Today’s Gospel invites us to “rest in Jesus”…to turn our burdens over to Jesus and allow the power of the Spirit, dwelling within us, to empower us to push on…ever forward…knowing that we do so not alone but with the presence of the very one who created us and loved us into being. Jesus does not dismiss the burdens of life. On the contrary, Jesus recognizes just how heavy they are and in the midst of the struggles of our lives he offers to be with us and help us. We are not asked to set our burdens down at the door of the church as we enter…but rather we are invited to bring them to the altar and place them side by side with the bread and wine which we offer to be blessed and broken, transformed and shared. This Jesus, the Christ, knows first hand of our human burdens and understands our suffering….we need not fear that our God does not understand, or does not care…the message of all of Jesus’ preaching and teaching was just the opposite: Our God knows us and deeply and passionately loves us and walks with us in the midst of our sufferings…Our God weeps with us when we weep and suffers with us when we suffer. Our God is out there with all the protesters demanding racial justice, crying out “my children’s Black Lives Matter”! And as the Body of Christ, we are invited to reach out to others whose burdens and pain overwhelm them…to be the compassion of Christ to them…to help carry their burdens and to walk with them in the midst of their suffering demanding racial justice for them and for all who suffer discrimination, racism and bigotry! All God’s children, all are made in the image and likeness of God, female and male, in God’s image!
Karen , Amy, John, Tim, White privilege (freedom, honored, favored) until that day when we who are white are willing to come to terms with our white privilege, our freedom, our honored status, our favored status, to sit in the discomfort of it and to own it and accept the social devastation and genocide that it has caused there will be NO RACIAL JUSTICE! News Flash, white people, take off our “white privilege blinders” that blind us to the TRUTH that being white in America, South America and Europe gives us a special status that non-white people do NOT get to enjoy as freely as we do! There are people who are shot for sleeping while black, driving while black, jogging while black, protesting while black, and I want to remind you all of our First Amendment rights! And so, I would like to point out that the “framers of the Constitution” put first the right to protest the government before the right to bear arms!
It’s all just too much…I cannot sit back, as a disciple of Jesus Christ, and remain silent, we have a president who is bent on dividing us as a nation on issues of racial equality, income inequality, lack of access to basic healthcare and quality education for our children, food programs that provide the most basic human needs as outlined in the Catholic Catechism! These are basic human needs that governments are required to provide according to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and repeated over and over again by our present Pope, Pope Francis. It is plain and simply the Gospel of Jesus Christ put into action! It is all there -- use your “Gospel lenses” to look at the situation and then make a decision…but really and truly, honestly, use your “”Gospel lenses” and apply them to what is happening today in our country, and ask yourself, that horrible, life-changing, re-centering question that no one really wants to HONESTLY ask themselves…”what would Jesus do” in the midst of the “Black Lives Matter” movement?
Welcoming the stranger, the immigrant, the refugee, the one who is “other” from me, is an authentic living out of our discipleship. It incarnates -- fancy word for “makes flesh” -- the Gospel in the midst of our community. Ironically in our reaching out to others, often our burdens are lightened, our wounds begin to heal and we become more and more the living Body of Christ in all of its diversity, in all of its colors, sizes and shapes.
Do I have burdens or old wounds that I am holding on to and not giving over to Jesus, that getting rid of might allow me to be more available to my sisters and brothers of color? Whose burden or pain am I being called to help carry right NOW?...How might I do that?
Blessings,
Fr Tim
Karen , Amy, John, Tim, White privilege (freedom, honored, favored) until that day when we who are white are willing to come to terms with our white privilege, our freedom, our honored status, our favored status, to sit in the discomfort of it and to own it and accept the social devastation and genocide that it has caused there will be NO RACIAL JUSTICE! News Flash, white people, take off our “white privilege blinders” that blind us to the TRUTH that being white in America, South America and Europe gives us a special status that non-white people do NOT get to enjoy as freely as we do! There are people who are shot for sleeping while black, driving while black, jogging while black, protesting while black, and I want to remind you all of our First Amendment rights! And so, I would like to point out that the “framers of the Constitution” put first the right to protest the government before the right to bear arms!
It’s all just too much…I cannot sit back, as a disciple of Jesus Christ, and remain silent, we have a president who is bent on dividing us as a nation on issues of racial equality, income inequality, lack of access to basic healthcare and quality education for our children, food programs that provide the most basic human needs as outlined in the Catholic Catechism! These are basic human needs that governments are required to provide according to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and repeated over and over again by our present Pope, Pope Francis. It is plain and simply the Gospel of Jesus Christ put into action! It is all there -- use your “Gospel lenses” to look at the situation and then make a decision…but really and truly, honestly, use your “”Gospel lenses” and apply them to what is happening today in our country, and ask yourself, that horrible, life-changing, re-centering question that no one really wants to HONESTLY ask themselves…”what would Jesus do” in the midst of the “Black Lives Matter” movement?
Welcoming the stranger, the immigrant, the refugee, the one who is “other” from me, is an authentic living out of our discipleship. It incarnates -- fancy word for “makes flesh” -- the Gospel in the midst of our community. Ironically in our reaching out to others, often our burdens are lightened, our wounds begin to heal and we become more and more the living Body of Christ in all of its diversity, in all of its colors, sizes and shapes.
Do I have burdens or old wounds that I am holding on to and not giving over to Jesus, that getting rid of might allow me to be more available to my sisters and brothers of color? Whose burden or pain am I being called to help carry right NOW?...How might I do that?
Blessings,
Fr Tim
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