Pastor’s Pen
A Word from Fr. Bob
Dear Church Family,
The African American tradition is for the preacher to use the word “hello” in the middle of his sermon. He does that to wonder whether anybody is hearing and understanding the Word of God. He puts it out there anyway but for preachers, including myself, many times I put the Word of God out there to the best of my abilities and humbly stating sometimes not to the best of my abilities because I can always use more preparation in proclaiming the Word, but I put it out there and sometimes I have the feeling is anybody listening? “Hello!” The Good News is just put out there with as much hope, conviction, energy, and passion that I can possibly mustard. What if anything is happening inside those who hear? Often it is not for myself to know or for the apostles to know who have to imitate their master Jesus in word and example, trusting in God’s grace and that’s big. God’s grace really does marvelous things in you, the listener and in me, the preacher. So we keep pushing onward from village to village. Just keep on, keeping on proclaiming the Word.
I see in the Word of God today a perseverance and an awe that God’s Grace works within us. Sometimes years later somebody will say, “I remember when you gave this or that sermon and it touched my heart and it has been words that I live by.” Of course, that is a good feeling, but I praise and thank the Lord that I just persevere. I am proclaiming the wonderful workings of God’s love and God’s grace for everyone to use. Then I am all the more committed to soldiering on and trusting the process and of course trusting the Holy Spirit as myself and others try to share our faith with those who are in our care, all of our life. We always have the opportunity to be witnesses and maybe sometimes we wonder if anybody, maybe children or grandchildren, hear. But we persevere and solider on in God’s grace works, and maracles lots of times in ways we don’t even know yet. Alleluia!
Love, Fr. Bob
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