This weekend, on the 3rd Sunday of September, our Catholic Church celebrates Catechetical Sunday each year as designated by the US Bishops. Our catechists, teachers, and classroom helpers in our program of religious education will receive a special blessing today, as just last Sunday we started our new year of religious education here at St Jude. Catechetical Sunday is a great opportunity for our community to reflect upon the role each person has, by virtue of his baptism, in handing on the faith and being a witness to the Gospel in the world. We may think that Catechetical Sunday is something new, but actually it was back in 1935 that the Church started setting a Sunday in the beginning of the school year to recognize and celebrate the gift that our teachers and catechists give to their parish communities by volunteering their time for the education of our children, youth, and adults. Catechetical Sunday is also an opportunity for all of us Catholics to rededicate ourselves to this mission as a community of faith. Our theme this year is: “Say the word and my soul shall be healed.”
These past few weekends, we have been reflecting on the readings from the Letter of James. If you have not ever read James in its entirety, I urge you to do so, as it is so instructive in calling us to live out a vibrant, life-giving faith, urging us to be doers of the Word of God in our lives and to bear fruits out of our faith. Even though this letter was written in Ancient Israel, this letter gives very savvy advice and social commentary, so much so that it may seem like it had been written in the modern world specifically for us. James looks at the reality of the Christianity community and he sees many different things. He sees peacemakers who are working toward unity and solidarity. But he also sees those how are planting seeds of discord, letting their jealousies and ambitions get the best of them. In our secular world we hear a lot of different messages. Often, the message is to desire more, to attack those with whom we disagree, to not be content with what we have. Yes, it is good to have ambitions and to strive toward something if our goal is fruitful and constructive and healthy, but James warns us that if we get caught up in a cycle of bottomless desire, this desire can never be satisfied, which can lead to spirit of bitterness overtaking our individual lives and overtaking the community. There are a lot of sins and addictions that people struggle with in our world today, but perhaps the greatest sin in our modern area is our greed and the way we covet what is not ours. James directs us to the need to journey as a community in solidarity and unity, where we work together, affirm one another, and encourage one another.
“Say the word and my soul shall be healed,” the theme of Catechetical Sunday, is prayed for the faithful right before we receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the Mass. Those words echo the Centurion in the Gospel of Luke. He is very powerful man in society. In that Gospel, he recognizes the control and power he has over a lot of people. But he is humble and intelligent enough to recognize the power and authority of Jesus. That would be strange, as Jesus was not even one of the Jewish leaders or a scholar of the law. Jesus is just a humble teacher with a ragged group of disciples: how could he have such power? Yet, the Centurion admits that he is not even worthy for Jesus to visit his house. He believes that if Jesus utters the word that his servant should be healed, that God would grant it. Jesus recognizes the great faith of the Centurion, which allows Jesus to utter those words of healing.
We all have our own unique realities in which we come to Jesus with humble and sincere hearts. I look at the different realities in the life our of parishioners. This weekend, I am celebrating two different baptisms with families from our parish. I celebrated a wedding with a couple from our parish, as God joins them in the sacrament of holy matrimony. This past week, I prayed the sacrament of the anointing of the sick for a good friend and former parishioner in Yazoo City, as her friends came together to pray for her before a medical procedure. Also, this past week, I traveled to St Meinrad seminary in southern Indiana, giving a presentation to newly appointed pastors on parish accounting and finance. In addition, a big milestone in the life of our Diocese and my life as Vicar General happened as well: our Diocese made the public announcement that we had met all the requirements of the Deferred Prosecution Agreement that we had with the federal government, that a judge signed off on the requirements being fulfilled in that agreement. You can only imagine how that has weighed very heavily on my heart as the vicar general and as a priest in this Diocese. We put forth a lot of hard work, love and dedication these past couple of years as a Diocese to get where we are today. I thank God’s grace for blessings all of our work and our efforts. I am so thankful that we as a Diocese are moving forward on our journey. Yes, God is there is our reality in many different ways. He is with us in our reality as the children, youth, and adults gather each weekend for our religious education program. God is with the children and youth who are preparing for the sacraments of first holy community and confirmation.
My prayer today is that God accompany us as individuals and as a community in our reality, that God bless our program of religious education as we give thanks for all the hard work and for God’s grace that makes this program possible.
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