OLOL+SA Newsletter: April 19, 2024 D

THIS WEEK’S BULLETIN: [CLICK HERE]

FIRST HOLY COMMUNION MASSES – NEXT WEEKEND (APRIL 28TH)

Come join us at the 9:30 AM and 11:00 AM Masses next week as our young people celebrate their first reception of Holy Communion. 

WEDNESDAY BIBLE STUDY – BEGINS 7:00 PM ON APRIL 17TH AT SAINT ANNE

Join a faithful group that is exploring how to deepen our awareness of God in our daily life by studying how King David and others did in the Bible. Contact Dcn. Bill (me) if you plan to attend. It helps with room setup.

SPRING FLING DERBY – SATURDAY, MAY 4TH AT SAINT ANNE

Please join our Knights of Columbus at the annual Spring Fling Derby. We’ll enjoy catering from MicGinney’s on the River and a wine tasting as we watch the Kentucky Derby.  All proceeds will benefit Miss Julie’s School of Beauty – a ministry that assists survivors of human trafficking. Tickets will be sold after all Masses.

DCN. BILL’S REFLECTION – Jesus shows us the way

[CLICK HERE] for the readings of Sunday

“I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:11)

There is a legendary story of a warlord and a monk.  The warlord was going about the countryside laying waste to farms and villages, taking what was not his, oppressing the people, and inscripting their sons into his army. Everyone submitted to his power and paid tribute to him except for this one abbott at a monastery who did not heed any attention. The warlord approached the gates of the monastery with his army and saw the abbott sweeping the steps outside the gate without giving him any regard.  Infuriated, the warlord got off his horse, brandished his sword and said, “Do you realize I am the man who can kill you without hesitation?” The abbott quietly replied, “Do you realize I am the man who can die without hesitation?” The warlord saw the proof of the abbott’s statement by his serine composure and became his disciple that very moment.

There are two ways of being in this world: We can be people of force demanding others to submit to our will, even our bodies to submit to our will,  thinking of ourselves as attaining greatness in wealth, power, prestige, and pleasure only to cause more harm than good. Always wanting more and always finding that God and people resist our efforts. Always wrestling with judgment – what is right and what is wrong? Who is right and who is wrong? Living under aversion, that is to say, anger or fear about some content in our life.  Or, we can be people free from all this suffering with the world and to experience the love, joy, and peace – the serenity – we each long for regardless of what drops into our life.

The warlord symbolizes the person who thinks and acts based on the fear of death.  This fear of death gives birth to self-centered desires and attachments. No matter how much we have, we feel small in the world and we lament when we lack the power to achieve our perfect view of what our life should be before we die. From that, we react by oppressing others. Parents yell at their children. Spouses give up trying to live together. Customers and employers demand more work from their hired help. Employees become disgruntled. People break good laws. Religious leaders crucify Jesus Christ and suppress the Apostles.

The abbott in the story symbolizes Christ. As Christians, we know that our salvation is through Jesus Christ. The one who is not only free from the fear of death, but truly free from the power of death. Yet, if we’re honest with ourselves, saying that aloud to others or to ourselves isn’t enough.  We too must become free from the fear of death and the fundamental question is, “how?”

Jesus teaches us how in his analogy of the “good shepherd” and modeling this teaching in his life: “I will lay down my life for the sheep…No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own.” We must freely and consciously embrace death. Death of our attachments and desires in each moment and allow God, the Father, to direct our lives for us. As God directs our lives,  we respond to God’s will with a life-affirming response.  As we empty ourselves out of our attachments and desires, what we experience is God fills us with awe and wonder.

We wake up and it’s raining or snowing outside. We might think, “stupid snow, I want it to be sunny again.” We are operating out of misery, hating Rochester, wanting to move south, hating we don’t have enough money to do so, perhaps beating ourselves up for past decisions that landed us here at this moment.  All the while, we miss the glory of the gentle snowflakes resting on the cherry blossoms of a tree or the gentle sound of raindrops on the roof.  We are too filled with our story of misery that we are unavailable to receive God’s good will.

Saint Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit.  Jesus healed the cripple through Peter and gave Peter the courage to preach the truth of the Gospel but Peter had to learn to let go, to die, from his self-interest.  Peter, in self-interest, followed Christ because he believed Jesus was the revolutionary Messiah and, in self-interest, denied Christ three times during his Passion. Peter had to learn the lesson of letting go. Even letting go of his failure and guilt. So that God could bless him and all of us through Peter’s witness of God’s love through Jesus Christ.

Saint John, in our second reading, proclaims that we are children of God and that we shall be like Jesus.  Being filled with the Holy Spirit is possible for each one of us. Experiencing and sharing the love, joy, and peace we each long for is possible in our homes, in church, in work, and in society without any sense of cost.  Yet, what is also true, is that we must die to self-interest – to empty ourselves so that God’s Holy Spirit can fill us.  The question is, “Will I put down my sword?” 

“The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone.” (Psalm 118)

Before we truly follow the way of Jesus, before we experience the Holy Spirit, before we intuit the Real Presence of Christ, the prospect of doing so for ourselves seems foolish. We reject the way of Jesus the moment we are confronted with a loss that is frankly and embarrassingly too much. Yet, if we look very close at that loss, we see that it is not the person, position, or material possession that causes our sense of suffering. Rather, it is a story in our minds that tells us “I can’t live without that, who will I be without that, how will I survive without that,” which is only an illusion against life as it is in God.  This spiritual battle for life or death is the crux of the matter. 

To follow Jesus is not a “one and done” experience, rather it is a moment-to-moment experience.  In this, here, and now, can I die to that ego identified, compulsive sense of self separate from everyone and God that I call “me”? The prospect of doing so forever is not necessary and it is unhelpful.  Simply do it in this, here, now again and yet again.

Alleluia, Alleluia,

Dcn. Bill
Dcn. William Rabjohn

Saint Anne + Our Lady of Lourdes Church Cluster
150 Varinna Drive
Rochester, New York 14618
Office: (585) 473-9656 Ext. 412