Dear Family,
Although it technically hasn’t happened yet as I write, I am surrounded by all the activity going into preparing our annual Spaghetti Dinner, courtesy of the Men’s Club. Osteria Acqua E Farina is catering our event. I am embarrassed that I haven’t eaten there yet, a situation I suspect I will correct with dispatch. They are just north of Davie Boulevard on U.S. 1 on the west side. I don’t go that way very often... until now.
When you look at the events that are coming up in the next few months, you really understand the thought that as a seasonal parish we cram a year’s worth of activities into six months.
As many of you know through your willingness to help, it isn’t hard to get tired. Yet so many of you make “tired” secondary to community. That’s what makes all of you very special people insofar as I’m concerned. If it sounds like I’m “blowing smoke,” so be it. Maybe that’s what you call “Holy Smoke!” OK. I’ll quit now.
I’m having a little problem with my eyes. In fact, right now, I’m definitely writing this “by feel.” Thank God for Annie. I mention it because it’s making me realize once again, just how easy it is to take things for granted. I’m going to put sight on my list of “Thank you, God” items, right below the all-time list header, and that’s Annie’s ministry to this parish.
Would you believe that as I was writing these words on Thursday, right on cue, a lovely bouquet of flowers arrived for Annie on Thursday, her day off. They were with love from “Your Friends at St. Sebastian.”
I saw the following reflection in “Give Us This Day” for January 6th. I have “borrowed” it in the hope it will touch you as it did me.
Beloved Children, Living Icons
The story is told of a Hassidic rabbi who asked his disciples, “What is the greatest sin of all?” They ar¬gued among themselves — one group said idolatry; another, violation of the Sabbath; one said desecration of God’s name; another, murder. The rabbi lis¬tened silently, and when the debate ran its course, he told them that they were all wrong. “There is no greater sin than for you to forget that which is written in Scripture . . . ‘You are the children of the Lord, your God’ ” (Deut. 14:1).
Ultimately, the rabbi said, that forgetting “is the root of all the many sins and all the various wrongdo¬ings which you mentioned.”
We forget all the time. We forget that to be a child of God is to be made in his image and likeness. We forget to look on each other with reverence, knowing that we are all living icons. We forget that we are all cherished by the God who created us. God beholds us and sees his beloved creation. God listens and hears the blood of Abel calling out from the tilled soil in which Cain labored (Gen 4:10).
Jesus, like us in all things but sin, never forgot that he was God’s beloved Son. That was why he had the power to still the stormy sea, to heal the sick and raise the dead, to give sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. That is why he could forgive, with his dying breath, even those who did not ask for forgiveness. By the shedding of his blood, and not the blood of another, Jesus reversed the sin of Cain.
May we, who were buried with him in our baptism, be raised by the power of God to walk in newness of life. - Rachelle Linner
And so, remembering all of you with gratitude,
I’m yours In Jesus,
