St. Michael's Church

2/4/12

For a few months, we will be placing emphasis on prayer and family.

Data is piling up linking marriage not only to personal well being, but to the health and strength of society.

Our faith makes of marriage a sacrament that expresses the love between Christ and His Church.

We see family as the domestic Church - the set of relationships within which God is glorified and faith modeled and handed on.

Our Church is now paying the cost for failing to wisely and consistently make these points to its people.

Re-establishing in Catholics’ minds that marriage is a sacrament with deep and life giving power, and that Catholic Religious Education programs only help parents in their role will be a long and tough slog.

HomeLife is the prime expression of St. Michaels’ commitment to this on going and difficult purpose.

There are strong resources available from HomeLife.

HomeLife offers manageable ways to bring change into our lives.

1/29/12

Home life begins a new season. Although the subject is not new, it is one which bears repetition. Home life has revised it’s planning instrument to include single people.

It makes sense now to bring to mind the meaning of the term “intentional”.

When we bring our mind and will to our behavior, we become intentional. Most of us are creatures of habit. Most of us, too, have thinking which some describe as the playing of the same tapes over and over.

This is what we mean when we describe someone as living in her own world.

When we are intentional about something, we reflect on behavior looking for patterns. We ask ourselves how these patterns serve us. Often it is not so well.

Also, we do some thinking about our thinking. We notice repeated thoughts. These thoughts can keep us from living in the here and now.

We can also start reflecting on the shared habits and thinking that are characteristic of our families or group of close friends.

When we are intentional about something, we make judgments on our thinking and behavior and then, after feeding our minds with better more accurate thinking, make decisions.

So with family prayer we check the accuracy of the notion of prayer we have, both as individuals and as a family group.

Once we have become more realistic in our thinking about prayer, we ask ourselves how we can change our behavior to reflect this reality. We develop a plan which fits us. We break down that plan into manageable steps.

Homelife is presenting us with a sample plan which most of us can manage. Listen carefully to the Homelife presenters this weekend. Then recreate it in a way that works for you.

Take up some of the literature and cds available to you.

Introducing or restoring the 7 5 2 practice not only helps us to remain God’s good servants, but can have a tremendous impact on spouses and the whole family.

1/18/12

Our life as Catholics formed by Catholic worship has some more intense times such as Advent, Lent, the seasons of Easter, Christmas and Pentecost. The Church decor and the vestments’ color press upon us the spirit of those seasons.

We are now in Ordinary Time. The vestments’ color is green. The color symbolizes hope, the sort of hope that we in the temperate climate find when green shoots show up in Spring and grass begins to look alive again.

This Ordinary Time is meant to lead us to focus on the ordinary life we lead. Our daily set of habits, routines, recreation and responsibilities. By paying attention to them, making the adjustments needed, doing them as best we can (that includes recreation, too) for the glory of God, not only adds meaning to life but makes our lives more beautiful to God.

Do pay attention to the Bishop’s video. Dioceses in the northeast are under significant pressure produced by changing demographics. There are dioceses in which as much as forty percent of the parishes are financially unstable and are not able to pay their tax to the diocese.

Bishop O’Connell lays out well the necessary functions the diocese fulfills in his DVD and campaign literature.

In tough times when it is hard to give, we are faced with the reality of increased needs. It is a painful time.

The classic Church story is that of the Church being faced with the need for a new boiler at Christmas time. This year that was St. Michaels’ situation. Fortunately, the weather was good. Insurance paid very little on a boiler that was so old, but our building committee secured a good boiler for much less than estimated, and a solid and well qualified parishioner installed it at a very favorable cost. My thanks to the qualified and generous members who love our Church buildings and our parish life.

Our Facebook presence is at this early stage developing quite well. Facebook is finding a place in the lives of most of our organizations.

1/11/12

In preaching last weekend on the application of the meaning of the feast of the Epiphany, I pointed out that the demographics of the worldwide Church had changed, and this change is continuing.

Most practicing Catholics live in the southern hemisphere now. The Church in the united states will become, in the lifetime of our younger people, an Hispanic Church.

Those of us of European background are decreasing as a result of our choices in reproduction. We will move off center stage.

On the parish level, we have changed from a heavily Irish congregation to a mostly Italian American one. We now are receiving Hispanics, African Americans, and people with roots in India and Korea.

Those of us who are Caucasian need to school ourselves to be welcoming of those who will join us to secure the future of St. Michael’s.

I have very few moments when I have been deeply disappointed in the behavior of our people.

I saw an African American young man begin to speak with another person leaving Church. The other person simply cut the young man off. I pray this other person was not a registered parishioner. This sort of behavior is uncharacteristic of our parishioners.

Christ founded a Church for all nations and tongues. Faithfulness to Christ means welcoming those He has chosen.

We are taking up family life again this week. The sermons will be focusing on this. Our Facebook page will soon have videos of the family generated preaching. My hope is thateach sermon will raise a principle question that people will discuss on Facebook.

1/5/12

For quite a number of years we have had a reduced Mass schedule on January first.

The reasons are practical. Almost no one attended the 7:30 pm New Years eve Mass or the 7:00am New Years day Mass.

The same held true of the 4 and 7:30 pm Mass on New Years day.

Securing priests for our ten weekend Masses after Christmas is usually far from a certain thing.

This year, some did come looking for the Masses that did not happen. I suspect this was a function of very kind weather and New Years day falling on a Sunday.

We will take a look at the issue next year, and we can better provide notice.

This weekend we will be opening our Facebook page. One hope in doing so is that it will provide parishioners with the chance to engage one another. It is not so much a pastor -parishioner thing as a conversation among parishioners and other interested people.

As we preach in practical support of family life, I am very much aware that most have far more experience immediately of family life than the preachers. One hope is that the preaching might ignite a discussion on our Facebook page to the advantage of all.

Personally, I am not at all disposed to Facebook. I am almost genetically determined with a high privacy need. Professionally, I am certain that the advance of the parish demands that we use the new media.

I may very well show up on the page as Charles parish priest to maintain my comfort level.

It is also clear that we will need to have a video component on the page. I will really not like that but, again...

Please check our page, at www.facebook.com/stmichaelwestend. 

Make yourself as much a part of it as makes sense to you.

While I am hesitant, I am really interested to see how you will use it. I am not kidding when I say St. Michael’s has very interesting people. I have no doubt at all that I will be checking the page a lot to see what you are up to.