5th Sunday in Ordinary Times

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

Did you attend last Sunday’s presentation after Mass? I found it challenging and exciting. Our God is a God of liberation, and we are made in God’s image. As Catholics, we have a responsibility not only to respond to the needs of the marginalized in our society but also to foster systemic social changes that will enhance human dignity and reduce marginalization. How can we do that? How can we support one another here in our community individually and collectively to address issues of justice? I don’t have the answers. I look forward to all of us working to learn and implement those answers together.

On another note, I received word that the wife of my father’s second cousin died a week and a half ago. I probably met Kathleen fewer than half a dozen times in my whole life, and neither she nor her husband were particularly close to me. So I am surprised at feeling somewhat disoriented in response to her death. She and Walter were among the last of the generation before me. Her death in some way removes a sense of security over my life. I am one step closer to being all alone.

I am reminded of a program that I watched on Nova a few weeks ago. Its focus was the annual fall migration of butterflies from Canada to Mexico, but the relevant point for today was the growth and development of each individual butterfly, with the caterpillar shedding its skin several times and then the mature butterfly breaking out of its chrysalis. In each case, if the insect was to survive and become all that it was intended to be, it had to let go of the security with which it was familiar and venture into the unknown. So it is with God calling each one of us from life through death to Life. Maybe we can apply that metaphor to our community as it contemplates its response to the call for justice.

Peace and every blessing,

Loren, OFM