Holy Week: Week of Decision

Through the liturgical rites of this week we will walk with Jesus in His sorrow, His fear, His death and His Paschal Victory. On Palm Sunday, we reenact His entry into Jerusalem where He encountered the growing hostility of the religious authorities.  While preparing for Passover, He attempted to open the minds of His disciples to the message of the Law and Prophets so they would understand that His death was the healing balm for a broken world and that He was about to offer His Father the ultimate sacrifice of praise.  This sacrifice is offered for us, for you and for me. He became a curse so that we might receive a blessing. He was condemned so we might be forgiven. He died so that we might have eternal life. If we humbly gaze upon the blood-stained cross and the abandoned burial clothes, we will be enabled to lay claim to the glory that is ours as the Children of God and heirs to the Heavenly Kingdom. 

Throughout Holy Week the Church re-proposes to the world the mysteries of salvation with the hope that we might renew our relationship with Christ. With the eyes of faith, we shall look upon Him Who was pierced for our sakes and come to know the depth of Divine Love that alone can fill the longing of our soul. Christ holds up to our gaze the cross with this understanding: If we embrace it with love, as He did, we will find the fullness of life. Jesus embraced the cross, and in His great love he transformed it into an instrument of grace and power with which He would recreate the world. By the blood of the cross he won for us our salvation. Now He invites us to surrender our own sufferings, our own limitations, disabilities and distress to Him and thereby share in His own redemptive love. 

Moved with pity by the miserable condition of His people, the Beloved Son of God came down from His majestic throne to seek out and find all who were lost. We have heard the phrase, “He died for us,” so many times that we tend to nod our heads and mumble, "Yah! I know." For some reason, the gospel message no longer shocks us. Because of our sophistication and technical advancements we are not overawed by the news that we are delivered from the power of death. It is important that we turn our gaze beyond the superficial and mundane. There we will enter into the broader realm of wonder and awe. Allowing ourselves to stand at the foot of Christ's cross, as if for the first time, we shall enter into the mystery of redeeming love and transforming grace.  

The Apostle Paul reminds us, God never ceases to show the richness of His mercy throughout the ages. The transformation of the heart that leads to the confession of sins is “God's gift”, it is “His work” (cf. Eph 2:8-10). To be touched with tenderness by His hand and shaped by His grace allows us to acknowledge our sins and to receive Divine Mercy. The Cross of Christ shows God's judgment on sin and His compassion towards sinners. Divine mercy, expressed at the terrible cost of the violent death of God’s Only Begotten Son, is worthily received when we choose to repent of our sins. The proof that God’s mercy was not wasted upon us is shown when we live our gratitude for mercy by striving after holiness with zeal and joy.  

On the cross Jesus took our guilt upon Himself. He bore the full consequences of our sin and set us free. With a tenderness that never disappoints, but is always capable of restoring our joy, he makes it possible for us to lift up our heads and start afresh. Jesus not only accompanies us but actually carries us on His shoulders, making it possible for us to imitate Him in carrying our cross. Rejected by the people, condemned by the religious leaders, executed by the civil authorities, naked and degraded, Jesus entered once and for all through the veil to become the sacrifice of atonement. The people who were defiled by the blood poured out in violence and unlawful sacrifice were purified by the blood of the Lamb that was slain. No one is excluded from the mercy of God. Everyone is offered access to it. The Church is the Household of God that welcomes all and refuses no one. The doors of the Church are wide open, so that all who desire it can find acceptance and forgiveness.  

Through the mystery of the Incarnation, the human race is united and, as it were, enfolded within the cloak of divine blessing, a blessing that permeates, sustains, redeems and sanctifies all things. In the face of saving grace, we cannot stand idly by. But we have respond to the call of divine love with our whole being. Only then can we enter into a profound communion of love with Christ Who suffered, died and rose for us and be transformed into Sons and Daughters of God in the Son. 

