Church of St. Mary at Clinton Heights

Over the last several monthsbut seeming like an eternitywe’ve been engulfed by political ads and campaigns of one side and then the other, and now, every single one of us is praying for next Tuesday to come and go!

In the heat of ugly political conflicts, we can easily lose sight of our real vocation as Christians: holiness. We’re called to be in the world but not of the world.  Powers and nations including our own sooner or later pass away.  But God’s word does not pass away.  Neither does the witness of the holy men and women we call saints, and whose memory we celebrate on All Saints Day and throughout the month of November.

Politics is important.  But in the end, all of the passion, all of the egos and even all of the issues in this election will fade.  In the end, for each one of us:  the only thing that matters is to be a saint….

That was the goal of Kateri Tekakwitha, Marianne Cope, Issac Jogues and so many others from right here in our own diocese.  And while we can be proud of our local heritage, we can never be content with sainthood as part of our past.  God made each of us to be saints.  That means you and me.  The hunger for holiness needs to animate every moment of our lives today, right now, and into the future.

May God grace us…and may the saints pray for us!

As we approach now the one week mark from our local and national elections, I thought the following 2 articles might be of further assistance to our parishioners.  Published by the Knights of Columbus in their November 2012 issue of “Columbia” magazine, Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson reflects on what it means to serve “the common good” and avoid the seriously detrimental pitfall of voting in a strictly partisan manner.

Click on the following 2 titles to download the pdf documents.

Faithful Citizens, Faithful Knights

What Every Catholic Can Do to Transcend Partisanship

 

In today’s gospel, Bartimaeus demonstrates a faith that can heal him.  He cries out to the Lord as the Lord!  Yes, he believes already in the great power of God in his midst and he beseeches Him.  But the power the Lord displays is really flowing from Bartimaeus’ faith.  He already possesses that which can heal him, set him free, open him up to proclaim the goodness of God.

This monthand continuing for the next 12 months, we are invited to enter into a YEAR OF FAITH.  From the power of faith demonstrated by Bartimaeus, we witness that faith has the power to heal us, transform us, give us sight and insight…and so much more.  Throughout this year, we are invited to re-capture and re-kindle the fire of faith within us and around us: a faith that flows from God, through the Church, and into our world and our daily lives.  As we are reinvigorated, we then also let our faith spill out into the world around us, thus enlivening faith in others who witness our profession and our action and our very being.

Clearly, one of the agents of faith today is through the priesthood of Jesus Christ: yes, some serve at the Altarbeset by weakness, needing purification and renewal, called to make offerings for many (cf. second reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews); but each and every one of us who have been baptized take on the mission of evangelization…being agents who bring the gospelthe Good Newsto those who sit at the side of the road, who seek this Christ who is Lord, to those whose faith can become ever more alive and faithfully fruitful.

May God’s Holy Spirit bless us with protection, with courage, and with loving hope.