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Dear Brothers
and Sisters in Christ,
Happy
Easter ! Alleluia! It is with the greatest joy and hope that we gather
together today and all this week to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus. We
especially welcome all of our visitors and our brothers and sisters who we
haven’t seen for awhile. It’s good to be here together today! Today our Faith
is renewed. This is a day for celebrating and rejoicing, not because of a
rabbit, but because of our God Who conquers even death!
Today
is about what we believe in, about where we put our faith, and where our hope
for the future lies. Today, together we rejoice, not as individuals, but as a
community, a family. And it is wonderful to behold!
Today
at Mass, along with Catholics all over the world, we renew our Baptismal
promises. This is where we agree, or promise, for another year, to be followers
of Jesus Christ. It’s really very awesome if you think about it. Those same
words that were said on the day that we were Baptized and on the day that we
were Confirmed, are now re-affirmed by us, on this beautiful Feast Day!
Today,
let’s not just say these words, but us let us really mean them with our whole
hearts and our whole lives! Anybody can say nice words. It takes a person of
integrity to really live their life for Jesus. This is true for all of us. It
takes a real commitment. Today, as a community, we re-up our commitment to
Jesus and His Church. Please let these words today have meaning in your life!
We all
know people who have broken their commitments to God. And if we’re honest, we
know that each one of us has done this some times in our own lives. I mention
this, because I think that many times we can become so saddened by so many of
the sins and failings of others. There’s a lot of sin out there today! You
know it and I know it! From lone, messed-up gunmen walking into buildings and
shooting a bunch of innocent people, to people lying and “stretching the truth”
to get their way or make themselves look better, to our own State’s most
prestigious Catholic university giving an honorary law degree to a man who most
rigorously promotes the “culture of death”. These are wild days. All of our
sins are horrible. They have hurt us all. As I see it, in all of these
breaking of our commitments to God, can lead us to two, very distinct
conclusions: Either we, too, can give up on our commitments and our covenant
with God and do whatever we want, as so many apparently decide to do every day;
Or, we get stronger, we strengthen our resolve and our commitment to doing what
we have promised to God. For myself, I choose the second option. Today I feel
more committed than ever to Jesus and His Church. We must refuse to let the
choices of others dictate to us or to the Church what the standards for holiness
are. So many are weak and we can’t be. So many are NOT committed, and we have
to be! And I’d certainly bet that the folks making many bad choices today quit
praying a long time ago. We can be a whole lot better than that. We are a
whole lot better than that! It really does come down to whether we are
committed or not.
While
we can’t live in a vacuum, I do think that we have to be very careful about how
we let other people’s sins and broken commitments affect us. Nobody gets a
divorce just because other people are getting a divorce. We don’t lie, cheat,
or steal just because there are other people who choose to live their lives that
way. We don’t shoot somebody just because we saw it on
Law and Order.
In the same sense, we can’t let the sins of others get in the way of our
holiness. I pray that this we be a wake-up call to all of us to re-commit
ourselves to living holy lives, regardless of what anybody around us is doing.
Jesus taught us how to be holy. Sometimes we need to stick with what we know is
right, and not pay attention to what everybody else is doing.
We
are so happy and blessed to welcome 23 new Catholics into the Church this
weekend. It has been a great pleasure for all of us to get to know these
wonderful individuals who we are Baptizing, Confirming, and giving Holy
Communion to for the first time this Easter. For our Parish, this truly is a
time to rejoice and be thankful. My thanks to Jeanne Derksen, Joan Scimeca, Dan
Dessauer, Connie Anderson, Windi Krok, Rhonda O’Malley and all of the RCIA and
RCIC presenters and sponsors, for making this joyful weekend possible. All of
you have done an exceptional job of preparing our new brothers and sisters for
this important weekend. Thanks also to every one who prayed for these
individuals during their Faith walk.
Have a
great Easter! May we “keep” Easter every day of our lives!
In Christ,
Fr. Kevin
Thank God our
friends and family are not buried. They are only sown.
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