Holy Week was Jesus week of decision. It is also a week of decision for us. As disciples of the Lamb that was slain we must decide to love our enemies, count as our neighbors those who we think little of. Because Jesus is our Lord and Savior we must decide to give up the material things that offer us nothing but only drain us of real life. Because Jesus is our Lord and Redeemer we must decide to go where God calls us, follow where God leads us, no matter how inconvenient it is, how difficult it is, how painful it might be. We must decide to live life to the full and not as mere spectators. Lord Jesus you died and rose for love of us, help us to live and die for love of You. Amen. 

--Father Jerome Machar, OSCO

Responding to Correction: How Do You Treat the Gift of Love?

My joy is gone, grief is upon me,
   my heart is sick.
Hark, the cry of my poor people
   from far and wide in the land:
‘Is the Lord not in Zion?
   Is her King not in her?’
(‘Why have they provoked me to anger with their images,
   with their foreign idols?’)
‘The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
   and we are not saved.’ (Jeremiah 8: 18-20)

After listening to the reading from the prophet Jeremiah, we can easily say, our reaction to correction has not changed. We do not like what we are doing with our lives, but just let someone try to suggest ways we might change – WATCH OUT! We refuse to listen. When Jeremiah called the people to repentance, they contrived a plot against him. He was intent upon their redemption but they were intent on his death. As their ancestors did to Jeremiah, so also did the contemporaries of Jesus. In every age, the People of God have repeatedly rejected the bearer of the message of salvation. The physician of souls offers His people a diagnosis of their ills and its proper remedy, but instead of taking the cure, they plot to murder the caregiver.

God created us in His image and likeness. He made us to share in the glory of His heavenly kingdom. He hand-crafted the earthen vessel into which He breathed the treasure of life. The devil had seduced Adam, Eve and, subsequently, all their offspring, blinding them to their unique destiny and hoping to bring about their ultimate ruin. If he could not possess eternal glory, neither would any creature of clay. By continuing to allure human beings with that which they could see and touch, the devil kept them blind to the grandeur that lay unseen at the core of their beings, in their very hearts. Snared in habitual sin and addictive behavior, human beings became more and more isolated from one another and insulated against the greatness that was theirs as the handiwork of God.

In this context, it might be good to consider the words of Deuteronomy: “The Lord, your God, is a consuming fire, a jealous God” (Deut. 4:24). God loves the works of His hands and jealously claims all He has made as His own. He would never freely allow a lesser being to subvert His rights as Master of the Universe, even if He needed to engage in mortal combat to reclaim that which He created and loves. To untie the thongs of those in slaved to sin, the Lord of Life was put in chains. To clothe His people in robes of glory, the Lord of Glory was stripped naked and brutally scourged. Having proclaimed the Good News of the Kingdom, He knew that by accepting rejection He would overcome the sin and darkness of His beloved People.

Saint Paul had an insight into the redeeming power of Love when he wrote the Corinthians. “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2Cor. 12:9). In order to break the yoke that had burdened His people, He chose to carry His cross to Calvary. In order to recreate the work of His hands, He breathed out His Spirit upon all who would gather beneath His cross. By emptying Himself, Jesus filled us with newness of life. By becoming weak, the Beloved Son strengthened all the children of God to live in the Kingdom of Light and Life. By becoming poor, God-With-Us enriched our poverty making us bearers of a heavenly treasure in earthen vessels. May we have the humility to accept Love's gift.

Father Jerome Machar, OSCO

Bishop Kevin Rhoades Offers Mass for Confraternity of Penitents

THURSDAY AFTER EPIPHANY – JANUARY 8, 2015 

On January 8, 2015, the Confraternity of Penitents was honored to have Bishop Kevin Rhoades accept our invitation to offer Mass in the Confraternity of Penitents house chapel and to remain afterwards for a pot luck luncheon. The photo was taken following the Mass, in the Confraternity House (chapel behind the group through the open doorway). Confraternity members from Indiana and Ohio were present at Mass and gathering. The Mass was concelebrated by Father Jacob Meyer, CFP Visitor, and Father Danial Johnson, Spiritual Assistant for Our Mother of Perpetual Help CFP Circle that meets in Delphos, OH. Father George Gabet, pastor of Sacred Heart Church, Fort Wayne, IN, was also present. Not shown in the photo is Tim Luncsford who works as an on site volunteer for the Confraternity. He was also present but was taking the photo.

