Married Deacon Ordained Catholic Priest

There's a famous line attributed to Francis of Assisi, "Preach the Gospel at all times. And only when necessary, use words." Deacon Corey Foegan will be ordained a Catholic priest by Bishop John Mack tonight at Holy Mother of the Rosary Cathedral. As shepherd and mentor to Deacon Corey for the past eleven years, I have had the privilege of guiding this parishioner and friend on his journey to respond to Jesus invitation to serve as a parish priest.

 

For me, to preach the Gospel means we should live lives of integrity, generosity, compassion, patience, and courage, in a way that speaks to the people around us and inspires them to embrace the Gospel in new and dynamic ways?

 

But as I shared with Deacon Corey in his studies, we also need to use words. We need to encourage people with our words. In the past year, Deacon Corey has shared in this ministry by preaching every other week in our parish at Holy Family in North Java. As ministers of God’s Word, we need to use the words of the Gospel to bring truth into people's lives. That's becoming rarer and rarer in our society.

 

We talk a lot about meeting people where they are and leading them to where God is calling them to be. This essentially was Jesus' model of evangelization. Jesus never preached to somebody before he fed them, healed them, comforted them. This was his approach. He went out to the people. He met the people where they were physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. He met them where they were. He ministered to them usually, first, in a human need and then he ministered to them spiritually. He met them where they were and led them to where God is calling them to be.

 

As Deacon Corey embraces the ministry of priesthood, he will have the opportunity to preach to people who would benefit from a deeper experience of God or a richer spirituality in their lives.

 

In sharing my 44 years of ministry, I have had to search my heart and ask, "Are we really meeting them where they're at? Or are we standing down the road and saying, “Hey guys, come down here. Life will be better if you come down here.” Because that's not what God calls us priests to. He calls us to walk back down the road to meet them where they're at to say, "What is troubling your heart?  And they may say, "I am worried about going back to work,” They may say, “I got a whole bunch of credit card debt." They may say, "I just lost my job." They may say, "I don't like my job. I don't get on with my colleagues at work. I'm worried about my son's health. I'm worried about my daughter's education. And my mother’s sick. My dad's sick." The things that are heavy on people's hearts.

 

As priests, the most important gift we have to give people is our time. Time to listen and ask the question, “What's troubling your heart?” Because when we meet people where they are, we are first concerned with what's troubling their hearts. And there are so many ways that we can help people carry their burden.

 

But the first way is just to recognize that people are carrying a burden. To listen to the burden that they're carrying. And then, to do an inventory of our lives and say, "Okay, how can I help this person? What talents or resources do I have available to me that can help this person?" And the person may say, "I'm struggling with this." We may think, "I know this person was really good at that or an expert at that. Maybe I can connect the two, and they can help each other?" We're here to help each other.

 

Serving as a priest is not about just putting a Bible in every person's hand. Serving as a pastor is not just about baptizing every person. The priesthood is about bringing God's grace to each other's lives. It's about being people, for people. And I think when we try to bring a message to people in a way that lacks humanity, or ignores the humanity that they're wrestling with at that moment in their lives, then the message falls on deaf ears. Because you cannot preach to a starving person. A starving person cannot hear the message. You have to feed the starving person. And then their ears become open.

 

In my role as shepherd, pastor and teacher, this has been the focus of my mentoring Deacon Corey that every person’s life would be improved if they moved closer to God, if they had a deeper experience of the Gospel, if they had a richer spirituality, they're all starving in some way.

 

My humble gratitude to Deacon Corey and my praise and thanksgiving that he has accepted the invitation of Jesus to work out how people are starving, how he can feed them so that they can hear the life-giving, life-changing words of Jesus in the Gospel.

 

Fraternally yours,

 

 

Father Matt

 

What Kind of Friend Are You?

 

Do you have friends? I hope so. Here's the good question, though. What kind of friends do you have? Or better question might be, what kind of friend are you? Jesus gives us a really good measuring stick when he says: “Love one another as I have loved you.” Right there, Jesus summarizes the key quality of a great friendship in one word, love. Love that gives, love that sacrifices, love that's selfless, love that's patient. That's what Jesus said about true friendship. Love each other as I have loved you. So we're talking about real, true, deep, lasting friendships. Do you have any really good friends? And what kind of friend are you?

