Blog & Pastor Letters

Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself

10-25-2020Weekly ReflectionRev. Victor C. Yakubu

There is so much talk about love that it is easy to find tons of material on the subject. From movies to fiction novels, we discover the human ability to love and be loved. The beauty of human love is deeply appreciated when love is unconditional and from the heart.

Hatred often creeps into human life and things do not add up as expected. The world today needs love as we see pictures of violence and terrible inhuman acts perpetrated by human beings capable of loving and being loved. It is even more worrisome when religion is used as a cover wreaking havoc on the weak, the innocent and destroying the defenseless.

Unfortunately, the story is not always that way.

My position is that religion is supposed to make you a better person but then, when something is wrong with your practice do not blame the religion per se. The book of Exodus should be read with the background of suffering in Egypt of God’s chosen people. For over four hundred years, they labored as slaves under harsh conditions, until God saved them through Moses.

In today’s first reading, God is urging them to consider acts of kindness to aliens, widows, and orphans. “You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt. You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry.” God is encouraging the Israelites to be kind, considerate, and merciful to these categories of people and indeed to their neighbors who look different than them.

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The Synod on the Family

10-18-2020Weekly ReflectionRev. Victor C. Yakubu

In October 2014 Pope Francis convened a Synod on the Family to discuss contemporary issues affecting the Catholic family. The first session started that October 2014 and the final session ended on October 2015. At the end of the first session, Pope Francis canonized Pope Paul VI, the pope who gave us the encyclical Humane Vitae (On Human Life) in 1968. In April 2014, Pope Francis canonized Pope John XXIII in recognition of initiating the Second Vatican Council in 1963. He also canonized Pope John Paul II in answer to a miraculous intercession. Pope Francis requested the intercession of these popes for the success of the synod on the family.

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