Holy Ghost PNCC

At the end of today’s Gospel story, the landowner asks the grumbling worker, “have you got the evil eye because I am generous?” In the Gospel reading we have the contrast of the generosity of the landowner and the envious reaction of the laborers. We might see the landowner as representing God, and the worker as the people of the Old Testament. The Jewish people had labored under the law of Moses for many centuries, and now that Jesus was also bringing in the Gentiles to be saved, some of them felt a certain resentment. Perhaps the parable is a warning against being blinded by tensions such as this.

But the people has a wider application than the early Church. We may at times react against the injustice that we see in the world, and often we are right to do so. There is a proper sense of indignation when we see a real injustice done. Like the landwoner in the parable, God bestows gifts to people according to the divine will, and everyone has been given some gift. The basic gift is, of course, life. Without that, we would have nothing either to moan about or to rejoice in. Envying other people’s money, good looks, fame, or even spiritual gifts, does nothing except to corrode the character of the person doing the envying. Thinking about the gifts we have been given ourselves, and being grateful for them, is more positive and more gracious. We can also rejoice in the gifts of the same body, and can therefore share in each other’s gifts. John Henry Newman said: “God has created me to do Him some definitie service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I am link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work.” Amen.

National Grandparents Day is a secular holiday celebrated in the United States since 1978 and officially recognized in a number of countries on various days of the year, either as one holiday or sometimes as a separate Grandmothers Day and Grandfathers Day.

Marian McQuade of Oak Hill, West Virginia, has been recognized nationally by the United States Senate – in particular by Senators Jennings Randolph; and Robert Byrd – and by President Jimmy Carter, as the founder of National Grandparents Day. McQuade made it her goal to educate the youth in the community about the important contributions seniors have made throughout history. She also urged the youth to “adopt” a grandparent, not just for one day a year, but rather for a lifetime.

In 1973, Senator Jennings Randolph introduced a resolution to the Senate to make Grandparents Day a national holiday. West Virginia’s Governor Arch Moore had proclaimed an annual Grandparents Day for the state, at the urging of Marian McQuade. When Senator Randolph’s resolution in the U.S. Senate died in committee, Marian McQuade organized supporters and began contacting governors, senators, and congressmen in all fifty states. She urged each state to proclaim their own Grandparents Day. Within three years, she had received Grandparents Day proclamations from forty-three states. She sent copies of the proclamations to Senator Randolph.

In February, 1977, Senator Randolph, with the concurrence of many other senators, introduced a Joint Resolution to the Senate requesting the President to “issue annually a proclamation designating the first Sunday of September after Labor Day of each year as ‘National Grandparents Day’.” Congress passed the legislation proclaiming the first Sunday after Labor Day as National Grandparents Day and, on August 3, 1978, then-President Jimmy Carter signed the proclamation. The statute cites the day’s purpose as: “…to honor grandparents, to give grandparents an opportunity to show love for their children’s children, and to help children become aware of strength, information, and guidance older people can offer”.

In Poland, Grandmother’s Day (Polish: Dzień Babci) was created in 1964 by the “Kobieta i Życie” magazine, and popularized from 1965 onwards. It is celebrated on January 21. Grandfather’s Day (Polish: Dzień Dziadka) is celebrated a day later, on January 22.”

Grandparents

Grandparents bestow upon
their grandchildren
The strength and wisdom that time
And experience have given them.

Grandchildren bless their Grandparents
With a youthful vitality and innocence
That help them stay young at heart forever.

Together they create a chain of love
Linking the past with the future.
The chain may lengthen,
But it will never part…

A Prayer for Our Country

I pray for the survivors of the attack on September 11, 2001.
I pray for the families who have lost loved ones.
I pray for the rescue workers and police on the scene.
I pray for the doctors and nurses caring for the hurting.
I pray for the reporters who work through intense emotion to bring us the pictures and news of the day.
I pray for the President and other elected leaders who so desperately need wisdom from beyond themselves.
I pray for the pastors in Washington and New York who care first-hand for the spiritual needs of those who have experienced this great tragedy.
I pray for the military and intelligence agencies who seek to find out who would do this so they might be brought to justice.
I pray for our nation — that this event will bring us together and turn our thoughts toward helping each other to fight and vanish the terrorism out of the world.
I pray for all those who might be tempted to think that violence accomplishes anything of lasting value. We’ve seen too much of it in the recent years.
Lastly, I pray for every peace lover in this world.
May God break the cycle of violence to make a difference for His Peace and Grace in this sinful world.
God Bless America.