 

One sure way to learn whether you have a real friend is in a moment of crisis. You will see certain qualities. One thing you'll absolutely see is loyalty. Do you have friends who are only there when they need you, but nowhere to be found when your life lands in the ditch? Talking about loyalty, a friend is one who walks in when others are walking out. Love means a real friendship will be rooted in loyalty.

 

You also find that real love produces honesty in a friendship. A true deep friend speaks the truth in love. They don't just tell you what you want to hear. They actually tell you when you are doing something stupid. And they tell you things that are even harder to hear. A good friend will confront you when you're making a mistake, even when it hurts, because that friend doesn't just want to make you feel better. The real friend hopes to make you a-better-version-of-yourself. Do you have a friend like that? Someone who loves you enough to come to you and say, "You really ought to consider that again," or "if I were you, I think about this," even when they know you probably won't want to hear it. That's what a true deep friend does. They love you enough to speak the truth to make you better.

 

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that they have friends who come to our side in times of crisis. They are loyal, forgiving and honest. What kind of friends do you have? What kind of friend are you?

 

 

Let the Tears Fall

 

This Sunday, I was greeted with tears as a parishioner shared her fear about her mother in the ICU on a respirator with Covid. Worse, the family is not allowed to come to the hospital because their mother is on the restricted Covid unit.

 

I can only imagine this daughter, her sister and brother wanting desperately to be with their mom at this time. However, I have no doubt that the intensive care nurses are providing comfort to their mom to let her know that she is not alone. So why did she feel like crying?

 

We often try to avoid giving into tears. Maybe we do not want to upset others. Maybe we do not want to look ridiculous coming to church with tears in our eyes. Or maybe we do not want to look weak. But why do we think showing emotion is weak? Is it not just human?

 

I wonder sometimes: what if instead I thought showing emotion was a sign of strength? After all, paying attention to emotions is central to be spiritual. Jesus taught that the movements in our souls tell us something about what God wants us to hear. If I am not willing to sit with and feel those emotions, however, how can we get out of them what God intends?

 

As this daughter places her mother into the hands of Jesus, I wonder what it would look like if I considered a crisis moment to be a time to experience emotion with Jesus. What would happen if we walked with Jesus down the road to Calvary and tried to feel with Him every step of the way? What if we let ourselves experience the emotions that He must have been feeling as he was rejected, scorned, whipped, and made to carry a cross? What if we stood by him while he hung on the Cross and just let the tears fall?

 

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends who have tears in their eyes. Let them know this is a sign of strength. This be a way that allows us to connect with others. May our tears become a prayer that connects us with Jesus and makes His passion our passion as well and brings us comfort and peace.

 

Time for a Tune-Up

 

My tractor, mower and gator are getting a “tune-up” for Spring. This reflection is a “tune-up” session to get your spiritual vehicle body and soul back humming again. Let me share why it is difficult for us to spend some time in quiet prayer:

 

What are these forces that distract us? They’re simply the daily headaches and heartaches that afflict us.

First, the headaches: Thomas Merton was once asked what he considered to be the major spiritual disease in the Western world. His answer:

Efficiency. The major spiritual disease in the Western world is efficiency because from the government offices down to the nursery we have to keep the plant running and, afterwards, we’ve no energy left for anything else.

He’s right.

The first problem we have with prayer is that we’re too–busy and too–preoccupied to make time for it. There’s never, it seems, a good time for prayer. Always we’re too–busy, too–stressed, too–tired, or too–preoccupied to sit or kneel down to pray. We rise early, groan as our alarm-clocks startle us from sleep, rush through breakfast, ready things for the day, fight crowds and traffic enroute to work, settle into a task that’s demanding and draining, gulp-down a quick lunch, end the work-day tired, commute back home, ready another meal, tend to the needs of loved ones, share a meal with others who are just as tired and restless as we are, then, often enough, have still another meeting or event to attend in the evening.

