Homilies & Thoughts

“Without cost you have received.” The words of the Lord seem so clear. The Gospel is free. Salvation is free. Yet we have slowly allowed ourselves to believe something else. The world and its ideas have taken root in many hearts. Many people have come to think that we somehow purchase the faith.

I saw this in a parish not long ago. It was not our parish. Difficult but important changes were introduced, and some people were unhappy. Tensions rose enough that the diocese had to send in others to listen and help bring healing. In the aftermath of those meetings, I saw some of the feedback on social media. One comment struck me: “Why don’t we let the market decide? Each parish can do what it wants, and the money will pick the winner.”

A grain of wheat looks almost weightless in the hand. It is small enough to be overlooked and dismissed. Yet inside that small thing, God has hidden a path from from human hunger to eternal life.

One of the great tragedies of modern life is that we have learned to see creation as flat. A tree is wood and leaves. Water is a chemical substance. Useful things, perhaps beautiful things, but sealed off from any deeper purpose or meaning. The world becomes a collection of facts, and we become people who know how to use things without knowing how to see them truly and experience them.

N.B. I will not ordinarilly post my letters to the parish I serve because they are focused on local matters. However, I think this letter addresses an issue of broader importance.

This week our parish was shaken. ICE came into our community and people were taken away. Fear was left behind. Many of our parishioners are now afraid to go to work, to go to the store, and even to come to mass. Attendance at mass in Spanish dropped. Our trained liturgical ministers were absent. When civil enforcement creates fear that keeps the faithful from the Eucharist and prevents ministers from serving at the altar, it injures the worship owed to God. We must face this as Christians before anything else.