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From the Pastor's Desk | June 9, 2024
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Ordinary Time
We are back to wearing green. After Holy Week, the Easter season, and the solemnities that followed, we return to Ordinary Time once again. Advent and Lent are both times set aside for preparation and penance. Christmas and Easter highlight the central mysteries of our faith namely, the incarnation, Jesus’s death on the cross, the resurrection, the ascension, and the descent of the Holy Spirit.
Ordinary Time also has significance as we walk through the life of Christ. Ordinary Time is meant to allow those mysteries, Christ’s very life, to penetrate ever deeper into our hearts. As we allow these mysteries to take on a new significance and importance in each of our lives, let us move through these next twenty-seven weeks with both a longing and an excitement for what Jesus wants to do with and within each of us.Online Giving
As we move through the summer months, many of you will be taking vacations and extended time away from your homes and the parish. During these summer months, our operating costs do not take a vacation (though I wish they would!). Our offertory, the main revenue stream to help cover parish operations, takes a significant decline during these months. About 50% of the parish is enrolled in online recurring giving which certainly helps ensure that gifts and tithes are still being made to the parish especially while people are away. I just want to encourage those who have not enrolled in online recurring giving to do so. This will certainly make things easier for you as you do not have to hassle with cash, checks, or envelopes, and it ensures that offertory remains consistent throughout the summer months to help us pay the bills. Personally, I have found online recurring giving to be very easy. Information about online giving can be found here. As always, I thank you all for your generosity and support. Without you we could not advance the mission of Christ!Gospel Reflection
In our Gospel today, Jesus says something that, in my experience, has confused many. He says, “Amen, I say to you, all sins and all blasphemies that people utter will be forgiven them. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an everlasting sin.” (Mark 3:28-29).
How do we reconcile this with the mercy of God? First, we have to understand what blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is; and this is where the confusion lies. Paragraph 1864 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church states:Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven." There are no limits to the mercy of God, but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting, rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit. Such hardness of heart can lead to final impenitence and eternal loss.Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is the refusal to accept God’s mercy by repenting thereby rejecting the forgiveness of his or her sins and the salvation offered through the Holy Spirit. For someone to reject God’s mercy, their hearts are so hardened that they themselves choose to live separated from God and His Church. This certainly aligns with the mercy of God because He has given us free will - the will to accept or reject Him. He will not force Himself upon any one of us because He is a loving father. When our earthly existence is over God will give us what we ourselves have chosen through our thoughts, words, and actions - either to live with Him for all eternity or to live without Him for all eternity.
Years ago, I would have been hard pressed to say that there were many people who had such hardened hearts. But, as the culture becomes more and more secular - as we drift further and further from God - I think it is fair to say that more and more people actually do have such hardened hearts that they deliberately reject anything that has to do with God or His Church. In so doing they not only reject God and His forgiveness but see no need to be forgiven.
All hope is not lost, however! As we read in the first reading, God says to Adam and Eve, “Where are you?” As hardened as our hearts can become - as hardened as the heart of the culture is becoming - God does not stop pursuing any of us. He is still asking, “Where are you?”
As we pray on this Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, let us pray, firstly, for the softening of our own hearts and, secondly, for the softening of the heart of the world and culture. Let us pray that we - both individually and collectively - allow ourselves to be found by God. May our world truly be a world in which Christ is Lord and King.
Know of my prayers for you all!
Fr. Ryan
