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Pastor's Corner
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Clergy
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FROM THE DESK OF FATHER LARRY GEARHART SEPTEMBER 5, 2010 Heads Up
Immaculate Conception has its Fall Festival next Saturday in conjunction with the North Lewisburg/Union County Covered Bridge Festival at the North Lewisburg Ball Park. Don't forget the St. Michael's parish picnic next Saturday, beginning at 3:00 p.m. and including 5:00 p.m. Mass at Goshen Park. I will be busy that morning. I'm giving a presentation at the Dayton Pro-Life Science and Technology Conference, at the Dayton Engineer's Club. If you're interested in this event, there are brochures in the back of church, or visit http://www.prolifetechnology.org My thanks to Bernie and Carol Zoppa for donating the new church doors at St. Michael's. Thanks to Frank and Tom Segreti for the installation. Thanks to Matt Pifher and Joe Schaffner for their work on the rear access drive and preparing for the stump removal. Spiritual Focus
In today's second reading, St. Paul writes to a colleague, Philemon of Colossae, about the latter'sescaped slave, Onesimus. Onesimus' origins are unknown, but his connection to St. Paul changed his life. St. Paul's appeal to Philemon resulted in Onesimus' freedom. In addition, Onesimus, according to one tradition, went on to become the bishop of Ephesus, succeeding St. Timothy in that office. According to another tradition, Onesimus became the bishop of Beraea (in the region of Epirus in ancient Greece). Tradition also has it that Onesimus was imprisoned during the reign of the Emperor Domitian and he was put to death for his faith by stoning. St. Paul's letter to Philemon has been used by some people to justify slavery. This was a particularly popular position during the slavery period in the old South. There is, however, no evidence that St. Paul approved of slavery. On the contrary, it is clear from the letter to Philemon, and from Galatians 3:28 and Colossians 3:11, that St. Paul considered all men and women to be brothers and sisters in Christ. He did not approve of slavery, nor did he think of those who were bound in such servitude to be in any way less than himself. Nevertheless, he recognized the reality of slavery as an institution in his time, and that nothing he could do could be guaranteed to alter that situation. Perhaps he trusted that God would one day dismantle that institution, though not in his lifetime. One thing is certain. He knew that God would bring about final justice even for the victims of slavery and those who took advantage of the institution and its victims. There is a powerful lesson here for us, today. We know that there are victims of slavery in the world even in our own time. There are those who live in involuntary servitude today and those whose recent ancestors did so. Both are victims. Unfortunately, our ability to bring justice to them is highly limited. Jesus told us that we would always have the poor with us. [John 12:8] In the parable of the weeds and the wheat [Matt 13:24-30], Jesus let us know that there would always be evil in our midst and that God planned to wait until the end to work things out. There are even strong hints in the temptation of Jesus in the desert that Satan's way is to tempt us to impatience, to shortcuts in God's plan. Patience in the face of evil is very difficult for us. It is even against our basic instinct. One of the reasons Jesus taught us to turn the other cheek was to teach us such patience, and to trust that God would reward us in the end. The virtue we need to do this is called meekness, particularly meekness before God. This special case of meekness before God is called fearing God. This is a special kind of fear, because it is fear of God. It is not a slavish kind of fear. In part, it is a fear motivated by love. We fear to offend or even to disappoint the God we love. It is that kind of fear and more. It goes beyond the personal because God is not merely our father. God is also our creator. He is the source of all truth and goodness. When we say that we fear this God, we also mean that we fear our own limitations in the face of perfect truth and goodness. We know that we will stumble, and perhaps even fall, even if we are utterly determined not to disappoint God. And because of this, our fear of offending God is real and cannot be fully shed in this life. This gives us something in common with slaves who fear to disappoint their masters. The difference between the masters and their intent, however, could not be more complete. A master who owns a slave and who thinks of himself as the master intends to keep the slave in his/her place as a slave. God is the master who desires to raise us, his slaves, up to his level. [John 15:15] The Mystery of the Children of God
One of the gravest evils we face in the world, today, is the general attack on the dignity of the humanperson. That dignity is being attacked on many fronts and by many different attackers. In our defense of human dignity, we will always be tempted to counter attack; to attack the attackers. Unfortunately, in doing so, it is virtually inevitable that we ourselves will become part of the problem rather than part of the solution. We are all too familiar with the cases of people who attack abortion clinics or abortion providers. We may even remember who was convicted of attacking and killing Dr. George Tiller, the infamous late term abortionist. We may even feel a deep sympathy for the man who killed the abortionist. We should not be fooled into thinking, however, that this murder was God's will. It is a fundamental Catholic principle that we must never deliberately choose evil so that good may result. The ends do not justify the means. When we choose evil so that good may result, we usurp God's authority. We fail of the virtue of meekness. We fail of patience with God's Providence, to trust that he will bring about justice in the end. We may decide that a man like Tiller does not deserve time to repent, or assume that he would never do so. It is not our decision to make. It is God's. Impatience with God's Providence takes many forms. In each and every case, however, there is also a failure to uphold the ultimate dignity of the human person. I have said in previous bulletins that the Church upholds the principle of subsidiarity and that this principle is vital to the dignity of the human person. It may help us to understand this better if we recognize that taking decisions away from people robs them of their dignity. Centralizing decisions that can easily be left to those beneath us is very tempting because it appears to us that we know best, and that we can avoid messy consequences. Those who are above us in authority have these same temptations. In our society, this tempting belief has taken the form of an ideology. I have called it supersidiarity, the opposite of subsidiarity. It goes by other names, as well. We may call it the philosophy of big government. We may call it the progressive movement. There are other characteristics that also define the progressive movement, but supersidiarity has become an essential feature. It is, in fact, a deeply tragic flaw in progressivism. Supersidiarity is responsible for a progressive weakening of the human spirit, indeed, a progressive enslavement, a perpetual subjection of the average citizen to a status less than that of an adult human being. Subsidiarity, its opposite, always carries risk. Trusting people to make their own decision, we always risk failure. Sometimes these failures can be catastrophic. In the most ordinary cases, however, these failures lead to learning and growth. They lead to strengthening, to maturation. In short, they lead to increased human dignity. Supersidiarity suppresses this natural growth process. That is why supersidiarity is ultimately opposed to human dignity, and why the progressive movement has become an enemy to human dignity. It would be a tragic mistake, however, to try to short circuit the remaining structures of democracy and the rule of law in order to dismantle the stranglehold of progressivism. That way leads only to chaos. We may never choose evil so that good may result. If our country and our culture should be strangled to death by the scourge of big-government progressivism, there will undoubtedly be immense suffering, perhaps for many centuries. At times such as this we must rely more than ever on God's Providence. The saints of God find the mystery of the freedom of the children of God even in the midst of such suffering. St. Maximilian Kolbe found that freedom in Auschwitz. Dietrich Bonhoeffer found that freedom in a German prison. Viktor Frankl found that freedom in Theresienstadt. St. Thomas More found that freedom in captivity in the Tower of London while awaiting his execution at the hands of King Henry VIII. Martin Luther King, Jr. found that freedom in the pursuit of justice, knowing that his life was threatened by those who hated his movement. He and Mohandas Ghandi and Jesus Christ all found that freedom in nonviolent resistance. All of these people discovered how to be true children of God in the midst of violence and oppression. They discovered true freedom and true human dignity. And, at the cost of their own lives, they would not rob others of that freedom or dignity. Instead, they would wait patiently and meekly for God. |
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