Hi Everyone,

Hope everyone had a happy and holy Mother's Day.

Updates:

1. Tuesday's Schedule. I realized late that I double booked myself. I have Mass at 6:00; so Through Saintly Eyes won't work at the regular time. Instead I'll do it at 7:00 pm. It will be available, as always, on the parish facebook page. www.facebook.com/ourladyvt 

2. Btw, here is a great article about the power of the Christian message applied to our current situation. The writer is well known priest.


3. Mass was offered for God's healing of priests and our country (by Mary Johnson).

Reflection
(http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/051120.cfm)

Yesterday before the 11 am Mass, Ginny Valecki asked me what the plan was for wishing mothers a Happy Mother's Day. I winced, remembering that I had not mentioned it at the 9 am Mass. Pulling myself together, I told her that I would do a special prayer at the intercessions. After Mass, we spoke a bit more about the well-wishing of Mother's Day, and Ginny said that she would be waiting for her phone call, the phone call from her children.

This set me thinking. From time to time one encounters people who claim a good relationship with God. As a priest, I always feel some sort of duty to remind them that a relationship cannot count as a good one if the affection is not expressed. But it has always seemed a bit difficult to bring home the force of the point. It then struck me that Ginny's line provides a useful point of comparison. She would be waiting for her phone call. Why? Because a relationship requires expressions of affection. A good relationship is not good without them. Children could not claim a good relationship with their parents if they never spoke to them or expressed their affection. So too a good relationship with God requires the expression of affection.

So I mentioned this to my mom on Mother's Day. She then said that sometimes people respond to her that they do express affection and thankfulness to God, but in their own way. They pray to him intermittently throughout the day, offer thanks at interspersed intervals. 

It was a practical, real objection. But it seemed to me that the Mother's Day experience offered the solution to this problem, too. It brought me back to earlier that same day, when I had stopped at the florists to purchase flowers for my mom. In scouting around, I was concerned, of course, for the flowers that she would like. Whether or not they appealed to me was incidental. Her wishes were the critical ones in question.

Again, so too with God. The real question for those seeking to serve him and be in a good relationship with him is not merely whether they express thanks to him. It is whether they expressing thanks as he desires, if they seek to offer the thanks and conversation that please him. Otherwise, the service would really be self-serving.

This comparison helps lead us into the truth of the words uttered today by our Lord: Whoever keeps my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me.


God bless,
Fr. Rensch