Beloved Family:
God is not nervous! This statement may strike some of us as odd, or painfully obvious or perhaps even a bit ridiculous. However, when it was spoken to my brother priests and me, last week during our formation retreat in Livonia, Michigan, at the headquarters of Acts XXIX, it really hit home. In the midst of these times in this world, there is a lot of anxiety, fear—even panic being circulated. “What’s going to happen if…” You fill in the blank according to your own perception of the current situation around us—or within you.
There is no doubt that a lot is at stake. However, I believe the question must be asked: is this something new or peculiar, or are we simply waking up more fully to what has always been true? As long as we are walking this earth, a passing place for pilgrims rather than our final destination, a lot is on the line every day. The Father knows it; He is not panicking; He is not at a loss as to what to do; He has a plan. He sent His Son to redeem us. His Holy Spirit is available to each and every one of us who is an adopted son or daughter by virtue of Baptism. We do not have to talk and behave and mimic the world—we can choose to live differently— that is, if we truly believe in Christ Jesus and His salvific work.
At this point, the reader may wonder: Fr. Stephen, it’s Fair Week!! Can’t we just be allowed to enjoy all the simple pleasures that come with it (spoken as one who has never showed anything at a fair… we know that “the Fair” spells great work and little sleep for many people)? By all means, enjoy the fair! I will miss the first couple of days of the event, since I will be in Maine for a family wedding. Fr. David is surely psyched for it, and the fair Mass—he may actually need to be tethered so that he doesn’t sail away for joy!😊 Fr. Ian Kelly will be here to celebrate Mass on the weekend—he’s another great “fair fan.”
All the same, beloved, Fair Week, as lovely as it is, will pass in a number of days. Our navigating through life—facing the joys and challenges and sorrows of being a student, a worker, a supervisor, a spouse, a child, a pastor, a member of a parish—of being a vulnerable human being—that continues day by day and year by year. The Holy Spirit is our only reliable compass on these waters.
I do not need to perseverate on the atmosphere of the culture these days; it is on full display basically everywhere we turn. What I will say here is this. As Catholics, we are challenged doggedly to choose not to turn our backs on one another. There is, quite simply, so much over which we do not have control and never will. How we exercise discipline over our thoughts, words and actions reveals what is deep down within our hearts. If I had one action step to propose, it is this: open our homes to the hurting…refuse to point a finger of condemnation, even those who hold diametrically opposing “views” to ours. Reach for a hand rather than for a weapon. In the paraphrased words of the late Fr. Benedict Groeschel: deliver us from loveless Christians, from “mobile inquisitors!”
In the concluding paragraph of the book, From Christendom to Apostolic Mission, prefaced by Monsignor James Shea, President of the University of Mary:
The Holy Spirit is at work in every age, ours included. If it is true, as we are assured by St. Paul, that grace is more present the more that evil abounds (cf. Rom 5), we might expect an especially abundant action of the Holy Spirit in our own time.
(University of Mary Press, 2020; p. 90).
Let His Peace be with you,
Fr. Stephen
