Jesus Rights the Ship
love your enemies
Announcements for February 19, 2022:
Our women's group will meet Tuesday, February 22nd at 7:00pm in Gordon Hall.
Check out our Ash Wednesday Schedule of Masses.
If you have old blessed palms, you can drop them off in the church narthex. We will burn them in anticipation of Ash Wednesday.
Save the date for our parish mission. Father Llane Briese will preach our Lenten retreat on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday evenings March 6th-8th at 7:00pm.
The Annual OLMC Golf Classic is right around the corner. Join us on Monday, May 9th at the Rockaway River Country Club. Details to follow.
Visit the OLMC Parishioner Portal for all of our recent announcements.
If you need anything at all, please be in touch with me.
Dear Saints,
This weekend's Gospel passage gives us an extended look at Saint Luke’s account of Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain. This portion of his preaching presents us with the challenge and the consolation of Jesus’ vision.
We experience this in miniature - getting the extreme of both challenge and consolation - when Jesus commands his followers to:
... love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you...
We might miss the consolation in this command, so let me explore it with you: Jesus not only thinks we were made to live this way, he also intends to make it happen. God dreams of righting the world's ship, he dreams of renewed human beings restoring and reinvigorating his good creation, and Jesus is going to get us there.
Talk about a challenge! Jesus is calling us to do the nearly impossible, to do what would be impossible without him.
What is Jesus asking us to do? He's exhorting us to reorient our entire lives: to live totally, unreservedly, for God; to put God first in all things; and to prioritize his mission in our lives.
If we heed his call, we can do the impossible-without-Jesus things: We can love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us, and pray for those who mistreat us.
If we don't heed his call, if we fail to trust and follow Jesus, we can't.
I love you, my friends, and I look forward to seeing you very soon.
Christ's Peace,
Father Daniel
δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ
Preparing for Mass?
Check out this weekend's readings:
The Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Jesus Teaching the Apostles
Sebastiano Ricci, c.1720