It’s an exciting weekend here at Nativity, a lot going on. First, July 2nd is Nativity’s 100 year anniversary of being a parish. The first Mass wasn’t held until December 23rd, 1923, but the parish was created or incorporated by the Archbishop on this date, with the cornerstone being dedicated on July 4th, so we are one hundred, pretty cool. We will be doing some great stuff to celebrate our 100th, stay tuned for that. One thing I’m hoping for is to get the Bishop here to celebrate an anniversary Mass…
But we are in kind of a weird time which makes that hard to schedule, we don’t have an Archbishop, we have an administrator bishop, but that is different, so you will notice in your pews a prayer for the new Archbishop. We will begin saying that together at the end of our petitions. The administrator bishop, Bishop Pates, asked all of the churches to do this, but the Archdiocese didn’t send enough of those prayer cards so please don’t take them home, leave them here and try to share, we will work on getting more.
Also you may have noticed on the way into church something different about the missal stands. Well we got a new missal for the 9:30am Mass. You know from the bulletin that we have been printing Antiphons in there for the last three years, but that is confusing to visitors, plus getting a bulletin on the way in can be distracting, and it can also be annoying switching back and forth for music. So for the 9:30am Mass crowd this will be a lot easier, and it comes with the bonus of having an Offertory Antiphon. So there are black covers on the Missal stands to help facilitate that, and help everyone get the correct missal on the way in. The only challenge is this little stand up here at the front, but hopefully the few people that use it will be able to figure that out.
Finally, today after the 9:30am Mass the Army Golden Knights Parachute Team is jumping into the grass lot by the radio station. The grass is painted and it is really cool, so hopefully you can cstay here to see that - you’ve already got great parking for it! Lot’s going on this weekend, but I still want to talk about our readings for today.
Our Gospel is the last of three encouragements to the Apostles just before they go out on their first big mission. Last week’s Gospel talked about how we are more important than many sparrows, we are beloved sons and daughters of God, and our only fear in this life should be a fear of offending God, a fear of sinning against the righteous and holy God, such that we would be separated from Him, that we would break our relationship with Him and not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
This week Jesus says, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” God expects us to detach from everything in this world, including our family, and attach to Him, to love Him more than our life here. It’s not that we can’t or shouldn’t enjoy our life here, it’s just that there is something more important, and that is our relationship with Jesus.
We do this in three primary steps. The first is found in our second reading, Paul said “Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus.” We have to root sin out of our lives, we have to stop thinking we can find happiness by violating God’s commands, grow in holiness, and live for God in Christ Jesus.
When we do that, then, second, we really attach to God, to the point that we can detach from even our family. John Paul II called the family the school of love, but loving our family isn’t the end all be all. It is interesting, that second reading from Paul to the Roman’s is quite often used in funerals, and when I do a funeral, I ask the family to describe the faith of the deceased, and without fail they will say, “he loved his children,” or “she loved her grandchildren” - listen, no offense, but there is nothing special about that in regards to faith about loving our family, that’s basically expected! It’s very normal to love our own family.
So that takes us to the third step which is to love others, especially those who work for the sake of the Kingdom, who have left their own family behind to try to help others get to Heaven. Jesus describes this as showing hospitality to the apostles, the first bishops.
Or showing hospitality to prophets, righteous ones, or even the little ones - I think of the little ones as the Totus Tuus missionaries who will be here at the end of the month, which we will be asking for some hospitality for them - this is important, to show religious missionaries love simply for the sake of your love of Jesus.
People that do this hospitality spend their resources, time and money, on people other than their family, and this shows the detachment from family, from loving only our family and turning to a deeper attachment to God, a deeper love for God.
Quick story about hospitality: a parishioner was having a party some time ago, and I had a priest friend in town visiting from Chicago, and I asked him if he wanted to go and I could tell he didn’t but I said “come on let’s go.” And we went and it was great even though we didn’t stay long because I knew he didn’t really want to be there.
So we got in the car and he said, “you know, if I had parishioners like that I would be happy to stay at my parish, and I would enjoy my priesthood a lot more too.” He has been at his parish for a couple of years and people just aren’t kind to him there, they don’t appreciate his ministry, and there aren’t any families that welcome him and are hospitable to him, and that makes a huge difference.
He has given up his family and friends in order to follow Jesus, like I have, so it is important to experience that love in other ways, and it blesses both of us, both the giver and the receiver, right? That was the point of the first reading, and also the rewards Jesus talked about, showing hospitality is a blessing to us both.
So, as I approach my four year anniversary of being your pastor here, I just want to say thanks for being a great parish and treating me so well. Thanks for the cards and the meals, the candy and the cookies, the meat and the cheese, and all the ways you bless me. I might not always show it, but I appreciate what you do for me and for the community, and I am excited to be able to celebrate the 100 year anniversary here.
We need each other to encourage each other on the way to heaven. We love our family, we love each other, but this is all just a school of love to grow closer ultimately to Jesus, to love Him more than anyone else. That’s what Jesus tells us to do, and we are able to do that with each other’s help along the way.