The day simply takes us, consumes us, drains us, and leaves us, in its wake, sitting on the couch before a TV set, tired, dissipated, still needing to prepare some things for tomorrow, and wanting a mindless distraction rather than the discipline of prayer. It’s hard to pray in our over–busy lives.

 

But we’re not just too busy to pray, we’re also too restless. This restlessness is fanned to a high flame by the culture: five hundred TV channels are within our reach, the internet brings the whole world into our private rooms, there are new movies that we haven’t seen, new songs we haven’t heard, colorful magazines whose covers beckon, sporting events that seem to be on everyone’s mind, and every kind of special event from the Olympics, to the Academy awards, to World cups, to celebrity gossip programs, all distracting us. Beyond that, everyone around us seems to be travelling to interesting places, doing interesting things, meeting interesting people. We alone, it seems, are missing out on life, stuck, outside the circle, with nothing interesting to do.

 

It’s hard to pray when we are restless and, mostly, we are. Henri Nouwen puts this well: “I want to pray,” he says, “but I also don’t want to miss out on anything: television, movies, socializing with friends, drinking–in the world.”

 

Our deepest greed is not for money, but for experience. We don’t want to miss out on life. Thus, to pray is truly a discipline because when we sit or kneel in prayer so many of our natural cravings feel starved and begin to protest. Restlessness is a great impediment to prayer.

 

Finally, beyond the headaches and restlessness, there is the ambiguity of prayer itself. Simply put, prayer isn’t easy because we don’t understand it, don’t know how to do it, and don’t understand how the experience should feel. Talking to God, hearing God’s voice, and centering ourselves in God is not as easy as we sometimes make it out to be. God’s reality is not physical and tangible like the things of this world. The world seems more real; family and friends can be hugged, touched and talked to, (from a distance during Covid) and physical sensation of all kinds doesn’t leave us doubting its reality. But relating to God demands something else and it’s easy to find ourselves bored, doubting, distracted, and anxious to get on to something else when we try to pray.

 

What we experience in prayer is just as real as the physical world, but we need to be at a certain depth of prayer to know this—and that’s the paradox: because prayer can seem unreal we often stop doing it, but it will only seem real if we persevere in it long enough and do it deeply enough. We often give up too soon. Prayer isn’t easy.

So, once again let me suggest one way to pray:

Start your prayer with…

1.    Gratitude: Begin by thanking God, just like talking to a trusted friend, for whatever you are most grateful for today.

2.    Awareness: Revisit the times in the past twenty-four hours when you were and were not the best version of yourself. Talk to God about these situations and what you learned about them.

3.    Significant Moments: Identify something you experienced today and explore what God might be trying to say to you through that event or person.

4.    Peace: Ask God to forgive you for any wrong you have committed against yourself, another person, or Him and to fill you with a deep and abiding peace.

5.    Freedom: Speak with God how He is inviting you to change your life, so that you can experience the freedom to be the best version of yourself.

6.    Others: Lift up to God anyone you feel called to pray for today, asking God to bless and guide that person with comfort and peace.

7.    Finish by praying the Our Father.

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that we learn to let go of feeling restless and bathe in Your love in prayer.

 

Learning to Pray

 

Let me share what a friend shared about how he learned "how to pray." 

 

The first time I ever tried to pray, I was 18 years old. I was doing a lot of searching at that time in my life: searching, searching for myself, searching for my place in the world. But most particularly, I was searching for God, whether or not he existed, and if he existed, who he was and what he wanted for me. And so I got it in my head that if I wanted to figure out who God was and what he wanted, I should just ask him. So I decided one night to try and pray. And I'd only ever seen people really praying on TV when they would sit and kneel at their bed and fold their hands and pray. So I get down on my knees, I folded my hands to pray. And I got there, and I had no idea what to do next. I had all the desire to pray, all the desire to talk to God, but I had no clue what to say. It wasn't like God had a telephone number I could just call him up and be like, "Hey, I want to talk to you. Are you real? What do you want from me?" It was far more awkward.

