If a baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on, a mother is God’s promise that the world will go on.
By now you’ve no doubt seen many advertisements for our annual Golf Classic and Parish Dinner on May 19th. Today I’d like to issue my own invitation to each and every one of you. Whether you can join us for the whole day or just for the cocktail party and dinner, it would be great to celebrate with you.
In particular, it is mercy - that is, love encountering evil and overcoming it, not by force but by redemption.
The resurrection is not the happy ending to a tragic story - it’s the launching of God's new creation. Easter is not about escaping the world; it’s about God’s plan to renew it, to raise it to new life.
The reality is that as long as we’re on this Earth, there is no real neutral. We’re always headed in one direction or another: either towards God or away from him. As I said in my Ash Wednesday letter, Lent is a time to develop a firm disposition to go towards him.
A big part of Lent’s power is that we make this 40-day trek together, so I’m asking you to commit to taking on – with all of us, your fellow parishioners – the following three life-changing and love-enabling disciplines:
1. Pray for 30 minutes a day
2. Fast every day except for Sundays and Solemnities
3. Give a true tithe (10% to the parish)
Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
