From the Pastor’s Desk
Dear St. Mary’s Parishioners,
One of the beautiful aspects of our diocese is its geographical diversity. We cover a huge swath of northern California, from the urban centers of Sacramento to small rural parishes in the mountains. It’s precisely in one of these latter towns that I pastored. With a measly total population of 2100 people, our church steeple was the highest structure in town. The price of its beauty, however, is the ever-looming danger of wildfires. Last year alone, three lightning strikes sparked fires in the surrounding forests threatened our little community (the photo on the bulletin cover is one of these fires). For weeks the smoke choked the fresh air and literally blocked out the sun. High noon seemed more like evening dusk. In tandem with the American Red Cross, our parish hall became the evacuation center for both Sierra and Plumas counties, with nearly a hundred evacuees passing through our doors. Our Catholic faithful rose to the occasion, raising over $40,000 for direct relief to the fire victims. Many of the evacuees and the Red Cross volunteers remarked how the Catholic Church became an oasis of peace in the midst of the flames.
That experience gave us a profound new respect for the power of a raging wildfire. For all of our modern technology of satellites and air tankers, the firefighters who battled the flames had little control. The fire went where it went. Sometimes, all they could do was simply watch helplessly as flames leveled entire towns and neighborhoods in minutes. When I read this Sunday’s Gospel reading from Luke, I immediately had flashbacks of my old parish: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” (Cf. Luke 12:49). Jesus is uncontrollable, like a wildfire. He goes where he wills, no matter how much we try to put God in a box. He will consume the overgrown weeds of sin in our lives when we allow him in. But unlike a wildfire, God’s love does not destroy, as much as it transforms. It takes weak, puny, worldly sinners and turns them into mighty saints. The Christian disciple is one who throws himself into “flames”.
Fr. Brian J. Soliven