God of Our Memories

God of our memories,
You have so blessed us with the gift of recollection:
To call to mind our joys and hopes, our griefs and anxieties.
As we live our lives, it is You who journey with us;
As we remember the people, places and events of our lives, it is You who stand by us;
And as we commemorate the lives of those who have gone before us, it is Your Spirit that unites us to one another.
At times Your blessing of memory seems like a curse.
The remembrances we carry weigh us down like burdens
rather than lift our hearts to You.
The tragedies, the violence and the sin of our world threaten our ability
to see Your presence among us,
to experience the breath of life You give us,
and to recognize the working of Your Spirit in our lives.
Your Spirit, scripture tells us in the opening of Genesis,
moved over the face of the Earth and the chaos of the waters
to bring order, life and peace.
Ten years ago we experienced chaos in our lives that stemmed
from the reality of sin in our world;
Sin marked by violence and hatred and fear.
We pray that Your Spirit, which marks the presence of You in our lives,
continue to move over the face of the Earth and the chaos of our history.
We ask that we might be open to being led by Your Spirit to help
renew the face of the Earth, inaugurating order, life and peace.
The memories we carry from ten years ago call to mind the
griefs and anxieties, suffering and loss, violence and hatred
that reflect that sinful side of our human condition.
Yet, we know that we are more than our limitedness and imperfection.
We know that we are called to do more than burnish the mirror of vengeance,
or repay hatred with discrimination,
or inflict suffering to assuage our own pain.
We know that You created us out of love and call us back to our origins.
We know that what it means to be created in Your image and likeness
is to be peacemakers and lovers in our world.
May we indeed be instruments of Your peace,
offering love, pardon, faith, hope, light and joy to the world.
May Your Spirit move over the chaos of our memories
and renew the face of our hearts as You continue to renew the face of the Earth.
May our memories, the gift you have given us,
recall ones once called “enemies” as friends
and call to mind those whom we’ve loved and lost
until we share with them the joy of your presence in the life to come.
Amen.

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus offers us a courageous solution to life’s hurts. When someone wrongs the community in some way, rather than immediately resorting to litigation, both the offender and the offended should come together and try to sort out their difficulties. The courts should only be a last resort when all else has failed. Jesus recognizes that injustice and harm to the community require justice and reparation. Externally imposed judgment and compulsory reparation often cause divisions, anger, and resentment as people debate the nature and size of the penalty. They rarely heal wounds and repair a broken heart. Jesus tells us that when we are able, within the family, to sort out wrongdoing, we are much more likely to keep the wrongdoer among us and together, work towards reunification and peace. Jesus knows that this is not a “soft option.” Forgiveness and understanding can be very difficult, but He will be there, offering comfort, wisdom and support. Most importantly, He offers us the model for repentance and for true forgiveness and love.

Congratulations and God bless Joelle Amaira Karvois who was baptized Sunday, August 7th. May our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, bless Joelle Amaira and her entire family.

Jesus tells the disciples that He is going to suffer. The one on whom all their hopes are pinned states that His journey will be on the road of pain and death. Despite their protestations, Jesus says that is the way it has to be. They may not be able to understand now, because human thinking does not always accord with God’s will. All will become apparent later. After His death and resurrection, and the descent of the Holy Spirit, the disciples will look on this episode with different eyes. Jesus makes it clear that to follow Him will involve a share in the cross. If the disciples lose their lives for His sake, they will find the true meaning of their lives; what is important is not material gain or power. Earthly goods and control over others mean nothing. It is only by taking their share of Chtist’s cross through an honest appraisal of themselves, and recognition and acceptance of their own sufferings, that they can be assured of finding their true selves. To know who they really are requires letting go in order to gain true life. Ultimately Jesus will come to judge all, and that judgement will take into account the extent to which their actions and words have been in accordance with the values of the kingdom of God.

Just as the language of the cross was difficult for the disciples to understand, so it is for most of us. What today’s readings afford us, though, is the opportunity to reflect again on the crosses in our own lives. We can ask ourselves whether we accept our crosses and align them with the cross of Christ, or whether we use them as an opportunity to become embittered. If we make the time to sit in silence and reflect, with God’s help we can begin to identify the crosses that we carry in our own lives. Then we can begin to accept the Lord’s help to bear them. The concerns of work, or difficulties with a spouse, or the pain of growing older and losing one’s independence are examples of crosses which we may be carrying. If we become resentful, it can prevent us from living the fulfilled and loving lives that God wants us to live. If we can accept His love, walk with Him and bear the cross together, it will not only give us strength but draw us ever closer to Christ.

