As we hear Jesus in the Gospel today talk about the need for us to store up and value the treasures of heaven rather than the treasures of the earth, I thought of some posters that I saw while I at one of the mission sites on my mission trip to Saltillo, Mexico last week with Bishop Kopacz and Bishop Kihneman of Biloxi. One poster hanging in the church listed the good seeds that we should sow on our journey of faith, such as God’s truth, service to others, community, respect, evangelization, organization, prayer, and love. The poster that listed the bad seeds we can sow in our lives included sadness, division, marginalization, anger, jealousy, and ignorance.
I think of a reading we had recently in the Easter season, where Mary Magdalene was hanging on to the resurrected Christ, but he warned her not to cling to him, as he had not yet ascended to the Father. That message is similar to the message we hear in today’s Gospel, to not cling to the things that are earthbound, to look at what is ahead of us, to have the values of our faith lead us and guide us and to tell us what our foundation here on earth should be.
Today is the last healing Mass I am going to have here at St Jude before I move to my next parish assignment on July 1. I love the tradition of the healing Mass here at St Jude, which we have at many parishes here in the Jackson area. In the sacrament of the anointing of the sick, we ask the Lord to come into our lives in a special way to bring us healing body, mind, and spirit. We thank the Lord for the way he is present in our lives in different ways. We thank the Lord for bringing us healing and wholeness, by showing us what should be important to us in our lives.
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