FROM THE PASTOR’S DESK
Dear Beloved St. Mary’s Parishioners,
If you’re searching for peace of mind, I recommend you stop watching the news. It seems like every time we read an article, watch a newscast, or see a headline, we have something new to be worried about. Whether it’s politics, the economy, the wars in Ukraine, Israel and Gaza, it’s exhausting. All of this is on top of our own personal dramas in our own families, like sickness and tense interpersonal relationships. We only have so much emotional bandwidth. To this flurry of storms, it leads us Christians to ask the important questions of life.
When Pope Benedict was elected to the papacy in 2006, he immediately embarked upon an ambitious project that had been brewing in his heart and mind for decades. He desired to write a comprehensive book about the life of Jesus Christ that we encounter in the Gospels. As a world class intellectual, he saw the havoc and confusion that had infected modern day biblical scholarship. He wanted to return to the beating heart of Christianity, namely, the person of Jesus Christ. In the beginning of his book, he asked the provocative question: “What did Jesus truly bring, if he didn’t bring peace to the world, well-being for all and a better world?”
Don’t we all wonder about this? Look at the mess of the world. Behold the pain of our lives. This all powerful and all loving God has allowed the wars to happen? This God of ours allows our loved ones to wither away from cancer? Pope Benedict gets to the core of our doubts, “What did Jesus truly bring...?” Our personal experience reminds us that our pain still persists, regardless if we are baptized or not. “Then what is the point of being Christian?” Someone might logically ask.
Pope Benedict answers his own question with his famous German precision: “The answer is very simple: God. He brought God.” The scandal of Christianity is that God has entered into our darkness with himself. He unites our broken, frail, diseased humanity, with his divinity. We call this great mystery the Incarnation. Now, I know this answer is not emotionally satisfying, especially when we look at our own pain. This answer is harder to accept. It requires me to trust that God has a divine plan for reasons I am not privy to know. He forces me to be humble and to faith that He knows what is best.
A Slave of Jesus Christ,
Fr. Brian J. Soliven