I did that for about a year, to be honest. Every night, before I went to bed, I would kneel down at my bed, fold my hands, and search for the words to describe what was going on in my mind, in my heart. And then about a year into doing this, I read Rediscover Catholicism. And in that book, Matthew has this line where he says, "The Bible is the greatest treasury of prayer. When I am weak, when I am lost, when I am uncertain, when I don't know what to say, I turn to the Psalms." And so that's what I did. I got an old family Bible, I opened it up to the first Psalm, and I prayed the Psalm. And I did this every single night. And it was the Psalms who taught me how to pray. They gave me the words, they gave me the praise, they gave me all that I needed to learn how to talk to God and share what was going on in the deepest parts of my heart. And it totally changed my life.

 

So if I could go back to my 18-year-old self and give one piece of advice getting started in prayer, I would say go to the greatest treasury of prayer there is. Go to the Psalms. And the Psalms will teach you how to pray.

 

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that we learn to pray and humbly ask the Big Question: “What do you think I should do?

 

How to Pray

 

Let me suggest that for the next 21 days before Easter, you find 10 minutes in your busy schedule to pray. Here is a sample of how to get in the habit of daily prayer for the rest of your life.  

Find a quiet spot, in your home, or better yet in church and start your prayer with…

1.    Gratitude: Begin by thanking God, like talking to trusted friend, for whatever you are most grateful for today. ie. I didn’t get killed in a car accident.

2.    Awareness: Think about your past twenty-four hours when you were and were not the best version of yourself. ie. I got grumpy because I didn’t get my way.

3.    Significant Moments: Identify something you experienced today and explore what God might be trying to say to you. ie. I stopped working for a change and went outside to enjoy the sunshine.

4.    Peace: Ask God to forgive you for any wrong you have committed (against yourself, another person, or him) and to fill you with a deep and abiding peace. ie. I could spend the whole ten minutes telling God how impatient I am but He already knows that.

5.    Freedom: Speak with God how he is inviting you to change your life, so that you can experience the freedom to be the best version of yourself. ie. I guess it’s OK to think about what God wants me to do in my next adventure.

6.    Others: Lift up to God anyone you feel called to pray for today, asking God to bless them. ie. Bless all my parishioners in church, online and Sonshine Friends and keep them healthy and safe from the virus.

7.    Finish by praying the Our Father.

Could these words change your life every day, maybe forever.

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that we learn to pray and humbly ask the Big Question: “What do you think I should do?

 

Fasting Prayer

 

We are asked during Lent to Fast, Pray, and give Alms.  Our Lenten theme for 2021 is to come out of the darkness into the Light. Let me focus your attention on Fasting as a way that will really feeds your soul. By all means, continue to limit your food intake to one full meal on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday and refrain from eating meat on Fridays – but let me share another way of looking at “fasting” that is more than limiting calories but as a way into the light of Christ: 

 

Fasting Prayer

Fast from judging others;
Feast on Christ dwelling in them.
Fast from fear of illness;
Feast on the healing power of God.
Fast from words that pollute;
Feast on speech that purifies.
Fast from discontent;
Feast on gratitude.
Fast from anger;
Feast on patience.
Fast from pessimism;
Feast on hope.
Fast from negatives;
Feast on encouragement.
Fast from bitterness;
Feast on forgiveness.
Fast from self-concern;
Feast on compassion.
Fast from suspicion;
Feast on truth.
Fast from gossip;
Feast on purposeful silence.
Fast from problems that overwhelm;
Feast on prayer that sustains.
Fast from anxiety;
Feast on faith.

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that as we continue our journey this Lent we truly believe God wants our friendship for He sits with us in silence, rejoices with us, laughs with us, celebrates with us, supports us in tough times, and walks with us in our day-to-day life. Feast of Faith.

 

Lent Enough

 

When I was younger, I would attack Lent with great ambition and zeal. I would make lists and determine all that I could give up and all that I could do to make it a meaningful 40 days.

I still feel that way every Ash Wednesday. I am so excited. I think, “This will be a great Lent! Come Palm Sunday, I am going to ride into Jerusalem and not even complain about the long Passion Gospel.”

But then reality sets in. I realize that sometimes I have spent my Lent trying to determine if my giving up desserts meant I couldn’t eat donuts, especially after noon. After all, I rationalized, a lovely chocolate donut with sprinkles is a breakfast food. And if I happen to eat it a little later in the day, it is not a dessert, right? This kind of thinking has led me down a rabbit hole of wondering if muffins counted as a sweet and the exact status of hot chocolate.

