosky and her army of volunteers along with all of the parish staff members who gave of their time and talent to make the event such a success. An event of this size requires a lot of hands to make things happen and the generosity shown by so many is true testament to the power of stewardship and the possibilities that can be realized when we work together.
Small Groups – As you know last year we launched our small group effort, and we are gearing up for the next session. This fall the Small Group Committee is using videos by Father Mike Schmitz who, in cooperation with Ascension Press offers some great short topic videos that can be very helpful to small group discussion and growing in our understanding of the faith. Our hope for the Small Group effort is to help a growing parish connect on a more intimate level and form some true faith communities that nourish the faith and help those involved truly embrace a life of intentional discipleship. This effort also responds to a common request in the parish survey to provide more opportunities to grow in the understanding and living out of the faith in daily life. I encourage everyone to participate in this effort. You will be glad that you did!