Jesus, with His friends, has travelled far north into the region of Caesarea Philippi. In this secluded spot He asks them who people think He is. There’s variety of opinions: perhaps He’s John the Baptist, or Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. But what about the apostles themselves: what do they think? It’s Peter who answers on behalf of all: “You are the Christ,” he says, “the Son of the living God.” He recognizes not only that Jesus is the Messiah, “the Christ,” but He is divine, the very Son of the living God. Jesus tells him that he is blessed, that only a special revelation of the Father could have enabled him to recognize Him as the Son of God, and to make his confession of faith in Him.

Jesus goes on to tell Simon that he is to have a new name, a highly significant name. He is to be called Peter; in the Greek of the New Testament, Peter means quite simply, “the rock”. Jesus adds that it’s upon this rock the He will build His Church. And Peter is to hold the keys of the kingdom. In our first reading we heard how a new master of the palace was entrusted with the keys of the kingdom as a sign of his authority in the Church, to have the power of binding and loosing, having the task of leading the people of God in their long, sometimes difficult, journey of faith.

The healing of the Canaanite woman’s daughter comes about through the mother’s faithful perseverance. Jesus is impressed with her unrelenting prayer. Her faith is a wonderful example. We may ask why Jesus responded to the woman in the way He did. After all, it does seem, to be honest, brusque, even a tad rude. The answer may come through understanding something of Jesus’ two natures. Despite being fully human and fully divine, Jesus in His humanity learnt to understand God’s will through the events of life. In his encounter with the Canaanite woman, He is helped to understand more about the nature and extent of His mission, Her persistence reaps benefits for all. It comes as no surprise that the meeting with the Canaanite woman has Jesus initially focused on the chosen people, and their role in salvation. Again, her persistence helped Him to help us.

The Canaanite woman’s faith and persistence can help us to reflect on how God’s love encompasses all peoples. Through the healing of the Canaanite woman’s daughter, we receive inspiration in our attempts to look on, and love, all peoples of different nationalities and creeds as equals. As for perseverance in prayer, and the Canaanite woman’s example, we know this is not always easy. It takes courage. It takes a leap of faith at times. Yet God always hears our prayers. If we think God is not hearing our prayers, perhaps we could ask the Holy Spirit for some enlightenment. At times our prayers are not always answered as we might expect. And so, with the Holy Spirit’s help, we may find our prayers are actually being answered, but in different ways. Amen.

In today’s Gospel, the fact that Jesus can command the storm to be still, and can even cross the sea by walking on it, shows only one thing: that He is God. The disciples, even in their panic, would not only see the miracle – they would remember the scriptures. They would know that they were in the presence of the God who stills the waves, and makes the storms cease. But through His humanity, Jesus shows how much He loves the disciples, as He did after the resurrection when He appeared to them in the upper room saying: “Do not be afraid,” and “Peace be with you.” But the Gospel teaches us also about ourselves. The symbolism of the event reminds us that we are, in this life, in danger from the storms of this world. Personal sin, illness, bereavement and persecution can all cause storms in our lives. Temptations against living a life of faith can be frequent and strong. When Peter attempts to leave the boat and go to Christ on his own, he begins to sink. And what does Jesus do except put Peter back in the boat? Peter is often impetuous in the Gospels, and here his desire to go to Christ on his own gets him into trouble. He is saved by being brought back to the boat; and the ship can be seen as representing the Church. We are, of course, saved by God, but we are saved as members, so to speak, of a crew.

In the days of Jesus, the people of Galilee came to realize that there was someone special in their midst. A young man had appeared who, it seemed, had special powers of healing, and who spoke in ways that captivated his listeners. This was someone who just had to be seen, and someone that people wanted to listen to. And so the crowds began to gather. The people knew that they were on to a good thing. This man can cure our sickness. This man seems to understand life, and has an air of authority about Him that persuades you that He is the genuine article: not a showman, but a Savior. Jesus himself knew all about the problems of being in the public eye. Your words and your actions will be scrutinized. You will be misreported and misrepresented. Your enemies will seek to destroy you in whatever way they can. King Herod Antipas, a vicious ruler, had just executed John the Baptist, and so Jesus could very well be next in line. He leaves Herod’s territory and moves along the coast, hoping for some quiet time to compose himself. Now Jesus will show us what true power is, and how it should be exercised. They need guidance – Jesus preaches the word of life to them. They are hungry and need food – so Jesus feeds them, and teaches to feed them from the little they have. The issues of health, education and welfare are all addressed here. These are common needs in all of humankind, and we are called to attend to them all, in every person.