Reading these words, I do realize how ridiculous I sound. However, it is hard to give a wholehearted effort while still coping with my enormous sweet tooth.

And it is not only chocolate that trips me up.

Sometimes I decide I will not focus on food at all but make more time each day for prayer, good works, and daily liturgy. I have constructed my cardboard CRS Rice Bowl, purchased my devotional books, and searched for missions or other talks.

But many times—not all—I have sat in church on Good Friday and realized my Rice Bowl held only a few coins. Certainly, I could write a check, but I wanted to have the daily clink of change to keep me involved. I wanted to be holier, better, stronger. But then I dwell only on the negative. I think I have not done enough this Lent.

It is a familiar feeling, because I have often started Lent wondering if I am doing enough.

And then I berate myself for focusing on myself and feel less than enough.

It is a silly cycle that may be familiar to some. But it is a cycle that I am working to break.

This Lent I resolve that I will go to my friends, the saints, for help.

One of my favorites is St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who said:

I expect each day to discover new imperfections in myself…I am simply resigned to see myself always imperfect—and in this I find my joy…My own folly is this: to trust that your love will accept me. I am only a child, powerless and weak, and yet it is my weakness that gives me the boldness of offering myself as a victim of your love, O Jesus!

The wonderful saint, who stressed that we all approach God and holiness in a “little way,” also said, “Holiness consists simply in doing God’s will, and being just what God wants us to be.”

St. Francis de Sales, the awesome patron saint of journalists, gave me some help too, saying, quite simply, “Be who you are, and be that perfectly well.”

 

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that we try to feel enough this Lent—and maybe even give up donuts and muffins too, but not my Dove chocolates.

 

 

Friendship With God

 

As I begin my Lenten journey, I pray to understand what it means for my life that God wants to be friends with me.

The idea that God wants to be friends with me seems absurd! Why in the world would God, the Creator of the universe, the Giver of all things, want to be in relationship with me? What can I possibly offer God in the realm of friendship?

There are many types of friendships in my life:

• the friends who can sit with me and hold everything going on in my life
• the friends who can sit in silence with me as we savor our time together
• the ones who laugh loudly with me and celebrate the abundance of life
• the ones who are present during the tough times
• the ones that are part of my day-to-day life and support me in motherhood

All of these friends offer a piece of themselves to me, and by their doing so I experience what it’s like to be loved by another. I, too, offer various types of friendships to men and women in my life. In being there as a friend, I am helping them experience what it’s like to be loved by another.

God offers a relationship that encompasses all of these different types of friendships. In a sense, God is the totality of all of my human friends in one. God sits with me in silence, rejoices with me, laughs with me, celebrates with me, supports me in tough times, and walks with me in my day-to-day life. All of these ways that God is present deepen my understanding of God’s love for me.

What can I offer to God, though? I offer my presence to God. I offer my response to the totality of God’s love. I offer my love to God as I laugh, celebrate, cry, and share the depths of my heart with God. I offer my gifts and talents to God. In this mutual giving to each other and receiving from each other, we develop a deep friendship with each other.

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that as we begin our journey this Lent we truly believe God wants our friendship for He sits with me in silence, rejoices with me, laughs with me, celebrates with me, supports me in tough times, and walks with me in my day-to-day life.

 

From Darkness into the Light

While Fr. Don posts his weekly Lent reflections to inspire and bring you hope, my Lenten focus will be to post two images that show a BEFORE and AFTER to lift your spirit with God's beauty and joy. NOTE: All images posted available to be made into prints for your home and office. Click: https://www.frmatt.com

BEFORE: Titusville, Florida

  

AFTER: Titusville, Florida Sunrise

Praying Through Sorrow

 

I am facing a difficult week of sorrow. I have been requested to come onsite to help teachers and school staff to cope with the death of one of their students this past weekend. Then another request for ongoing support to a workplace whose employees learned that they will no longer have their jobs in the coming months. Then there are the nationwide calls to provide support to first responders who are working to help patients heal from Covid.

