Catholic Schools Week - Jan. 29 to Feb. 5: Theme for 2012: “Catholic Schools: Faith, Academics, Service”. Catholic schools focus on faith in God and building children’s relationship with God. They help children reach their potential to achieve academic success and create an environment for children to express their faith and give them opportunities to serve. Thank you all parents and grandparents who send their children and grandchildren to our school. As a voucher program is in place and grants are available, I urge everyone to reconsider sending their children to our school. Here I take the opportunity to thank all those who eagerly and actively support our school. We are a very small community and yet we generously support our school.
Readings: Through Moses, God promises to raise an earthly prophet and put his divine word into his mouth. He will tell humans of God’s commandments. To him must we listen. Moses foretells the coming of Jesus in our midst to speak on behalf of the Father. Paul extols an attitude of detachment from the most familiar way of living that distracts us from our attachment to the Lord. In the gospel we hear of Jesus in the synagogue teaching with authority. He is totally in command and teaches on his own authority and makes strong and absolutely conclusive statements of the Scriptures.
Living in a culture deeply immersed in individualism and relativism, how do we accept the fact that Jesus’ teaching is absolute and definite? Some of us hate the very idea that anyone could ever tell us what to do. It is especially very typical of young people to rebel against any form of authority and try to establish moral values that suit them to live independent lives. Our human tendency is to rationalize everything to suit our comfort and wellbeing. The constant calling of a Christian is to be guided by the Lord Jesus and what is being taught and interpreted by the Magisterium of the Church.
Jesus is the supreme authority on our relationship with God and our neighbor. We accept his authority not just because we believe that he came from God but that he is God. For us believers, acceptance of the authority of Jesus follows from our acceptance of him as Lord, the Messiah, the Holy One of God, the Word who was with God at the beginning, who was made flesh, who died a sacrificial death and whom God raised up and gave authority over everything in heaven and on earth. (Colossians 1:15-20)
Do we accept Jesus and his teaching as absolute truth? Do we accept the authority of the Magisterium to interpret Jesus’ teaching? If we truly believe that Jesus is the image of the invisible God, we will eagerly entrust our lives to him. If we approach God's word submissively, with an eagerness to do everything the Lord desires, we are in a much better position to learn what God wants to teach us through his word. Are we eager to be taught by the Lord and to conform our lives according to his word? Jesus is the way, the truth, and life (Jn 14: 6). Fr. Sextus Don
FIFTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME - FEBRUARY 5, 2012
On February 11, the Church celebrates the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. Lourdes is a place of solace for pilgrimage especially the sick and the suffering. Therefore the Church celebrates this day also as World Day of the Sick. This is an occasion to reflect on our understanding of pain and suffering due to physical and emotional sickness. In his apostolic letter of 1986, Salvifici Doloris, Blessed John Paul II writes that a true Christian appreciates the saving power of their suffering and sickness as they partake in the suffering of Christ. This papal letter could help us understand the meaning of Christian suffering.
The readings proclaim Jesus as the Healer of all sicknesses. The Book of Job depicts well the utter misery of human life without faith in God. There is a kind of hopelessness in the mind of Job who had to face misfortune after misfortune and finally was stricken with a severe sickness. In his anguish he cries out: “why did I not perish at birth… is not man’s life on earth a drudgery… then you affright me with dreams and with visions terrifying me, so that I should prefer choking and death rather than my pains. I waste away; I cannot live forever; let me alone, for my days are but a breath.” (Job3:3,7;7:11,14-16) People who face physical and emotional sickness may be tempted to harbor those very same feelings.
The Catholic Catechism states: “illness and suffering have always been among the gravest problems confronted in human life. In illness man experiences his powerlessness, his limitations and his finitude. Every illness can make us glimpse death. Illness can lead to anguish, self-absorption, sometimes even despair and revolt against God… very often illness provokes a search for God and a return to him. (CCC # 1500-1501)
We are called to be realistic and accept our fragile humanity inflicted with all sorts of pain and misery. Frailties, infirmities, trials and tribulations are part of every human experience. Alone we cannot come to grips with them or find meaning. The Gospel invites us to face sickness, pain and brokenness by encountering Jesus, and the healing presence of our loving and caring God the Father. The Catechism states: “Moved by so much suffering Christ not only allows himself to be touched by the sick, but he makes their miseries his own: ‘He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.’ But he did not heal all the sick … His healings… announced a more radical healing: victory over sin and death through his Passover… By his Passion and death on the cross Christ has given a new meaning to suffering; it can henceforth configure us to him and unite us with his redemptive Passion.” (CCC # 1505)
I would like to thank all who are involved in the sick and homebound ministry, especially the extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion who faithfully take the Lord to them every Sunday and holy day.
Fr. Sextus Don
PASTOR'S SUNDAY REFLECTION