January 23-24, 2010
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Nehemiah 8:2-10 First Corinthians 12:12-30 Luke 1:1-21
Perspective can be everything. This weekend’s Gospel passage has a riveting quality; Jesus reads from the scroll, finishes and rolls it up….EVERYONE is looking at him….and then he says…. ‘Today, this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.’ Wow…, what a dramatic way to start one’s ministry…everyone must have been in drop-dead awe of the moment, right? Well, if we look to next week we get a fuller perspective and we read that the crowd, rather than being in awe….started asking….’isn’t this the carpenter’s kid….who the heck does he think he is?!?!’
We hear that Jesus himself got a bit testy and threw out a few slams against the home crowd, which got them quite unsettled to the point where they intended to hurl Jesus over the edge of a cliff. Talk about a powerful beginning going totally awry….probably not unlike some of our own efforts and intentions…things start off one way and before we know it, they have spiraled down into a disaster. As we move toward the completion of this first month of the New Year many of us started 2010 with the best of intentions…and sometimes we forget that our efforts will not always turn out the way we planned….and it is especially unsettling when we have not even considered (or planned for) that possibility.
In the Second reading from Corinthians we are reminded that we are each a PART of a bigger picture…and we must necessarily work together for the completion and wholeness of anything to which we set our collective hearts/minds. BUT….working with other people necessarily means different temperaments, different views and opinions…and some of them are very stridently expressed (need we look any further than the national dialogues regarding assorted legislative issues….?) Next weekend is our annual Pastoral Services Appeal Pledge effort, this year entitled, ‘The Prayer of Our Family’….and it is a collective effort for ALL of our Corpus Christi family to shoulder the responsibility of financially paying down our mortgage and completing our parish campus.
The power of any collective effort is not one or two people doing a lot….but a LOT of people doing what they can…and in that, great things happen. There can be the temptation to be individually overwhelmed with the responsibilities associated with a project as big as paying down our mortgage and building our permanent Church…but it is not the responsibility of any one person but rather a task for ALL of us to carry and complete. In response to the nay-sayers and prophets of doom who claim the task is too big….we need only look around ourselves at what we have accomplished together thus far…and simply remember our name….WE ARE the ‘Body and Blood of Christ…and with a name of such power, we can probably accomplish anything to which we set our hearts.
Yes, we are in the midst of a financial recession, but perspective is everything….with perspective do you really think that a family that has accomplished all that we have around us would not be able to complete what we have begun? Working together, despite whatever setbacks may come our way….with the grace of God, we can do accomplish anything….as long as we believe we can, then we will. (Oops, the ‘Last Supper’ by Da Vinci is actually in Milan, not the Sistine Chapel….1000 lashes of a wet noodle for that oversight in last week’s Worship Aid!)
Thank you for joining with our Corpus Christi family this weekend, please make sure you take a Bulletin with you when you depart. As mentioned above, next weekend is our annual Pastoral Services Appeal pledge effort. These pledges can be redeemed over the next 11 months….and even seemingly modest monthly amounts can add up to substantial reductions in our mortgage! What is most important is for EVERYONE to participate….our home is the responsibility and joy of the WHOLE family! Next weekend we will have a limited supply of H1N1 vaccine available for distribution following the Masses, we will administer until we run out…so first come, first served, please plan accordingly. As January begins to melt toward February, remember, you are loved. FKB
