Blog & Pastor Letters

We live in an increasingly anonymous world. In this highly technological and post-pandemic age, fewer and fewer are the opportunities to meet people, to really meet people — to get to know someone intimately and to let oneself be known. A renewal of Catholic parish life is needed as so many anonymous Catholics slip into the pews and out again without anyone ever knowing their story, perhaps not even their name. Then again, we see so many who have stopped coming to church altogether, many of whom claim to be “spiritual, but not religious” — who connect with God, but without wanting the constraints of a religious community and the associated traditions.

In the shadow of Friday’s Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, today’s Gospel opens with the description that Jesus’ heart was “moved with pity” for the crowds, “because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.” Like the crowds, without the presence of Christ in our lives, we are aimless, disoriented, without belonging. However, our readings today are filled with reminders that, in Christ, we belong to the Father. We are “a kingdom of priests, a holy nation,” our First Reading from Exodus tells us; we are “his people, the flock he tends,” we heard in today’s Responsorial Psalm. God has made us a kingdom, a nation, his people, his flock; we belong, and, in him, our lives find a definitive new direction.

On December 4, 1912, shortly after four o’clock in the morning, a fire broke out in the basement of St. Philip Neri Church in the Bronx, New York. In very little time, the entire church building was engulfed in flames. Thankfully, a passerby noticed what was happening and summoned the priests and the fire department. The two parish priests — Fr. Daniel Burke and Fr. Joseph Congedo — arrived on the scene, and one can only imagine what it was like for them to see their beloved church engulfed in flames.

Soren Kierkegaard reminds us that life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced. The same can be said about God. God, who is the Mystery of mysteries, may be beyond our intellectual comprehension but not beyond our experience. Were our human minds really capable of knowing the true essence and depth of God, we would then be “equal” to God and as superior as He is. Just because we cannot fully comprehend or master and control God, it does not mean that His presence is diminished or that he is completely out of our grasp. What it does require is a change of focus. Experiencing the incomprehensible mystery of God requires more “soul work” and less “brain work.” It is only in our souls and not in our brains that a Divine encounter can occur.