Paul makes some very bold statements in his letter to the Romans. Today he tells us: “If we live, we live for
the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord.” Do we
really believe this? Do we really live
like this? In
talking to parishioners lately in our parish here in Tupelo, we have been discussing the sacrifices we as
a parish are having to make for the faith, especially in our collaboration with
the other parishes in the area. Many of
these parishes do not have a resident priest, that have one of the priests in the
area to come there in order to celebrate mass. Up in
Corinth and Booneville, they had to bring in a priest all the way from the
Jackson area in order to celebrate mass for All Saints Day, a holy day of obligation. Yet,
here in Tupelo, we had three different masses on All Saints Day and two
different masses for All Souls Day, but did not have great attendance at those
masses, and did not have very many youth and children attend. What
does it mean if we are bursting at the seems at the Fall Fest, and then for the
holy day masses associated with that festival, we don’t have very good
attendance at all? As a
priest, I am not here to scold people or to try to make the parishioners feel
bad, but I am here to remind us of what our Church expects out of us as
Catholics, what responsibilities we have in living out our faith. As our
world becomes more secular, the freedom to live out our faith and to attend
mass might become something that will become more difficult and more of a
challenge. We might look back at these
days when a parish has four different masses on a weekend as a luxury. What
does it mean to live for Christ? What
does it mean to make sacrifices for our faith?
I think we all have to ask ourselves those questions.
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