Fr. Rick’s Pastoral Messages 4/10/22

Holy Land Collection Today and Good Friday we will take up the annual collection for Christians in the Holy Land.  Your support helps the church minister in parishes, provide Catholic schools and offer religious education.  This collection also helps to preserve the sacred shrines in the Holy Land and care for refugees. 

Volunteer Help Needed at Care and Share We have a request from Care and Share to assist in unloading a delivery truck on Tuesday, April 12, at 11:00 AM.  The location of Care and Share is 56 W 450 N., Kanab.

Bishop Solis on the Stewardship of Talent Click on this link on our website:  https://www.dioslc.org/outreach/stewardship-our-way-of/stewardship-messages/stewardship-of-talent

CRS Rice Bowls are still available at the entrance of the church, BUT it’s also time to bring them in for counting.  Thank you for all your support of Catholic Relief Services.

The Passion of Our Lord

The reading of the Passion this weekend dramatically demonstrates the fickleness of human nature. How easily we can change our moods and allegiances:  Hosanna in the Highest to “Crucify Him, Crucify Him!!”

The witness of Jesus Christ is no less radical in our time as it was 2000 years ago in Jerusalem.  We thought we worshipped Jesus, but then find out we hardly knew Him at all.  Jesus came to call us out of our constricted, myopic and shallow sense of reality in order to live in the abundant life He created us for in the first place.  Remarkably, the fear of walking through life by faith is so great that we choose a sort of slavery to our own illusions.  We need only listen to the news for a while to realize the lack of Wisdom in human thought and priorities.  Jesus does not give up on us even though we often give up on Jesus.

This week I was recalling a print of Jesus that was hanging in a religious education room in a mission parish I was assigned to several years ago.  It showed Jesus looking down on the cross at the whole world and all the divisions and hostility in some areas, but also the relative peace and prosperity of other areas.  The easy-to-grasp point was that Jesus died for all of us as only a loving Father could do, despite our confusion and divisions.

As Jesus looks down on us from the cross today, what divisions in our lives does He see?  What divisions do we hold in our hearts?  This is a very important question if we expect to experience the joy of the Resurrection. Are we willing and ready to let go of our limited vision of reality and risk seeing with the Wisdom of God?  Are we ready to be a reconciler, teacher or counselor?

Our families, neighborhoods, Church, nation and global community desperately need the abundant life Jesus came to gives us.  This week let’s try to take the many divisions of our world deep into our prayer space and let Jesus inspire us with new strength and new life.   Please join us for the many prayer opportunities for Holy Week.