Saturday after Ash Wednesday - March 8, 2025

Isaiah 58:9b-14 Luke 5:27-32

A wise young man once said many years ago: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” F.B. In our world of 24/7 social media and endless news feeds being constantly pushed on us, we have a tendency to go down these rabbit holes of meaningless and at times divisive paths. These are the times we truly need to remove ourselves from the negativity we allow into our lives and give ourselves back to God.

He has given us so much and yet we tend to look elsewhere when everything we are looking for is right in front of us. This was never more prevalent to me than what I witnessed while on a mission trip focused on water with several of my Visitation parishioner friends to Tegucigalpa, Honduras. One morning we were attending a beautiful open air mass in a small village with an overflow crowd. I noticed when it was time for communion the majority of locals did not participate. This struck me as odd so following mass I approached the presiding priest and asked him why so many declined to take communion. His reply was unexpected as he told me that many do not feel worthy of joining in the communion celebration. I was amazed that the people we had spent so much time with and saw how devoted they were to their families and God, not to mention living with little to no resources, were the ones that felt they were not worthy. “Then the LORD will guide you always and give you plenty even on the parched land.”

The church as a whole still has a lot of healing to do, but the church is not always about the past, the church is about who we are and what we do next.

Q: What is your hope for the Church in the near future? How will I participate in order to help bring it about?

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