From the Pastor's Desk | November 10, 2024

Advent Giving Tree

The Advent Giving Trees are now up at the north and south entrances of the church.  They are filled with tags for gifts to be purchased for various organizations including Cristo Rey; Catholic Charities of Ingham, Eaton, and Clinton Counties; Shared Pregnancy Women’s Center; and St. Vincent de Paul, among other organizations.  Please take tags and purchase the gifts identified on each tag.  You can bring the gifts back to the church and simply place them under the trees.  They will be collected each day and secured until they are sorted and distributed.  We ask that all items be new and not used. 

Fall Fundraiser

Next weekend, November 16, we wrap up our annual fundraising appeal with our auction and parish party!  I am ready to celebrate St. Martha Parish and School!  I hope to see you all there.  It will be a fun celebration!  If you would still like to make a donation to the endeavor or purchase tickets to the event, you can do so through the website here.  Thank you all for your support of the parish! 

Capital Campaign 

Our goal is to wrap up the capital campaign by the end of November.  If you have not yet made a commitment by making a pledge, I encourage you to do so.  As I write this, 176 of our parishioners have sacrificed much for this campaign and the construction project yet our participation rate, currently at 13%, could be much better.  Thus far we have raised $3.5 million in pledges but we still have a ways to go to reach our goal of $5.2 million.  As I said a few weeks ago, please do not give nothing.  Please make a sacrificial offering pledged over five years.  We must be all in for the future success of our amazing parish! A pledge card is available here. 

Lessons and Carols

It’s only November 10 but Advent will soon be upon us and we will be preparing for Christmas.  Please mark your calendars for Lessons and Carols on Thursday, December 5, 2024 beginning at 7:00pm in the church.  Advent and Christmas are my favorite times of the liturgical calendar.  Lessons and Carols is one of my favorite events of the Advent season!  If you did not attend last year, I strongly encourage you to attend this year.  Lessons and Carols is a service of scripture and song dating back to the 19th century that comes to us through the Anglican/Episcopalian tradition.  It is a beautiful service in which Tony and the choir prepare diligently for each year.  Last year they were fantastic.  Please come!  Afterwards we will host light refreshments and holiday cheer!    

Gospel Reflection

In our readings today we see a comparison between two widows.  In our first reading, taken from the seventeenth chapter of the first book of Kings, we hear the story of the widow of Zarephath.  After prophesying a drought due to King Ahab’s unfaithfulness to God by marrying Jezebel involving him and eventually Israel in the worship of Canaanite gods, God commands that Elijah travel to Zarephath where he will meet a widow who will provide for his sustenance.  Upon arriving he finds the widow and asks her for a cup of water and then some baked bread.  She replies that she doesn’t have enough flour and oil for her and her son let alone Elijah.  They have just enough to get them through another few days but otherwise are preparing to die due to the drought.  Shockingly, Elijah doesn’t withdraw his request.  Rather, he asks for a cake of bread for himself before she prepares anything for her and her son.  She does as Elijah requests and is able to sustain the three of them for an entire year before the rain falls once again. 
In our Gospel today, Jesus is teaching and preaching outside the Temple area, opposite the treasury.  He observes many wealthy people making an offering and, in contrast, a poor widow who makes an offering of two small coins.  As he observes this he explains to his disciples that the poor widow offered much more than the others because she contributed all she had whereas the others offered from the surplus of their income.  

In the Mosaic law orphans and widows were a protected class and the law required that the people look after and care for them due to their vulnerability and poverty.  Yet, one of our widows today was requested to provide for Elijah and the other gave everything she had.  As we read the Old Testament, we have to remember that everything in the Old Testament points to Christ.  Elijah is a type of Christ figure in the first reading.  In asking for her sustenance he reassures her that she will be provided for, “The jar of flour shall not empty, nor the jug of oil run dry…”  In our Gospel, we are unsure as to what, if anything, the widow asked for.  What we do know is that she was most generous in giving what she had.  

How does this apply to our lives today?  Whenever we read Scripture, we should be asking ourselves and praying with that question.  Another way to ask the question is to ask, what is the Lord speaking into my life today through these words.  As I was praying with these particular readings, what occurred to me is that we often speak of faith - belief in the unseen - but rarely do we speak of living with expectant faith.  Both widows in our readings today displayed this expectant faith.  The widow from Zarephath, like most of us, was quite reluctant in giving over her sustenance.  She wrestled with this expectant faith, yet she was able to give of herself entirely expecting Elijah to keep his promise.  The widow in our Gospel this morning certainly lived with expectant faith.  She was generous to God and she expected God to be generous to her.    
Expectant faith is the belief that God is actively working in our lives and that He will show His love for us in concrete ways.  He isn’t a distant God in some far off realm who leaves humanity to fend for ourselves.  No!  Our God remains close to us and He is actively working in each of our lives.  Living with expectant faith demands that we give everything of ourselves - the entirety of our being - over to God who will sustain us.  Expectant faith is living in such a way that we know God’s generosity.  I can look back on some very dark and troubling times in my own life.  I can honestly say that God has never abandoned me or ever let me down.  He didn’t necessarily make any of those times easier but he saw me through even when I was holding back; when I was afraid to give any more of myself because of the circumstances I found myself in.  God never holds himself back.      
Take some time this week to put yourself in the presence of God (5 or 10 minutes) and prayerfully look back on the last week, two weeks, or month of your life.  Ask the Lord to show you two or three ways in which he blessed you in that time.  Say those blessings out loud and simply tell God, “Thank you.”  He is present.  We need to train ourselves to see with the eyes of expectant faith.  It isn’t always easy to see God’s hand at work in our lives in the present.  Sometimes we have to look back to see where God has been.  Then, as Blessed Solanus Casey reminds us, we can “Thank God ahead of time” for all his manifold blessings.     

Know of my prayers for you all! 
Fr. Ryan