Pastor’s Letter, August 25, 2019

Pastor’s Letter, August 25, 2019

23 Aug 2019 | Posted by: chadmin

Dear friend,

One of the most challenging aspects of human behavior is the desire to belong. Everyone desires to belong to someone or something. Humans were created for communion. It’s all over the Scriptures and this truth is a key part of the Liturgical celebrations of the Church. Where “belonging” or “communion” becomes a problem for humanity is its misplacement. When people desire so much to belong or be accepted that they compromise other aspects of the moral life or personal values, sin can overcome. The first reading from Isaiah this weekend addresses this desire.

The Old Testament Bible talks about the Jewish community as being God’s chosen. There is a real way in which the nation state of Israel enjoyed this status because God chose to reveal His truth to their community. As Christians, looking back at the history of salvation, we can say that God needed to start somewhere. Without revelation, humanity doesn’t know the heart of God. There are aspects of the call to good conduct that are innate to the human person, but much of the truths we know had to be revealed by God. God revealed the base level of His law to Moses and the Jewish people. The result is both beautiful and can also be divisive. Whenever there is any group, an “us and them” mentality can develop. We see this in some of the Old Testament prophetic challenges to the Jewish people. Yes, you are God’s chosen to receive the truth and the law, but it is meant to fill the Earth. What we learn in Jesus, is that God has no favorites. But the words and actions of Jesus are fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies. “I know their works and their thoughts, and I come to gather nations of every language.” In the New Testament, Paul writes that in Christ Jesus, there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, that we are all one in Christ Jesus.

The message from God of oneness and communion is based in truth, but it is a truth that is called to unite humanity around what is good, kind, generous, loving, and beautiful, and not to separate. For self-preservation, humans often separate themselves into camps in order to feel safe in numbers and have something to compare themselves against. This is not the kind of communion or unity that God invites. Even if the group is based in divine truths, communion must be sought through active love. People break down that wall of fear through patience and understanding. Groups come to understand the mindset of other groups by realizing the similarities, before the differences. Christians lead the way to heaven by living the truth: that we are all one in Christ Jesus and true unity is experienced by willing the good for the other. Humans teach and disarm fears by peaceful expression of love. This is the way of Christ. It has been this way since the beginning of Biblical revelation. We are all called to fight the temptation of focusing on what appears different or wrong in others, to focus on the One God who made us all, the One God we came from and the One God we will all return to. The more we focus on this aspect of communion, the more we can celebrate what’s been revealed to us and understand how to open the hearts of others to the beauty of Divine Love.

God bless

Father David