Bishop Kevin Rhoades with Confraternity members and fellow priests, following the Mass he offered for the Confraternity of Penitents in the International Headquarters House Chapel (behind). Shown also Fr. Jacob Meyer, CFP Visitor (priest to right and rear of Bishop Rhoades) and Fr. Daniel Johnson and Fr. George Gabat, between Fr. Daniel and the Bishop.

There follows here Bishop Rhoades' homily at the Mass in the Confraternity of Penitents House Chapel. Bishop Rhoades' homily focused on the Confraternity of Penitents Motto "You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul, and with all your mind, (and) you shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Jesus's words as recorded in Matthew 22:37-38)

+ We are still in the Christmas season which ends this Sunday, the feast of the Baptism of the Lord.

 

+ Wonderful readings last week and this week from the first letter of Saint John.  Saint John, the beloved disciple, wrote 5 New Testament books: the Gospel of John, the three letters, and the book of Revelation.  A major theme: love (God’s love and our vocation to love).  Recall the famous words in the Gospel of John (the famous 3:16): “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life.”  This is what we have been celebrating during this Christmas season – the gift of the Incarnation – the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us.   

+  When Saint John wrote his three letters, he was addressing a difficult problem in his communities at the end of the first century.  Many were being led astray by false teachers who were denying the truth of the Incarnation, the truth that the Son of God became flesh.  He called them “antichrists.”  They believed in Jesus but they denied that He came in the flesh.  They claimed they were being led by the Spirit.  Saint John makes it clear that it was not the Spirit of God, the Spirit of truth, that was guiding them, but the spirit of deceit, the father of lies.  This heretical group also claimed that they loved God, but they were not loving their neighbor nor keeping the commandments.  They hated the other members of the Christian community.  That’s why Saint John wrote in today’s reading: “If anyone says, ‘I love God’, but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” 

This teaching of Saint John is very challenging.  He says we are liars if we say we love God and hate our neighbor.  Being a liar means being on the devil’s side since the devil is the father of lies.  Loving God means we keep his commandments.  John writes: “For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments.”  The principal commandment is charity, therefore, it is not possible to love God without loving one’s neighbor.  Love of God and love of neighbor are inseparable!  The true disciple of Christ loves God and neighbor.   

Earlier in this first letter of John, Saint John wrote that “God is love.”  This is a profound truth of Christianity.  With love, He sent us his Son.  This was entirely gratuitous.  In today’s reading, he reminds us that “we love God because he first loved us.”  But there is a requirement attached to God’s gift of love, that of sharing it with others.  The love for others brings us as close as we can come on earth to union with God.  Saint Thomas Aquinas taught that in this life we come closer to God through love than through knowledge.    

Saint John tells us God’s commandments are not burdensome, for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world.  And the victory that conquers the world is our faith.”  So faith and love are connected.  Our faith in Jesus, lived through love, enables us to conquer the world.  This is what our world so desperately needs.  It is the only way to true and lasting peace.  There is no justice nor peace without forgiveness and love.   

The Eucharist we now celebrate is the sacrament of love as Jesus comes to us, His Body broken and His blood poured out for us, giving us the grace and strengthen to love one another as He has loved us. 

May God help all of us to live our vocation to love!  This is what makes life meaningful and beautiful.  

--Bishop Kevin Rhoades

Mary's Yes at the Annunciation/Our Yes to God

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her. (Luke 1: 26-38)
 

Mary at the Annunciation

 

In today’s Luke's Gospel, a divine messenger(Gabriel) brings Mary the awesome news of the forthcoming Incarnation ofthe Messiah, and we hear the Blessed Virgin Mary’s assent. Other than

“rejoicing” at the memory of this long-awaited Good News, where can mymeditation take me?

 

Mary’s response to God can lead us in many directions, but today let’s focus onjust two points. The context, of course, is Mary’s humble submission of her will to God’s will in all things, and the fact that the “birthing process” began at that verymoment of her “Yes.”

