MESSAGES FROM FR JOE

Dear Friends:

In this weekend’s reading from the Gospel of John, the earliest disciples ask Jesus where he is staying. They find Jesus resides in the heart of a community centered in God. Jesus unifies God, himself, and his community in a bond of eternal, unbreakable love. John’s Gospel will report a series of signs revealing this love present in the world through Jesus: healings, personal sacrifice, service for the common good, forgiveness, reconciliation, community, and faithful love at the beginning and through to the very end of life. These remain signs for us that the Reign of God indeed is near. The attributes of these signs of the Reign are named by St. Paul as the collective expressions of the fruits of the Spirit: peace, love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). It seems these attributes have gone missing in our deeply wounded communities and nation. Where might we look for and how might we cultivate these fruits of the Spirit?

We mourn the violence and loss of life we have witnessed recently in Washington, D.C.. It is heart-wrenching to consider the pain and grief of those families who have lost loved ones. As a peace-loving parish, we must reject without condition any calls to provoke further violence. Violence opposes the Spirit of God, and those who live by its logic cannot at the same time live in the Reign revealed by Christ. To be of Christ, we must reject violence, in action, thought, and word and embrace nonviolence rooted in faith.

A confluence of events this week challenges any self-assurance we may feel about how well Christian faith communities tend the fruits of the Spirit. As we memorialize Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr,; inaugurate President-elect Biden; and acknowledge the seamless garment of life vision proposed by the Church on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we recognize that there remains much to do in order to fully live out the fruits of the Spirit in our lives and nation.

As disciples of the Prince of Peace, we commit to peace by acknowledging the inherent dignity of all humanity, without condition. The lines of division we now live are built upon decades of racial, ethnic, and religious bigotry, policies that support economic and social segregation, a steady coarsening and acceptance of vulgarity within our culture, and an erosion of critical thinking that obscures truth. All of this contributes to alienation from God and one another and a resulting inability and unwillingness to recognize the fundamental humanity of those whose basic needs are least respected within society. Consider each of the following:

• African-American families struggling to find a place in sharing the goods of society given the web of structural injustice they face;
• immigrants seeking a new beginning after fleeing poverty or political violence in their homeland;
• nascent human life in its embryonic form and all of its potential coming to term within the womb;
• those incarcerated on death row awaiting execution by the state;
• the young woman facing perilous multiple personal and public crises from an unplanned pregnancy;
• those elders who are frail and infirm pushed to the margins of our collective consciousness

Do we see the inherent God-given human dignity within, or instead an uncomfortable problem we would rather consign to the comforts of our lazy political categories? In challenging the “throwaway culture,” which views human beings and other elements in God’s creation as expendable, Pope Francis invites us instead to create a “culture of encounter” where we recognize the sacred dignity of all life.

Recently, I received a message from another pastor, reminding me that the majority of those who have died from Covid-19 resided in nursing homes or assisted living centers. The point of focusing on this particular statistic struck me as odd.  Was it intended to reassure younger generations that the mortal threat they face is less than others, and so help one group feel more confident by amplifying the anxiety in another, or offered as support of the view that the threat of COVID is overblown since it is primarily the infirm and old who bear the brunt of severe disease? If your house stood in the path of wildfire, would you be of the mind to say, ‘Oh well, its older and in not so great of shape. Best to take our chances and just let these things burn themselves out.” Absolutely not!

Our culture has learned to move heaven and earth to preserve economic assets when threatened, but we have grown blind to the humanity right before us that needs our attention, care, and respect. That even leaders within our church do not know better is a deeply discouraging consequence of the ubiquity of these ideas. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, once said that American society cherishes property above people, a sad statement that seems all the more true fifty years on. We eviscerate the humanity of another when we assign their suffering to statistical categories simply to reassure ourselves. As people of salt and light, let us move beyond reliance on banal political slogans that reinforce our ideological prejudices in order to proclaim a message of justice, peace, truth, and love.

Christian communities are called to transcend all of this. How can we at St. Timothy’s move forward? What do we, as disciples of Christ, have to contribute that makes a difference? This week can be a week of renewing our commitment to cultivating the fruits of the Spirit.  During our parish Week of Nonviolence (January 17-23) we are offering daily reflections (which can be found by clicking here to view our Week of Nonviolence page) with resources, prayers, and action steps to deepen your discernment of how we can individually and communally better respond to our current challenges.

Christ desires that we will come and see how he lives in and seeks to influence our world through the gifts of his Spirit. Take heart: Christ has not gone missing. We just have lost the spiritual sight to recognize the signs of this presence. The Good News is this vision can be restored. Christ relies on all who are willing to share with our wounded world the healing peace, life, and love accessible to us within the Reign of God. As followers of the Prince of Peace, may we share the fruits of Christ’s Spirit in all we say and do.

Fr. Joe



 

Message from Father Joe regarding
the killing of George Floyd,
and the current unrest.
Please click here for the letter.