Hello All,
Updates:
1. I offered Mass today for all of you, the parishioners, and for Kasen Yoso (by John and Elizabeth Mahaffy)
2. Fr. Gratton is doing well in his ministry up at the field hospital at the Essex Fair Grounds. He is caring for the soldiers and the patients, administering the sacraments and spreading joy to them. His orders continue until May 23rd. Any updates will be communicated as soon as we hear. He sends his affectionate greeting to you all.
3. Upcoming stuff:
Thursday 6:30 -- Through Saintly Eyes
Friday, time TBD -- Confessions
Reflection
(http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/042820.cfm)
St. Stephen, just like St. Peter earlier in the book of Acts, minces no words even when put on trial. He stands before men already enraged, and says this:
You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always oppose the Holy Spirit; you are just like your ancestors. Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They put to death those who foretold the coming of the righteous one, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become. You received the law as transmitted by angels, but you did not observe it.
Unsurprisingly, the effect is rage. When they heard this, they were infuriated, and they ground their teeth at him. As an aside, I've always wondered how you grind your teeth at someone...anyway.
This is not a politically prudent speech! And if this were the whole story, there would not be anything amazing about it. But this same man, boldly delivering a piercing rebuke, is the same man who then cries out in prayer at the very moment when his persecutors are stoning him to death: Lord, do not hold this sin against them.
The expression of forgiveness is noteworthy, of course, but truly astonishing is the simultaneous presence in St. Stephen of fierce condemnation of the wickedness and unbelief of his opponents together with a serene willingness to forgive them for murdering him. It is a saintly character, combining two elements that tend to diverge: a violent hatred for sin with a bottomless mercy towards the sinner. An indulgent attitude towards the sinner can lead to an accommodation of sin; a more intense reaction to sin tends to carry away the sinner as well. But St. Stephen heroically achieves the maxim hate the sin, love the sinner. He eschews the sin and passionately loves the sinner.
His life and death become a perfect mirror of Jesus, his Lord and ours. He stays true until death, and forgives those persecute him. Then, to bring the resemblance to perfection, St. Stephen entrusts his soul to God: Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
May we, through the intercession of St. Stephen (and St. Louis de Montfort, whose feast day is today), follow the path of death to self in forgiving our enemies, and so follow where our Resurrected Lord has gone before.
God bless you all!
Fr. Rensch