From the Pastor&
      "The BMW of the next decade will be the personal charitable trust fund.  -- Paul Saffo, Institute for the Future
       "Give as you have received.  -- Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 10:8)
       "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for  a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.
       -- Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 19:24)

     Faith in God is dangerous thinking.
     Even more, faith in God is dangerous living.
     If we are living our Christian faith, following Christ trying to live the gospel each day, and belonging to the Church, and if we are quite comfortable, maybe something is missing!  Faith takes practice.  The truths we learn from Sacred Scriptures are not just boxed concepts or bound doctrines but are a way of living, an active being.  Truth is only true when it becomes something acted out in one's daily life.
     Many people call Jesus their "friend."  Friendship with Jesus is less rigorous than discipleship with Jesus.  Jesus is the master, mentor and teacher.  To be a disciple of someone is to folow in the steps and spirit of that master.  Jesus has too many friends, too many "believers."  Jesus does not have enough disciples, not enough "behavers."
     Your life, my life, is not our own.  It belongs to God.  To be "yourself" is not just to be anything you want to be.  To be "yourself" is to be and to do what God wants you to be and to do, believing that God created you for a specific mission and knows you and your mission better than you do.  Biblical faith calls us to be with God& be your true self, but with God.  Dangerous thinking?  Dangerous living?  Can you let go of everything you are and "own" and trust God completely?  Do we trust God while we are wealthy and healthy?  What if God requires your wealth and health?  Would you trust God as much?  Is can be a dangerous relationship!
     So how do we live in a healthy relationship of trust with God everyday in the year 2001?  It requires the same things that building a relationship with your kids, your partner, your friends involves:  daily rituals, presence, a commitment to certain behaviors, etc.  What we do everyday is important, or nothing is!  If Sunday liturgy is boring and uneventful for someone, what's happening the other six days?  We need to take time and live for God seven days/24 hours.  I live what James Baldwin, the late Afro-American novelist wrote:  "I do believe, I really do believe, that we can do better than we are, but the price is enormous, and few of us are ready yet."
      Our generation is interested in the soul/the spiritual.  Just go to Barnes and Noble and you'll find a tide of books about the soul.  But most of those books are just scratching the surface.  Why are people reading Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, etc.  instead of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and the Letters of Paul?  Jesus of Nazareth calls us to live life as a real adventure instead of just having an agenda.
     Why do I live?  How should I live?  How do I live a life of trust in God?
     During the coming weeks I'd like to reflect on these questions with you. 
     Next week:  living and dying, vertically instead of living and dying horizontally.
 
    Fr. Bill

Parents with little ones... this message is for you:

The nursery (located off the narthex, near the        restrooms) will continue to be supervised during the 9:30 and 11:30 a.m. Masses throughout the summer.  The nursery is for children ages 1-3.  We do also continue to need volunteers to help staff the nursery, especially at 11:30 a.m.  If you would like to help out (you must be 13 years of age or older), stop by the nursery and talk to Kari Gill, the nursery supervisor, to sign-up.