FROM THE PASTOR’S DESK
Dear St. Mary’s Parishioners:
Please keep Fr. Reji in your prayers this month. Starting May 7th, he will fly back to India for his one month vacation to spend time with his family. We need to keep priests, such as Fr. Reji, who fly halfway around the world to be missionaries, to serve the people of God in a different culture and different language. It’s not easy to leave your homeland. He hasn’t expressed anything to me but I would bet that no matter how comfortable or how welcoming Vacaville is, his heart is still in India. Afterall, it’s the country of his birth and the place where the people he loves the most are. In a similar way, all Christians should feel a similar unease in this world. Like Fr. Reji living here in the United States, our existence on earth is not our true home, no matter how comfortable we may feel. We’re literally created for something greater.
In the Gospel this Sunday, Jesus tells us “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?... I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.” (Cf. John 14:1-4) This “dwelling place” of which he speaks is none other than Heaven itself. We must always keep this at the forefront of our minds and hearts and not get distracted by all the competing confusing voices we hear from the world around us. When a Christian finally realizes their Heavenly citizenship, it puts the pain we experience in this world in clearest perspective. The things that terrifies the non-believer can no longer shake the faith of the Christian who has their life built on Jesus Christ. Have you experienced the death of a loved one? Christ conquers death. Are you suffering from a diagnosed terminal cancer? Christ has the power to heal, just as he did the blind, the crippled, and the deaf in his own day. Is your heart broken from the betrayal of someone who was supposed to love you but failed? Christ is the source of love itself. Are you enslaved to addiction and crying out to be set free from the chains? Christ gives us the very strength of God. Are your sins so black, it seems like you’ve been living beneath an eternal eclipse? Christ has paid the price with his blood, washing us clean. “Do not let your hearts be troubled”, again I say. “Have faith in God; have faith also in me.”
All the turmoil we face in our lives must be juxtaposed to what Jesus is trying to teach us here. We will always endure trials and tribulations; there’s no escaping it as hard as we try. We can fall into the unending pit of despair if we forget Jesus. “I am the way”, our Lord emphatically proclaims to us. “(T)he truth and the life.” (Cf. John 14:6). This truth and life is the way to our Heavenly home and most importantly, our way back to the Heavenly Father. Many people when they hear the intensity of the words of Jesus in this Gospel become angry. They ask, is it not arrogant for Jesus to say he alone is the only “way to the Father”? Out of all the major religious figures that have ever existed throughout history, no one has ever taught that God is a Father. The founder of Islam, Mohammed, denied the fatherhood of God, calling it blasphemy to refer to God in that way. Buddha is silent about the nature of God. It only offers a path to “enlightenment”. Jesus, on the other hand, offers us a relationship with the one who loves us.
A Servant of Jesus Christ,
Fr. Brian J. Soliven
