Sacred Heart Parish

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We are looking for persons able to transcribe the audio portion of our town meetings.
Please call the rectory if you can help.


23RD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

  1. St. Paul tells us – “God dwells in inaccessible light”. St. John the Evangelist tells us – “No one has ever seen God. God the only Son, ever at the Father’s side, has revealed him.” In the Old Testament, God spoke to his people through the prophets. In the New Testament period, God spoke to us through his Son. In the post-New Testament era, God speaks to his people through the Church in his Holy Spirit. The New Testament means God with us in the flesh, reconciling the world to himself. The post-New Testament era means God with us in the Spirit at work through the Church, reconciling the world to himself.

  2. Our Gospel reading today is a wonderful example of God speaking to us through the words and deeds of his Son. It is the story of bringing the gift of hearing to a man born deaf. Jesus touched the man’s ears and said to him, “Be opened!”, and immediately his ears were opened. As we reflect on this incident, it is important to recall the great truth of faith that all the power, all the divine strength, resident in the humanity of Jesus, thanks to his Ascension and the sending of the Holy Spirit, has passed over into the sacraments of the Church. Think back at your own Baptism. The celebrant took note of the baptismal garment and its significance, then gave you a candle, a symbol of the light which is Christ, and then said to you while touching your ears and your mouth – “The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the dumb speak. May he soon touch your ears to hear his words and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father. Amen.”

  3. “Opening the ears” – What a wonderful name for our Religious Education Program. The Lord begins this process of opening the ears of our children through their parents in that “little church” which is the family. The Latin word for church is “ecclesia”; sometimes the family is called “ecclesiola”, that is “little church”. It is in the family that the child begins to pray, to give, to forgive, to share, to come to Mass on Sundays, to say prayers morning and night, to say prayers before and after a major meal. Then comes the educational work of the parish but always auxiliary to the role of the parents. Part of the Christian socializing process of growing up in the Lord takes place as a child enters the educational project in a more formal way and prepares to participate in the sacrifice of the Church which is the Mass and in Holy Communion which is the fruit of the sacrifice. The child begins slowly but persistently to understand what is so beautifully represented in the prayer which concludes our Liturgy this morning, when we say to God our Father – “Your word and your sacrament give us food and life. May this gift of your Son lead us to share his life for ever.”

  4. While I’m at it, it might be appropriate to mention the prayer the celebrant says at Baptism the moment the child is lifted from the font. The priest says, calling the child by name: “God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has freed you from sin, given you a new birth by water and the Holy Spirit, and has welcomed you into his holy people. He now anoints you with the chrism of salvation. As Christ was anointed Priest, Prophet and King, so may you participate in his ministry and live always as a member of his body, sharing everlasting life.” This prayer points to the three-fold ministry of Christ our Redeemer – He is Priest, Prophet and King; He is our life, our truth and our way; He is our mediator, our teacher and our guide. Christ’s three-fold office he now shares with the Church. Our Religious Education Program participates in the work of Christ the Teacher. The Church, of course, is much more than a school. Doctrine is not the only, not even the primary activity of the Church, for the Church must worship God, serve mankind, work for the transformation of the world and await the consummation of its hope in the world to come. However, the Church cannot be anything less than a school, and so we teach our young people to believe, to teach and to confess what the Church believes, teaches and confesses. This is Christian doctrine; this is at the heart of our Religious Education Program. Who is important when it comes to religious education? Obviously the teachers in the classroom who represent the Church as teacher, but surely the mothers and fathers of families, and all the parishioners of the parish as well. If what is being taught does not coincide with the practices of family life, and if the practices of our parishioners are not constitutive of Gospel witness, what can we accomplish in a classroom in the short time of an hour or so a week for thirty weeks?

  5. I would add this postscript. You and I, all who follow Christ, are citizens of two worlds – God’s city within the human city, and we have responsibilities in both. We face the same issues, under different circumstances, as did the Thessalonians of old when Paul wrote to them about holiness and hope in a pagan world. We are living in the same circumstances as did the Philippians when Paul taught them to sing the hymn of the crucified Lord in their community of life patterned on the mystery of the cross. You and I are living in the same world as did the Colossians of old when Paul wrote to them about the crucified Christ as the very wisdom of God. We live in a world filled with lights often contrary to the Gospel. And so we say – Lord, Christian is the name and Christian is the Gospel we glory in. May your love make us here at Sacred Heart what you have called us to be.