Last Monday we celebrated the Feast of All Souls. A day when we remember those we love who have gone before. Yet, that remembrance also invites us to think about the realities of death and resurrection. We know that the only guarantee after birth is death. Every time we say the Our Father, we pray, “Thy kingdom come.” We know that one day we will each face judgment. And so, the question this parable presents is, “Are we ready?” not “Will we be ready?”
On this Solemnity of All Saints, the church invites us not only to remember those who have already marched in but also to ask how we can one day be in their number.
This question about questions is ultimately pretty simple — do we ask questions, engage in discourse and discussion on social media and in-person with our friends (and with our enemies) for the sake of clarity, for the sake of learning the opinions of others and why they might hold these opinions, or do we do it to trip the other up, to hammer home our point, to verbally “beat down” those who might disagree with us?
Virtues remind us of the ultimate final goal of our life, what is called in philosophy our ‘telos,’ our end — to become like God! Put everything else aside — all of our temporary desires and preoccupation, for what is important is our destiny.
At the very start of the epistle that we proclaim this Sunday, St. Paul tells us: “Have no anxiety at all…” Now this sounds great, but how many of us can follow this biblical injunction as it is expressed here?
I don’t know about you, but I am tired of shallow conversations about the weather, about meals, about politics! The art of conversation — true conversation — seems to be absent from today’s world. Many people seem to prefer text messages or emails to talking on the phone or in person.
All forms of love require self-sacrifice, and our fallen human nature tends to make us close in on ourselves. We can start to think that avoiding love is the safer course in life. C.S. Lewis reminds us that this way of thinking leads only to damnation.
“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Many parishes in the Diocese of Brooklyn and around the globe have noticed that attendance at Sunday Mass is significantly lower than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic.
There are pages in the Bible that keep me awake at night. This Sunday’s reading from the book of Jeremiah is one of those, but I know I am not alone in my deep discomfort about it when I compare the different ways the first verse has been translated.
If newspapers as we know them only date to the 17th Century, how did the earliest followers of Jesus find out what was going on? Had there been such thing as the Nazareth News, it wouldn’t have lasted because very few people of that era knew how to read. So how did the disciples stay on top of things? Simple: word of mouth has never gone out of style!
