Fr. Mike's Gospel Reflection - October 13, 2024

Our psalm response this week is, “Fill us with your love, O Lord, and we will sing for joy!” It perfectly describes the amazing StEdFest event that we had this past Saturday. The love of our parish filled our celebration and I am so pleased to joyfully thank God that our event was a tremendous success!

Planning for StEdFest began long before I arrived here. Our dedicated planning team worked diligently to ensure that every detail was considered, every potential problem was anticipated, and every opportunity to bring joy to our parish was seized. Upon my arrival, as I pelted them with questions and ideas, they did an outstanding job fending off my barrage and staying on track! I sincerely thank them for their hard work.

The event would not have been nearly as successful without our very generous sponsors who donated about $50,000 to support the event. Those funds enabled us to reduce food prices, have great musical entertainment, and give the children many game tickets. Our sponsors helped us to afford such a large event while also keeping ticket prices very low.

It is impossible to host such a large event without a huge number of volunteers. From folks at the welcome tables, to those cooking and serving food, to those managing the game booths, to the clean-up crew, our team was absolutely devoted to ensuring that folks were having a great time. I especially want to thank numerous employees from both the church and the school who helped our guests to have the best possible experience.

Finally, THANK YOU to all chose to spend your Saturday at StEdFest! The atmosphere was especially joy-filled thanks to the large number of small children in attendance trying their skills at the games, eating pizza and hot dogs, and just having fun spending time with each other. I even got dragged out onto the dance floor for a brief and humiliating attempt at dancing.

A parish is only as strong as the relationships that exist within it. First among these is our relationship with God, followed by our relationships within our own families. Finally, our parish is driven by our relationships with one another. We saw those beautiful relationships fully on display at StEdFest. It truly made me want to “sing for joy.” God bless you!

Fr. Mike's Gospel Reflection - October 6, 2024

This week the first reading and the Gospel focus on marriage.  As many of you know, my wife, Rosemary, passed away unexpectedly in 2012.  We were married for 27 years.  I was Italian, from New York.  She was English and Irish, from Michigan.  I was the son of a fireman.  She was the daughter of a business executive.  On paper, our relationship had little chance of succeeding, yet, it did succeed.  However, even successful marriages have disagreements from time to time, but we did not allow those disagreements to define our relationship.  Our sacred covenant was much more important to us than the day-to-day issues over which we sometimes disagreed.  Interestingly, when we were first married, we even disagreed about how to resolve disagreements.

Where I came from, arguments quickly escalated into very loud exchanges and then quickly de-escalated.  In Rosemary’s family, disagreements often led to silence.  They would somehow be resolved after not talking for a day or two.  We each had to put our past aside so that we could agree on a strategy for resolving most disputes with civil conversation. Our marriage succeeded because we learned to communicate with each other “in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health…”  We passionately talked through problems that, in retrospect, seem insignificant, as well as the dreaded diagnosis of cancer.  Of course, we also had thousands of joy-filled conversations about John as he grew.

Today, sacramental marriage seems to be regarded as a quaint novelty.  Most couples, even Catholic couples, opt for secular weddings on the beach or at a fancy venue.  They disregard the idea that God established marriage as a sacred bond.  They laugh at the statement, “What God has joined together, no human being must separate.”  The past 12 years of being a widower, studying to be a priest, and counseling couples, have given me a more informed perspective on marriage.  There is no doubt that I could have been a far better husband – more patient, less critical, more generous, and less controlling.  I urge those of you who are married to appreciate what you have, keep things in perspective, always keep communicating, and never forget that your love for one another should be at the core of everything that you say and do.  May God bless the sacred bond of marriage.

Fr. Mike's Gospel Reflection - September 29, 2024

Sometimes we get carried away with a person’s status (or lack of status) when deciding if we support that person or not.  Other times, we might set the bar so high for others that we are unable to appreciate their best efforts because those efforts do not meet our expectations.  It seems to me that someone who puts in the time and effort and who achieves good results should be commended regardless of his or her status and even if those results were not perfect.

In this weekend’s readings from the Book of Numbers and from Mark’s Gospel, we are told about individuals who were doing excellent work on behalf of Moses and Jesus.  Yet, in the case of Moses, the two men were criticized because they had “missed the meeting” at which prophesy credentials were handed out.  In the case of Jesus, some men showed great faith in Jesus by performing mighty deeds in His name, but they had not officially signed on as followers of Jesus.  In both cases the followers of Moses and Jesus wanted these “imposters” to stop their work.  In both cases, Moses and Jesus said, “No.  Let them continue to do the good work that they are doing.”

Why would we ever want to stop someone from doing good work?  I sometimes encounter folks who carefully scrutinize what goes on at the parish and within the Church as a whole.  They are quick to point out rules and to disqualify those who are acting with good intentions, but who fail to meet their standards of perfection.  They criticize the hierarchy of the Church, the priests of the Church, and their fellow lay people.  In the Gospels, Jesus often encounters religious leaders who have this level of intolerance.  He demonstrates little patience for this approach.

In a homily about this passage from Mark’s Gospel, Pope Francis said, “The disciples were a little intolerant.”  They proudly relied on the fact that they ​​possessed the truth and they were convinced that “those who do not have the truth, cannot do good…This was wrong…Jesus broadens the horizon.” Pope Francis went on to say that, “The root of this possibility of doing good – that we all have – is in creation…We must meet one another doing good.”  Let’s approach one another with open minds and pure hearts.