Pastoral Messages from Fr. Rick 7/9/22

Hospitality:  Remember that we are a ‘Hospitality Parish’ with a major outreach to our many visitors. Please sign up to help host our Sunday morning Coffee and Muffin gathering. Sign up list is in the gathering space.

Care and Share:  The local CARE and SHARE needs your empty egg cartons.  Please bring them to the social hall and we will get them to the right place.  They also need several volunteers on Tuesday July 12 at 11:00 A.M to help unload the monthly delivery food bank truck.  You would need to be able to tolerate the heat and be able to lift a minimum of 25 lbs. Some of the cases are a bit heavier.  Water bottles will be available to keep you hydrated.   The truck will be at the Kane County Care and Share facility located at 56 W 450 N.  If you can help, please contact Lannell Dove at 435-644-3696 or ldove@kane.utah.gov

Walking with Mothers in Need in Utah:  Gearing up for the ‘post Roe’ world.  https://www.dioslc.org/respect-for-life/walking-with-moms-in-need

Homily Reflection: “Love the Lord your God with all your HEART.”  It might be easy to skip over this familiar line without seriously considering what constitutes the ‘heart’.  Whether it be loving from it or praying from it, the heart is ultimately the place of Truth, the place of Encounter, the place of Covenant. (See Catechism paragraphs below).  This awesome reality should remind us of the essential need to spend more time with the Lord.  If the poorest and most vulnerable are indeed our neighbors, God might be a little suspicious of our true devotion to Him or our neighbors.  People are’ lying along the side of the road’ by the millions throughout the world, including our own country and we seem helpless to respond effectively.  Is hotel fare for a couple nights not sufficient or is there a larger systemic problem that requires not just charity, but true justice?  Interestingly, the type of justice required would also include a deeper level of ‘self-mastery’ and ‘human freedom’; a commitment to ‘an eminently personal task’ but also a ‘cultural effort.’  This takes the concept of chastity to a whole new level which is the very foundation of a genuinely PRO-LIFE CULTURE.  (See Chastity below).

Fr. Rick’s Homily is available on our website…usually.

‘Prayer from the Heart’ as in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC)

2562 Where does prayer come from? Whether prayer is expressed in words or gestures, it is the whole man who prays. But in naming the source of prayer, Scripture speaks sometimes of the soul or the spirit, but most often of the heart (more than a thousand times). According to Scripture, it is the heart that prays. If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain.

2563 The heart is the dwelling-place where I am, where I live; according to the Semitic or Biblical expression, the heart is the place “to which I withdraw.” The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation: it is the place of covenant.

See Catechism of the Catholic Church on Chastity, paragraphs 2337-2344.  Notice especially:

2339 Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom. The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy.126 “Man’s dignity therefore requires him to act out of conscious and free choice, as moved and drawn in a personal way from within, and not by blind impulses in himself or by mere external constraint. Man gains such dignity when, ridding himself of all slavery to the passions, he presses forward to his goal by freely choosing what is good and, by his diligence and skill, effectively secures for himself the means suited to this end.”127

2344 Chastity represents an eminently personal task; it also involves a cultural effort, for there is “an interdependence between personal betterment and the improvement of society.”131 Chastity presupposes respect for the rights of the person, in particular the right to receive information and an education that respect the moral and spiritual dimensions of human life.

“One of the few things Conservatives and Liberals can agree on:  Neither wants to talk seriously about CHASTITY.”Anonymous