FROM THE PASTOR’S DESK
Dear St. Mary’s Parishioners:
It happens to us all sooner or later. In fact, maybe someone reading this Pastor’s Desk is feeling it right now – We’ve all felt lost, spiritually and morally lost. We don’t know where to go. Things haven’t turned out as we planned. In many ways, we can feel adrift, caught up in the same daily routine of waking up, eating, and sleeping, and forever repeating. Where is my life going, we often wonder? Dante, the famous Medieval Italian poet, captured this sentiment well in the Divine Comedy: “Midway on the journey of our life, I woke up to find myself alone and lost in a dark wood having wandered from the straight path.”
If this has ever been you, Jesus wants to lead us out of the quagmire. Christianity is a religion for the lost. It’s not for those who have everything under control. In fact, it's a religion for those who embarrassingly surrender. “Repent!” We hear St. John the Baptist proclaim in this Sunday’s Gospel reading. “Repent! For the Kingdom of God is at hand.” He tells his first century listeners to recognize they are lost in their sins and totally overwhelmed. Once we do, we can finally begin to take the first steps out of the “dark wood.” If we think we are not lost and that all is fine and dandy with me, we will never need a guide to lead us home. We will never need the God who comes as one of us. We will never need Jesus Christ.
Sometimes people think that Catholicism is too harsh, too stern with its rules. The Church is too demanding, with all its regulations of confessing once a year (at least!), fasting during Lent, giving a percentage of one's income back to God, honoring the Sabbath Day by attending Sunday Mass, the list goes on and on. Maybe so. The Church asks much of us, because she loves much. At the end of the day, the Church wants what is best, despite her leaders failing to live up to the high divine standards, myself especially included. She understands that after 2,000 years of trials and tribulations and the lived experiences of the saints, holiness requires us to put “skin in the game.” There is no such thing as cheap grace. “You shall be holy,” God says to us in the Good Book. “For I the Lord your God am holy.” (Leviticus 19:2)
When St. John the Baptist saw the Pharisees and Sadducees in our Gospel reading, he chastised them, “You brood of vipers!” He yelled for all to hear. Imagine all the eyes of the crowd now trained on these religious leaders. “Why is he mad at them?” They must have wondered? Are these not the learned men of Israel? They had all the knowledge of God’s ways but they still lacked the one thing necessary, a soft heart. “Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.” Their lives still had not changed.
During this season of Advent, allow the candles that are lit each Sunday call us out of the “dark wood” into the marvelous light that is Christ himself. He comes to lead us out of our mess, if only we allow him. Don’t be like the Pharisees and Sadducees who do not need a savior. Throw up your hands and surrender and let Christ take control of our lives.
A Slave of Jesus Christ,
Fr. Brian J. Solive
