Dear Family,
Often when we are celebrating Mass, my mind plays a little background music to accompany the “Deliver us prayer...” that follows the Our Father.
I pray “Deliver us Lord, from every evil... keep us free from sin and safe from all distress...” Keep us free from the kinds of abuses in our relationships we call sin, and safe from all distress. Notice is doesn’t say free from all distress, just safe. In other words, don’t let whatever is threatening in my life weaken my fundamental relationship with you Lord. Help me not to become so preoccupied with whatever is worrying me or hounding me, that I forget you are there.
As I write, (last Monday p.m.) Hurricane Matthew is bearing down on Haiti and Jamaica. God help everyone who has been in its path. I have been praying with a lot of heartfelt concern, especially for the people of Haiti. How much more can that nation stand? The only thing I can depend on is my pleas to the Lord who I know is there. But you can’t help going through the “why do bad things happen to good people?” phase. That was Job’s question and a whole lot of people since.
There will be people throughout the Caribbean, perhaps even ourselves, who are going to need help, and no matter how this comes out, maybe we can funnel our concern into a little planning to do some of the helping. Remember? “One of us” has been left homeless by a brutal storm. “One of us” has lost family members to the storm. “One of us” is reaching out to help. (If you didn’t hear the “one of us” homily a couple of weeks ago, ask someone. It was terrific.)
We blessed the animals last Tuesday, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi. Since I’m writing this before the actual event, all I can say is I hope it went well. Last year everyone was well-behaved and we had no rivalries. Bubba supervised. J. T. Cowgill brought his lizard a couple of years ago and that was the star. I know it has a better name than lizard, but I forget... Something I think with “king” in its name.
I hope our celebration can take us beyond the “cutsie” stage and really help make us more aware and appreciative of not only our pets but of nature itself. Pope Francis wrote his second encyclical called “Laudato Si” and published it on May 24, 2015. It is a broad treatment of the whole ques¬tion of environment. I found a very good summary online and I highly recommend it. Simple Google the phrase, “10 key excerpts from Pope Francis’ en¬cyclical on the environment.”
Of course if you don’t think climate change is happening you might be opening yourself to some real thought-provoking ideas. At least I hope so.
Annie has to get this letter off to the bulletin folk so I am going to end “early.” This week she will be on retreat if Matthew doesn’t mess up her plans. Let’s send her with our prayers because she is an important natural resource that is all ours.
In Jesus,