 

There is a Dominican mystic from the 14th century that is often quoted,because his words capture so well our own participation in this birthing process.Meister Eckhart asks the questions that we all ought to consider. First he asks:“What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and my culture?” Mary’s “Yes” that brought Christ to the world is not just a “memory event,” such as recalling that Babe Ruth or Tiger Woods set records to remember. Instead, it ought to lead us to ponder how to imitate her: how can I bring Christ to the daily world that I live and participate in? Do I reflect Christ in what I say and do? Am I a true disciple, like Mary the model disciple?

 

A second question that Meister Eckhart asks: “What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son . . . does not take place within myself?” When God comes to dwell within us at our Baptism, we are empowered to live the Christ-life, one oriented to loving God and Neighbor. Do I see that orientation in my own heart, or am I still oriented to selfishness? Do I humbly submit to all of the Spirit inspired teachings of the Magisterium of the Church, without exception, so that its wisdom can grow in my heart?

 

In summary, in a sense your personal meditation can parallel Mary’s journey: have I truly given an unqualified “Yes” to Jesus in my own life, and what is the best way for me to bring this Good News to my own little world? Mary and all the Saints have one thing in common: they “will His will alone.”

This is our life, our desire and our destiny: “Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to Your word.” Mary is the perfect model of the “obedience of faith” that we disciples are all called to imitate. 

Your servant in Christ,                                                                 

Deacon Joseph Pasquella

Diocese of Buffalo

Insights into the Incarnation from Desert Prison Ministry

Hermit Newsletter #10   An occasional publication of Desert Prison Ministry

The Hermit cat, Luthien by name, awakes from slumber in the window of the hermitage.

Hermit:  Awake from your musing?

Luthien:  Yawwwnnnnn.  That’s mew-sing in my language, old guy.

Hermit:  Well what are we on this time?  IT’s been a long time since your last newsletter.

Luthien:  Mews-letter.  I am in a state of wonder and I am mew-sing on the ultimate state of wonder.

Hermit:  Which is?

Luthien:  The state of wonder we enter into during Advent and which culminates in Christ-Mass.

Hermit:  Okay, you have my attention.  First, tell me what this “wonder” is you mention. And why do you say “Christ-Mass”?

Luthien:  I said, a “state of wonder.”  Something more than just “wondering,” like just  being puzzled.  And I say “Christ-mass” because that’s what Christmas is originally—the Mass we celebrate for Christ’s birth.

Hermit:  Is wonder like beholding something? 

Luthien:  That’s a start.  It’s beholding something with total awe.  Like being awe-struck.  You’re being ordinary and thinking or just watching the world and something grabs you right down to your whiskers.  Opens your eyes and your mind and maybe even your mouth, like you sometimes get when I surprise you with my wisdom.

Hermit:  I thought we were talking about advent and Christmas, or Christ-Mass.  Not cats.

Luthien:  First of all, what is Advent?  Catholics and some other Christians observe the season of Advent, the four weeks before Christmas.  Advent comes from the Latin for “to come.”  Something is coming—He is coming, the Savior of the World, the Son of God, the Creator of the Universe—in a human baby.  And before you make another crack, old guy, we cats know a thing or two about this wondrous event, the most astounding event there is.

Hermit:  Cats?  Knowing something about Christmas?

Luthien:  It was in a stable right?  St. Luke says He was born in a manger—that’s a food trough for animals in a stable.  And where there’s a stable, there are rats and mice.  Get It?  That means my ancestors were present—beholding the event.  We have been handing all this down ever since.  Why do you think we have the habit of mewsing and meditating the way we do?

Hermit:  I am dumbstruck.

Luthien:  Good, so maybe you can graduate to awe-struck.  Don’t you remember? Start first with the Magnificat—note that, manifi-cat—when Mother Mary bursts into a song of wonder when she visits her kinswoman Elizabeth after the Angel Gabriel has announced that the Savior will be born from her Womb   (see Luke, I, 46-55).  She is filled with wonder at an ultimate: that the Highest can become the lowest.  So that even cats can behold this mystery according to their own wits—and we do have some!

