A WORD FROM OUR PASTOR
Where do I need the Healing: This Sunday’s readings challenge us to avoid Job’s pessimistic and desperate view of life as a chain of pain and sufferings and to accept life with hope and optimism as a precious gift from God, using it to do good for others and spending our time, talents and lives for others. While the Gospel presents Jesus enthusiastically living out his Sabbath day of preaching and healing ministry, the first reading details Job’s frustrations in striking contrast: Job complains of the tedium and futility of life and the miseries of human existence. But eventually, his eyes opened by God, Job surrenders himself, his suffering, his work, and everything he had and lost to God’s greater wisdom. Job’s miseries also marked the condition of the people who came to Jesus for healing. Jesus overturns the human condition, bringing hope and healing — then and now. We all need healing for our minds, our memories, and our broken relationships, and now Jesus is also using counselors, doctors, friends, or even strangers in his healing ministry. Let us ask for the ordinary healing we need in our own lives. When we are healed, let us not forget to thank Jesus for his goodness, mercy, and compassion by turning to serve others. Our healing process is completed only when we are ready to help others in their needs and to focus on things outside ourselves.
Boring Homily: There is the story about a woman listening to her pastor preach a Sunday morning sermon about Simon Peter’s wife’s mother, ill with a fever. Since it was a boring sermon the woman left the Church after the Mass, feeling somewhat unfulfilled. Consequently, she decided to go to Church again that day, out in the country where she had grown up. When she arrived, she discovered to her dismay that her pastor had been invited to be the substitute priest and again during the Mass he preached on the Gospel of the day about Peter’s mother-in-law being ill with a fever. Believing that there was still time to redeem the day, the woman decided to go to the hospital chapel in the evening. As you may have guessed, her pastor was assigned to say the evening Mass there, and he preached the same sermon on Peter’s wife’s mother and her fever. The next morning, the woman was on a bus riding downtown and, a wonder of wonders, her pastor boarded that bus and sat down beside her. An ambulance raced by with sirens roaring. To make conversation, the pastor said, “Well, I wonder who it is?” “It must certainly be Peter’s mother-in-law,” she replied. “She was sick all day yesterday.”
Our Lady of Lourdes: In 1858 a young, poor girl named Bernadette Soubirous was out collecting firewood with her sister and another friend near a grotto when she saw a vision of a lovely lady. In the words of St. Bernadette, "I raised my head and looked towards the grotto. I saw a Lady dressed in white, wearing a white dress, a blue girdle, and a yellow rose on each foot, the same color as the chain of her Rosary." Bernadette reluctantly told her parents of the apparition, and in response, they forbade her from going back to the grotto. A few days later, on February 14th, Bernadette was permitted to return to the grotto, and again the Lady appeared to her. This happened again on February 18th. On this third visit, the Lady asked Bernadette to come back to the grotto every day for the next two weeks. At these subsequent visits, the Lady (who had not yet identified herself as the Blessed Virgin Mary asked for a chapel to be built on the grounds, for Bernadette to pray for the conversion of sinners, and for her to drink the spring water that was revealed to her at the grotto. Word of these apparitions spread rapidly and caused quite a stir in town. In response, Bernadette was detained, interrogated, and harassed by the civil authorities as if she were a common criminal. The villagers, however, came to her rescue and demanded that the child be released. Through all these difficulties that came to her because of the apparitions, Bernadette was given an interior strength: "There was something in me that enabled me to rise above everything. I was tackled from all sides, but nothing mattered, and I was not afraid." After Rome and the Holy Land, Lourdes, France is the most popular place of pilgrimage for the Catholic faithful. I was fortunate to visit Lourdes on my 10th ordination anniversary along with other priests who were ordained with me. As we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes on the 11th of this month, we seek the maternal protection of Our Blessed mother Mary.
Sunday collection: During the last Sunday service that the visiting pastor was to spend at the Church he had served for some months, his hat was passed around for goodwill, farewell offering. When it returned to the pastor, it was empty. The pastor didn’t flinch. He raised the hat to Heaven. “I thank you, Lord, that I got my hat back from this congregation.”
God's blessings
Fr. Suneesh Mathew
Psalm 16: You Are My Inheritance O Lord
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