[cincopa AwHA3VKQQ3Ej]
A few more pictures from Confirmation – 10/05/2010
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[cincopa AwHA3VKQQ3Ej]
A few more pictures from Confirmation – 10/05/2010
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[cincopa A4GAFUqGnM1d]
All Saints/Souls Celebration with the youth K-5 – 10/31/2010
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Recently, I met with two engineers to discuss the possibility of air conditioning the church. In the process of that meeting, I asked whether or not the system that they were proposing would cost more to run than a different system. One of the engineers said that, while it might be hard for me to imagine, it would be less expensive. I agreed: it was hard for me to imagine that larger machinery would take up less electricity to run. He started to explain, “it has to do with their veers…” and at that I stopped him. See, I know my limits and, quite frankly I believed him. I knew that while I might be able to learn a few more tid bits, it wasn’t worth my investment of brain power: I wouldn’t comprehend half of the stuff he was saying and, in fact, I already trusted the information to be true.
Maybe another illustration of the same principle: I do not understand all of the issues involved in proving how gravity works, but I believe it does actually work. I’m willing to put faith in it without having a deeper understanding of its reality.
With those two illustrations now mentioned, I do not believe that the same can be said about issues of faith today. In today’s way of thinking, in today’s world, while people believe in the expertise of engineers and the theory of gravityeven without having firsthand knowledge or proofthey do not approach faith the same way. Very often, I have found that when some people pose questions about faith, they are trying to disprove its importance, downplay its relevance and dismiss its existence as foolhardy.
Today, while people in the world pursue power, prestige, pleasure and the like, without significant regard for the needs of anyone but themselves, they often then don’t find that God even really matters, that faith won’t impact them at all, and that skepticism is the most appropriate response to ‘not knowing’.
But the fact that we’re here, says something different about you and me. The fact that we’re engaged in our “Catholicism series” this year or starting our new Scripture Study during this Year of Faith; we believe that God does exist, that God has always existed and interacted with His creation and His creatures…and that a relationship with Himborne of faithis essential to us. Beyond that, I would propose that even in the midst of faith, however, there is still great value in knowing how and why God exists around us in the life of faith. Sure, we may not grow in our understanding of God Himself, but exploring the movements of God over time and throughout salvation history could actually be the ticket for us to appreciate more and more the gift of faith within this world; a world that despises things unseen and rejects things unfelt.
In the end, our knowledge of the words of Isaiah in the first reading or of “Ephphatha”, the word of Jesus in the gospel don’t help our understanding of how ears or lips were opened, but they do help in another way: they point to a plan being laid out and then fulfilled…all by God, who creates, who cares for us, and who dwells among us, to give us His own life; a life bursting with freedom, with openness, with hope…and a lively faith placed in Him as we move about in our everyday. May this blessing of faith for each one of us be renewed this week, that we might be instruments who connect our world back to God, through Jesus Christ.
Imagine what your life would be like if you awoke tomorrow morning and found that there was no water coming into your home. What would you do? Probably you'd get a few gallons of bottled water, and feel a bit grungy and inconvenienced until the water came back on. Other than that, things would really be OK. But what if the water never came back on? And what if the stores ran out of bottled water? What if the nearest drainage ditch became the only place we could get any water at all? … Help The Thirsty