Hermit:  Okay, okay, you’ve made your point, but I would appreciate it if you could do it without a claw in my arm.

Luthien:  Granted.  Didn’t you participate in that wonder when you were a boy, sitting around the wooden stable and manger with your Mom and singing “Silent Night, Holy Night,” under the Christmas tree?  Wasn’t that wonder-ful?

Hermit:  Yes it was, and it is one of my most cherished memories of childhood.  It was something beyond any understanding.  In German it’s not “silent night,” but “Stille Nacht.”  Stille means still, and that is what gets me at Christmas, the stillness—yes, the angels sing “Glory to God in the highest” but we can only experience the “peace on earth” if we can be quiet, be still, give up the restlessness of our hearts and enter into stillness. Again, simple shepherds could hear, the highest could be wondered at by the lowest, for shepherds were very low in the scale, rough men of the hills.

Luthien:  Yes, I read (and yes, I have been sneaking in the books again) that the desert father, Evagrios the Solitary, said that we must cultivate stillness, because only in true stillness can we escape our material attachments and hear the Divine Word.  “Welcome to exile,” he says, because only in the same kind of exile Mary and Joseph were experiencing in the low, wretched stable in a hick town in Israel could one begin to behold the mystery of God’s birth as a human baby. 

Hermit:  Yes, Luthien, I am seeing a little cat, curled up in some straw, and looking at the manger in a still, frosty night in a stable where the most important even in history is taking place—God born as little child. I heard a Benedictine priest once at a retreat say that of all the mysteries of Christ, this is the biggest one, and the hardest one to grasp—the Incarnation.

Luthien:  At the risk of sounding like a human theologian, I would mewse that we simply can’t grasp it—we can only behold it in wonder.  When you were a boy, weren’t you closer to it than you have been for all the books you have read?

Hermit:  I think you are on to something there,  furry one. 

Luthien:  So, any reader I have out there in prison land who reads my newsletter, do not lament the fact that you are not in the middle of all the hoopla and materialistic madness of the “holiday season,” just be glad that in Christ-Mass, the highest becomes lowest in the most profound way possible, the Word becomes Flesh and dwells among us, and that in stillness and simplicity we, like Mother Mary, can ponder this Mystery in constant wonder!

Hermit:  Amen, Alleluia!

Ken Craven

Christ of the Desert Hermitage

Desert Prison Ministry

661 S. Edgewood Drive

Sparta, TN 38583-1105

The Church: Family of God

Throughout the history of the People of God, it was essential that fathers passed on to their sons the memory of the deeds of the Lord. Family rituals were established to guarantee the transmission of the significant events in the people's history. The family was the center of social and religious life. The family table was a place to find refreshing drink when you were thirsty, tasty morsels when you were hungry, and a compassionate ear when you needed to sort things out. The family was the core element of society and the glue that help society together. But something went terribly wrong along the way. Men and women forgot that they were created in the image and likeness of God and no longer sought to stroll with Him in the cool of the day. No longer living in communion with God, men and women ceased to see each other as helpmates, or lifesavers in their daily tasks. They became more and more alienated from each other and saw no need to repair the breech. The hearth stopped functioning as the heart of the home and the table stopped being the gathering place of the family.

During the advent season we are reminded that through the mystery of the Incarnation God is doing something new. We have only to recall these words from the Book of Revelation. “Behold, I am making everything new” (Rev. 21:5). He is taking the work of human hands into His hands and recreating it. He is using the fruit of the mutual self-gift of Elizabeth and Zachary as the herald of Emanuel. Through the birth of the son, the voice is returned to the silent father. The family is once again established as a place of joy and celebration of the works of God. Recognizing the reign of God and restoring mankind’s relationship with Him is the starting point, foundation and ultimate goal of the restoration of all things in our lives and in our world. Healing our broken relationship with God is the foundation for healing our broken relationships with the world. The Word became Flesh and dwelled among us because a world without God can never be whole.

