Greetings in Christ, all!
I wanted to take a moment and thank you all for the ridiculously wonderful outpouring of love and support you offered me on my anniversary of ordination. It meant the world to me. My family now has a deeper sense of the love I know here at Holy Family and St. Mark and I am so grateful for that.
Your beautiful letters, cards, and gifts mean the world to me. Thank you with all my heart. I have my list made out already and I hope to have the thank you cards in the mail within a week or so.
This Sunday, after the 10 am Mass, I will be leaving right away to celebrate Msgr. Reilly’s 50th anniversary! Praise God. For those who do not know, Msgr. Bernie Reilly is a priest in our diocese who is what we call a “Senior Priest,” meaning retired. He still serves, of course, but no longer works as a Pastor. Short translation: NO MEETINGS! Hahaha.
Anyway, he is a wonderful priest and a member of my Priest Support Group. I thank God for him daily. If I appear to be rushing off after the 10 am Mass, that is why.
This last week a few people brought me a handout that was left in our pews for God’s People. This handout was not made by me or anyone working at Holy Family, but it would be easy to think this was something we put out for everyone’s edification. I need to be clear that we did not put this out and, honestly, would rather it had not been left in the pews.
I’ll walk us through real quick so that Catholic teaching is clearer.
Someone with the most beautiful of intentions responded to God answering their prayers by leaving a handout in the pew instructing people that if they pray a certain way, God will answer their prayers.
I want to be clear: I am so grateful for the person who responded to God in such a loving way. Gratitude to God is a hallmark of the Christian life.
At the same time, I do want to make sure we understand the difference between Faith and Superstition. Faith means we respond to God’s call and obey Him. Superstition is more of an “If/Then” scenario: If I do “A,” God will do “B.” In the Catholic Church, we do not do superstition. There is no thing we do at our initiation that results in God doing what we want. We obey God, We pray, We love Him, but we don’t tell Him what to do.
I hope this helps.
Great. I pray that Jesus bless you all with His love and light this week. I thank Jesus every day that He lets me serve you.
Fjk