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From the Pastor&
Our experience is that human beings live on.
From this I infer that it is the law of love
that rules mankind. It gives me ineffable joy
to go on trying to prove that.
-- Ghandi
Last week we buried Gertrude Goodchild, age 86. She had been a member of St. John's her entire life. She experienced many changes in society and in the church during her lifetime. And she remained faithful right up to the end. In his homily at the funeral, Deacon Joe Kenney remarked that Gert said the rosary twice a day. As I listened to the homily, I couldn't help but think that when Gert died and met her Maker, she didn't meet a stranger but someone with whom she was very familiar. Death was going home to be with a God and the Mother of God with whom she was intimate. She knew her God through a life of prayer. If only all of us could be as wise as Gert!
But she wasn't the only one at St. John's who could teach us a lot about God and faith. Every morning of the week there is a group in our church who must keep God smiling and thinking that there is hope for the human race. They are here, and at every Catholic Church. Most of them are retired after working hard all of their lives. They gather to celebrate the Mass. And they get here early to light their candles, say the stations of the cross, and pray the rosary.
They are good people who feel very much at home in the house of God. And they should. They've been faithful to keeping the Lord's Day holy since they were children. Now they have the time to make everyday holy by attending Mass or a Word/Communion service. God has been the one constant in their lives. Many have buried a spouse, a child, or grandchild. They lived through World Wars, the depression, recession, upheavals in Church and society. They raised children who no longer go to Church. They pray for those children and their grandchildren, hoping and praying that they return to God and the Church. And they pray for all of us who are sometimes too busy to notice them. They pray for a world that gets more complicated for them with all the advances in technology. But they still have their God who is not a stranger to them. The Church is a very important part of their lives. What great teachers they are!
They know what all of Sacred Scripture is trying to tell us: God desires to be very intimate with us human beings! Isn't intimacy what all of us desire? We need and want someone in our lives. We want to share our lives with someone. And God is no different. God longs to share life with us. Some people learn this when they are young; some realize it in their middle years; and some late in life& as St. Augustine wrote, "Late have I loved you!"
Try praying Psalm 139 this week. It's a great and beautiful expression of our intimacy with God: "O Lord, you know me& you know when I sit and when I stand& you understand my thoughts from afar& Probe me, God and know my heart."
Need a pick-me-up? Spend time with God and some of God's "old" friends.
Fr. Bill
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