Bulletin Reflection - St Jude Catholic Church - Pearl Mississippi - 17 November 2019

I was at the family activity event with our children and their families last Sunday here at our parish.  I was rushing around that Sunday doing a lot of different things.  Not only did I have my schedule of masses and Sunday school, but that afternoon, I was going out to a parishioner’s home to anoint them, getting ready for the mass at Millsaps College, writing a letter of reference for a parishioner, and arranging for some books to be picked up at the old Norbertine priory.  But I was glad I was able to spend some time with our children, to see them decorate pumpkins and to see the way they see God in their lives.  I see that as the point of the Gospel today.  We can be obsessed with trying to predict the future, of trying to determine the date that the end times will happen.  But, instead, as disciples of Christ, we are called to concentrate on how God is present in our lives.  It was very edifying to see how these children saw God in the way they chose to decorate their pumpkins.  

I recently saw a quote from the great Jesuit priest Tielhard de Chardin, who besides being a priest and theologian, he was also a renowned scientist and paleontologist.  Teilhard de Chardin said this: "God is not remote from us. He is at the point of my pen, my pick, my paintbrush, my needle — and my heart and my thoughts.”  God is not distant and far away; he is in our midst in the lived reality of our lives.  Our faith calls us to see God in the everyday moments of our lives.  We are called to be mindful of our relationship with Jesus and mindful of our faith, seeking him out in those everyone moments in our lives.  Serving in an administrative position in our Diocese this past year has been a challenge for me, because I always saw myself as a priest as being called to pastoral ministry, not accounting and administration, even though I have those skills in my background.  However, this is where God is calling me right now, and I am challenged some days to see where God is in the midst of this. 

      We are getting ready to celebrate Thanksgiving, then the season of Advent and our Christmas holiday season.  Our lives of faith will be busy.  Our lives at work and at school and in our families are very busy this time of the year.  God is in our midst.  May we see him in the here and now.