As we strive to renew our lives in Christ we will find grace to reestablish our relationships with one another. Let the words with which Pope Francis closed the Synod close these reflections. “And this is the Church, the vineyard of the Lord, the fertile Mother and the caring Teacher, who is not afraid to roll up her sleeves to pour oil and wine on people’s wound; who doesn’t see humanity as a house of glass to judge or categorize people. This is the Church, One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and composed of sinners, needful of God’s mercy. This is the Church, the true bride of Christ, who seeks to be faithful to her spouse and to her doctrine. It is the Church that is not afraid to eat and drink with prostitutes and publicans. The Church that has the doors wide open to receive the needy, the penitent, and not only the just or those who believe they are perfect! The Church that is not ashamed of the fallen brother and pretends not to see him, but on the contrary feels involved and almost obliged to lift him up and to encourage him to take up the journey again and accompany him toward a definitive encounter with her Spouse, in the heavenly Jerusalem.”

--Father Jerome Machar, OSCO

No Shame or Reluctance in Announcing Jesus Christ.

 

            Through the mystery of the Incarnation the Eternal Word, the Only-Begotten Son of God involved Himself in the movements of human history. When the Son of God became the Son of Mary, He manifested the depths of God’s love and compassion towards women and men who found themselves wandering in deep darkness and chaos. God’s heart was so moved to pity for each of us that He came to us so that we might open our hearts to His divine love. The Holy One of Israel came into a world that had been mired by sin. God so loved the world that He sent His only Son to reform the children of Adam and Eve in His image. Through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit all of us can be conformed to Christ and thus be transformed into a new creation. Gregory of Nyssa expressed it nicely. “We become an expanding universe sharing in the Divine fullness continually because the spring of all reality flows ceaselessly.”

            Christ is the Light of the World and He comes into our lives to free us from the darkness of sin and death. Through the mystery of the Incarnation Christ becomes for each one of us the light that leads us back to the heart of the Father. The Word became Flesh so that we could experience the fullness of God’s super abundant Love. He gathers outcast sinners by his grace in the hope of bringing them into his heavenly dwelling place. Those who let Him, He carries close to His heart. To those whom God heals with the consolations of his Spirit, he speaks peace, assuring them that their sins are forgiven.

            Because of his great love, we have reason to rejoice and be glad. While our knowledge is limited, God's is boundless. Even though he calls the stars by name, he comes to the aid of the broken-hearted sinner. While he feeds the young ravens, He never neglects the needs of his beloved people. God became Man not just to tell us how to live, but to show us how to live life abundantly. He Who was rich became poor so that we might be enriched with His divine majesty. In Christ, the Fire of Divine Love illumined the world, revealing the beauty of a world that has been touched by God. Through the mystery of the Incarnation, God emptied Himself and took the form of a slave so that He could meet, listen to, bless and walk with the people who most needed Him.

            Because Christ is the Heart of the Universe, all who are loved by Him are to cooperate with Him in making the Father’s love known to the whole world. He who is God's greatest gift to the world wants us to work with Him in making His gifts available to everyone. Through the mystery of the Incarnation mankind is remade in the divine image. In Christ we can manifest the wonders of divine love and imitate the fullness of filial love. In Christ, we are reminded that our purpose in life is to give love and to receive love. Christ came into the world to reveal the desire of His Father’s heart and to reconcile the children of Adam and Eve with God their Father. It is through knowing God, heart to heart, that we come to experience His love. Because we have come to know the desire of the Father, we are given the grace to desire the Father in return.

            To have entered into communion with the Son means that we become more and more like him, first in our desires, and then in our actions. To love Jesus means to share his love and once we begin to share his love, we begin to share his compassion toward all those in need, especially those who have the greatest hunger and need of all. Christians are called to proclaim the reality of the Kingdom of God in concrete and tangible ways. Pope Francis offered these reflections when he addressed the International Congress of the Pastoral Care in big cities. “We must have the courage to be daring and fearless in our pastoral care, because this is what the men, women, families and groups who inhabit the city expect from us, and need for their lives, the good news of Jesus and His Gospel. So often I hear of people who feel ashamed to expose themselves. We must work to have no shame or reluctance in announcing Jesus Christ… For me this is key!” By God's grace, may this be key with us too.

--Father Jerome Machar, OSCO