 

Our world and all in it are groaning. I feel like I see and hear suffering around me everywhere I turn. A question I get asked is, “How do I pray through sorrow and suffering?” Let’s take a look at some practical ways we can turn to God in prayer in times like these.

 

Acknowledge that sorrow is a grace.

It is hard to experience and hold sorrow. Let’s be honest, it doesn’t always feel like a grace. What I’ve learned from experiencing sorrow is that it is often an experience of seeing the world as God sees it. It brings us to a place of empathy and a deep seeing of our own pain or others’ pain. Jesus felt sorrow as he looked with pity and wept for Jerusalem (Luke 19:41–44). Mary felt sorrow as she watched her son’s pain. Our sorrow is a grace as our hearts are connecting to an experience Christ had.

 

God sees us with a loving, compassionate gaze.

Imagine God lovingly looking at us and inviting us to name honestly what we feel, see, and hear. Praying through sorrow starts with naming the real of our lives and invites God into the sorrow we are holding. As we bring the real of our lives to God, we let our wounds and the suffering we see connect with the wounds Jesus experienced. In our being vulnerable, we invite God to enter our hearts and hold the sorrow with us.

 

Show up in prayer.

It is very easy to feel tempted not to show up in prayer when we are feeling sorrow. It can feel too painful to acknowledge what we are facing. We may want to turn away from it and resist talking to God about it. Even if our prayer feels messy, showing up and bringing all we are feeling to God helps us work through our sorrow.

 

Allow our sorrow to be turned into action.

Engaging God in our sorrow opens us to transformation. As we ask, “What ought I do for Christ?” God inspires small and sometimes larger actions we can take. Our prayer and being with God influence our actions and begin the healing within.

 

One last thing for us to remember: When we feel sorrow, we can still be in consolation. Consolation is when we are aligned with the Holy Spirit’s movement in our lives. As time goes on, I take comfort in knowing that even when I feel sorrow, God is with me, and I can still be with God. I hope that provides you comfort as well.

 

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends who are in pain or sorrow that you walk at their side to give them Your healing strength and hope.

 

 

 

Hope for 2021

 

Yesterday, I was standing in the back of church with my mask on and social distancing, greeting parishioners when with a big smile on her face Mary says, “I feel hopeful for this new year.” You could hear in her voice that she was ay peace and joyful for she really believed that we are on our way of healing.

 

I believe that hope does not disappoint.

 

The last year has been tough. Many of us feel battered and bruised, some of us in our bodies, but most of us in our spirits. We can boast of our afflictions over the last year. We can see how they refined us and how they built our endurance and our character. Not that it did not hurt. It hurt. And yet, we realized just how strong we are. We can boast in hope.

 

We don’t know what this new year will hold. We hope for healing for ourselves, our families, our communities, and our nation.

 

St. Paul reaches out from the pages of his letter to comfort us, telling us of what he reminded those first-century Christians, that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38–39)

 

We can imagine all the things we think separate us from the love of God and add them to Paul’s list: our fears—of now and the future—our fear of media, of leaders, of ourselves. None of that can separate us from the love of God that has been poured into us through the Holy Spirit.

 

May we cling to that love.

 

May it heal us.

 

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Frineds that as we prepare to receive our vaccines, we live in the spirit of hope that we have become what You have always seen in each of us. Hearts full of gratitude and compassion and reaching out to those in darkness and despair to offer them Your Love and Peace.

 

 

Not a Perfect Holy Family

 

It was cold, snowy Sunday and only ten people showed up for church. This is a story I wanted you to hear. Two older people started walking slowly, carefully up the aisle.  The entire way up the aisle, they never stopped holding each others hands, and as they passed pew upon pew of people, you could see how their eyes were filling with tears.

When they arrived at the foot of the altar, I asked them how many years they had been married – the wife responded “60 years ago today.”  I followed up asking “where did you get married?” and the wife proudly responded “Right here,” as she pointed her finger to the floor marking the very spot in front of the altar where they had stood all those decades earlier.  I was surprised and said “You’ve been here in this parish for 60 years?” and they simply nodded their heads as the wife said “we’ve been here together every week since we were married.” What was even more moving was that as they began to renew their wedding vows, no one could take their eyes off this couple as they lovingly held each others hands, but could barely look at each other as they tried holding back tears as they said to each other once again “I take you to be my wife… my husband… I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad; in sickness and in health… I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.”

