8th Sunday of Ordinary Times

I want to take the time to thank Liz McCarte and Ron Weishaar for facilitating the synod preparation listening sessions we've been holding. I would also like to thank parishioners who have attended the gatherings. We will hold the last two meetings on Saturday, March 19, and April 2. The sessions begin at 1 pm, and we conduct them in the Parish Center.

I've purposefully not attended them because I don't want to stifle conversation. Ron and Liz are keeping participants' comments in strict confidentiality. While Ron and Liz are faithful to the commitment to confidentiality, a couple of comments have leaked out. They always do. While the listening sessions intend to focus on the universal Church, no group can get together without reflecting on the situation in the local parish too. Some participants have made suggestions for parish improvements. No, no, getting rid of me isn't the solution. I'm happy to listen and consider recommendations for the parish. Not every suggestion will be feasible, but I'll hear you out. Just remember, if you suggest something, you need to be prepared to help bring it about. So, remember I try to set aside most Monday afternoons at 3 pm for open office hours. Give me a call, and I'll lend you both ears.

I've heard the suggestion to establish a parish library came up at several sessions, and I want to endorse that idea. We'll give you more details in the coming weeks. If you have books, you would like to donate. Please put them aside for now.

It is encouraging to hear about the library request because it indicates many people are hungry to increase their knowledge of their faith. I am thrilled to know that is the case. I want to point out that every Friday, the parish sends out an email through Flocknotes with a short presentation to help parishioners have their faith enriched. These seem to be very popular. According to Flocknotes, 65% of recipients at least open the email. That is very impressive. I've never before known of a parish adult education program being that popular. About 350 parishioners have signed up for our emails. If you would like to sign up for Flocknotes, please send us your email address, and we'll put you on our list.

I feel this burst of interest in learning about our Catholic faith comes from parishioners' heightened interest to become better disciples. That is something I've been encouraging since I came to the parish. I have been encouraging everyone not to feel their faith is just a sort of obligation to be given a minimum of effort but something that needs to be the center of our lives. I've been trying to help all of us recognize we have the responsibility to respond to God's desire for a personal relationship of love with God the Father, Jesus Christ His Son, and the Holy Spirit.

I feel this wellspring of interest in a clearer understanding of the Catholic faith comes from a desire by many people to be better able to discuss their Catholic faith with other people. Parishioners often lament they don't feel confident defending their faith to people of different denominations or those with no faith.

That reminds me of the line from the First Letter of St. Peter. He wrote:

Always be ready to give an explanation

to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope

but do it with gentleness and reverence.

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Peter offers us a good suggestion on how to share the faith, have a firm foundation in it and be eager to share your faith not in an aggressive manner but with gentleness and reverence.

On Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, we begin the Church season of Lent. Lent is forty days of preparation to prepare ourselves spiritually to celebrate our Savior's Passion, Death, and Resurrection at Easter. Lent is a sort of refresher course in our Christian faith. Lent is the time to understand better the core belief of Christians that God so loved the world; God sent His Only Begotten Son into our world to save us from the death of sin so we might have eternal life. In a nutshell, that is the explanation of our Christian faith.

During Lent, we can renew our Christian faith by practicing the three pillars of the season. We implement the practices of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving to help us recommit to our call to imitate Jesus Christ. Fasting is more than sacrificing to eat less; it is more than a diet. Fasting is the call to eliminate everything that dulls our spiritual senses. It is the effort to eradicate from our lives everything that distracts us from our call to focus on imitating Jesus. Fasting pushes aside everything that interferes with our ability to center on our relationship with God.

While giving up food, drink, or other pleasurable things for Lent is commendable. God desires real, lasting change. In today's gospel, we heard Jesus focus on our tendency to have a critical spirit. Jesus isn't saying we shouldn't offer fraternal correction to helpfully correct another person's behavior. He targets our tendency to have a critical spirit, to find fault with others and criticize them unjustly.

We know this practice, fed by social media, has reached epidemic proportions in our culture. Modern technology has made everyone a critic, quickly expressing their opinions and outrage over others' faults and failures. Fasting from social media might give us the best opportunity to center more faithfully on following Jesus this Lent.

A refocus on prayer is also a way to model ourselves after Jesus in the coming weeks of Lent. Scriptures inform us that Jesus communicated with God in prayer often. The gospels tell us that Jesus spent much time in out-of-the-way places to strengthen his relationship with God and seek God's guidance through prayer. Lent calls us to reflect on our prayer life. Besides coming to Mass, how often do you pray? A successful prayer life requires time and persistence. If prayer isn't a part of your everyday life, start this Lent. Like every other habit, we need to set little goals. Start with just a few minutes a day. Find a quiet place where you can take as little as ten minutes to start communicating with God. Reading a few verses of Scripture can help focus your prayer. Faithful Christians have personal relationships with God. Start improving yours this Lent.

The third Lenten pillar is almsgiving. It is the willingness to share our gifts with those who have less than we do. It needs to be more than just contributing a little of our excess gifts. Almsgiving is making a real sacrifice for others. God has gifted us all with unique gifts of time, talent, and treasure to share to help make the Kingdom of God more evident in our community. What do you value the most? Is it time, talent, or treasure? Whichever it is, you need to be most generous with it. This Lent, begin being more generous with your gifts by determining a percentage of your gift to contribute to a need. Can it be 3, 5, or 10 %? Make your almsgiving something you can really feel. There is no better way to contribute your gifts than to use them to spread the gospel message.

As we enter the Lenten season, we need to commit ourselves to become better disciples of Jesus. Yes, some of that comes from a better understanding of the teachings of our Catholic faith. But all the knowledge in our heads is useless unless it influences our hearts. That is the message of the scriptures today. We must not only be people who know the faith but ones who live our faith.

We glorify God not just by prayers and praise but, as today's gospel tells us, living a righteous life. That is the most excellent witness to what the Christian faith is all about that we can give.

How do we become good witnesses for Jesus Christ? First, we abandon ourselves to Jesus. We commit to imitating his relationship with God the best we can. We subject our will to God's will, make our words match our actions. We become God's instruments of peace and mercy, and we bring healing and forgiveness into our world. We distance ourselves from all hypocrisy. We are careful to be genuine in our words and deeds.

We become the good people God calls us to be by developing good self-knowledge. We look at our thoughts and actions with clear insight, and we observe our behaviors to discover our authentic selves. We strive to become aware of our shadow self and examine that part of our being we try to hide from our consciousness.

Most of all, we exhibit our goodness by bearing good fruit. Our words and deeds help lift our community. The wisdom of the scriptures guides our plans and activities. We respond to God's word with courage and allow it to serve as the guiding principle for all our behavior.

This Lent, come back to the school of faith. Open your hearts and minds to the Christianity refresher course this season offers. Use it to deepen your call to discipleship and your relationship with God. When Easter morning dawns, may your faith be renewed so you can proclaim without question you believe Christ has risen. He truly has!