From Your Pastors
The images coming out of Kentucky and surrounding states this week have been truly shocking. Whole neighborhoods devastated. Trees denuded of their branches or completely uprooted. Houses stripped of roofing or flattened. Factories leveled. The death toll is likely to top 70 people, including a 3-year-old girl and residents of a nursing home. The tornadoes have left a path of destruction that will permanently alter many lives. Our hearts and prayers go out to the people involved.
We will offer the opportunity to help by holding a leaving collection this Sunday at all masses at both parishes. We will channel the assistance through Catholic Charities.
A number of people will no doubt now find themselves homeless and in great need. As we enter the final days of preparation for Christmas it is a stark reminder that when God was born into our world there was no room for him and his fragile family; that he was born in a stable and laid in a manger. Could not the all-powerful creator have chosen a different way to enter the world? Why does God come as a completely vulnerable child in the most modest of human circumstances?
As Pope Francis said at Midnight Mass last Christmas Eve, the reason why is: “To make us understand the immensity of his love for our human condition: even touching the depths of our poverty with his concrete love.” "God came among us in poverty and need, to tell us that in serving the poor, we will show our love for him," he said. Pope Francis then quoted the poet Emily Dickinson, who wrote: "God's residence is next to mine, his furniture is love." The Pope concluded, "You, my Savior, teach me to serve. You who did not leave me alone, help me to comfort your brothers and sisters, for, you know, from this night forward, all are my brothers and sisters."
Compassion, especially for the poor and vulnerable is the hallmark of the identity of the followers of the Christ of the Gospels. As COVID continues to impact so many, especially those with fewest resources to cope, and as the climate events of this past week seem to be happening with increasing frequency, let us pray that each of us will do what we can when we can to be God’s compassion in the world. Let Christ’s saving love be born in us again this Christmas that we might bring that love to our shared and vulnerable world.
Fr. Mark Lane, c.o. and Fr. Michael Callaghan, c.o.