 

Listening to them, you couldn’t help but wonder what must be going through their minds – what had they lived through?  What struggles which must have seemed insurmountable at times had they conquered; what joys and moments of pride, what sleepless nights of worry over their children had they endured?  What twists and turns, ups and downs did they encounter?  How often did they think “I don’t think I can do this anymore” – but somehow found the unconditional grace of God to strengthen their resolve to try once again?

 

So often whenever the Church speaks of family life, I think there’s this erroneous impression that it automatically implies that perfection is expected out of every marriage.  And that’s why this feast can be a bit off putting for so many people.  Just the title, “The Holy Family” seems like a really high bar to measure ourselves up to.  Exacerbating the fact that so many people have had painful family circumstances – abusive, dysfunctional, destructive and unhealthy relationships – all of this sadly results in the beautiful institution of marriage being another area where many people, understandably feel disconnected from our faith…

 

But a more practical understanding for unmarried and married couples is a call not to perfection, but to faith… which is often times the complete opposite of perfection.

 

Joseph and Mary expressed astonishment, doubts, and fear to their invitations and directions from the Lord.  Yet somehow in the midst of all those questions, all those worries, all those challenges – they much like that couple renewing their marital vows after 60 years, held each others hands, trying to maintain faith in each other and in God… so much so that in hindsight, they almost couldn’t believe any of what they were able to endure was ever possible.

 

No matter what our personal family stories have told us to this point… whether we’re married or we’ve never been married, suffered divorce, or experienced a myriad of challenges that’s a mix of all of the above – the beauty of this glorious Christmas feast reminds us that Jesus willingly enters into all of this human messiness that can be found in every family because of His love for us.  In Jesus’ birth, God entered into human history in a unique and profound way – and human history changed forever after that.

 

That doesn’t make us perfect here and now… but it does inspire us to hold on to a faith in which everything and everyone is transformed in the love of our God who humbles himself to become one of us, so that one day we might become like him for all eternity.

 

 

Do you Believe in Angels?

 

Do you believe in angels? In today's gospel, we hear the famous story about the angel, Gabriel, appearing to Mary.

 

The angel Gabriel says, "Mary, you're going to have this baby." Mary doesn't say, "Hey, that's impossible. I haven't been with a man. That's not going to happen." No, she doesn't say that. This is her question, "How can this be since I have no husband?" She assumes that it can be. If God's angel is coming to her and saying, "This is what's up, Mary," she doesn't say, "No, it's not possible." She assumes with faith that, "Okay, I believe what you're saying to me. But I'm not sure how it's going to work. Can you help me out with that?"

 

Can you help us out with the question, why this pandemic?

 

And, of course, the angel goes on to explain. If you've got questions for God, great. We have plenty of questions for God, like why is my business shut down, or when can we go back to work, or when can I feel it safe for my child to be back in school, or worse why did my family member have to die. The questions are heart wrenching and endless.

 

 

But let's ask our questions like Mary with faith. I think it's okay to be a bit skeptical about stuff. I think that's good. I think that's healthy sometimes. But there's a difference between skepticism and cynicism. There's a difference between questioning.

 

And I think the difference is this: are we seeking the truth? Are we skeptical but still seeking the truth because the cynic isn’t? The cynic isn't seeking the truth. The cynic has put himself or herself in this place, which is a really unhealthy place psychologically and a really unhealthy place spiritually.

 

And so yes, we have questions for God. Great. But let's ask them boldly. Let's ask them with faith. And let's ask them with the hope that God is going to reveal to us what we don't yet understand. And he's going to do it in his own time. And let's be patient as we wait for that.

 

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends who struggle with their questions, why so much sickness, why so many deaths, why do we have to wear those uncomfortable masks and keep our distance. Yes, we want to celebrate our Christmas with family, we like to be in church for Midnight Mass with our neighbors but let’s ask with faith and truly listen to what is our angel is telling us?