Dear Church Family,
We are more than half way through Lent and I reflect especially on the goodness of the Lord. The psalmist says, “The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.” Church family, that is my feelings for tomorrow as I celebrate my 52nd anniversary as a padre. Certainly it’s been a wonderful blessing for me, so I give thanks! With the prophet Isaiah I think of all the blessings I’ve received and now I am hopefully able to share with others.
In the first reading the prophet Isaiah talks about the good blessings and the passage through the Red Sea. How the Lord protected him and then yet he said, “I am going to do something new and I will continue to pour forth blessings for you.” One blessing that we are going to celebrate and receive as a gift today is the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession). The God Father is coming to help us today. We will pause after the sermon and just celebrate this great sacrament of the Lord healing us. We again continue to pray all this week as we anoint so many of you. We will continue to pray for anointing and healing to come upon you as you continue in your journey. One of my favorite passages of the Scriptures is in Philippians where it says, “I wish to know Jesus and the power of His resurrection and even though I have to share in His sufferings and be conformed to His death, I will give the victory of resurrection.” I will continue to have this with me already and I have this as a prize in my future life as do you and know “the power of His resurrection.”
We then come and hear this sad but hopeful story about Jesus and the woman taken into adultery and how He is challenged to totally forgive her. As I read this gospel, it came to me that the Lord is just so good and forgiving. Above anything else what He wants to do is totally forgive-just totally love us. We can’t stop Jesus’ love from coming to us, just can’t stop it.
Last Tuesday, I was celebrating Mass with our children at St. Louis Catholic Academy and Fr. Pat from St. Matthew’s had the sermon. It was supposed to rain so he asked the question, “Can we stop the rain?” He said, “It’s no way, once it starts raining we can’t stop it.” He also said, “We just can’t stop Jesus from loving us.” Just as Jesus loved this person who had sinned and the other people who don’t live right. Still Jesus is going to love them. So, we just celebrate that and become more and more aware that this is our lot that we have all the blessings we can possible have. We have God’s forgiveness totally and we are like the humble woman in adultery, not greatly respected, a sinner and yet Jesus just loves her and gets her off the hook and challenges everyone there to be merciful as He is merciful. Thank you Lord for giving us this good mercy of hope as we are called on our journey to know Jesus Christ and His power of Resurrection. Amen!
Love, Fr. Bob
Thank you, Father Bob. We are so blessed to have you.