Musings

      It was 35 years ago today, the feast of Saints Simon and Jude, that I arrived at my second assignment as a pastor at All Saints Church in Masontown and the mission church of Saint Francis de Sales in McClellandtown.  I remember the date because our Principal, Sister Mildred Minosky would always remind me that I arrived on the feast of Saint Jude, who is the patron of "hopeless cases".  We never clarified "who" the "hopeless case" was.

     I remember the day well, for Sister Mildred arranged a "smooth" transition between Father Andrew Charnoki, my predecessor, and myself.  I was coming from Connellsville, and she coordinated our time of departure/arrival to be an easy moment for the school students to say farewell to one pastor and welcome to the new pastor.

     I arrived at the scheduled time and was met up the street by one of the teachers, asking me to pull over and wait for the upcoming farewell - for Father Charnoki decided on another cup of coffee before departing.  Finally all went as planned.

     After he pulled out to the waves of the children, I pulled up to their greetings, the younger priest (at that time) replacing the older priest (who had been there for 23 years).  It was to be a time of changing expectations.

     I spent five great years in that small town and those two beautiful parishes and a host of wonderful people (both parishioners and townsfolk) who blessed my priesthood and life.

     Saint Francis de Sales closed a few years later.  All Saints was merged with at least five others parishes a few years ago to form the Saint Francis of Assisi Parish - with the All Saints Church and Saint Thomas Church in Footdale serving as the worship centers.  Many memories and many friendship grew out of those five brief years.  I pray for my friends often.

A throwaway culture

      This past Sunday was "Respect Life Sunday" in our Church.  We look at life in all of its forms and, seeing life as a gift from God, and are faced with the challenges and threats that our societies place upon the gift.  The first gift of God is the gift of life, which we continue to hold, begins at the moment of conception and continues through our natural life's journey.  Even a great nation life ours, though, has brought into law in our generation, a position that is contrary to that wisdom.   Pope Francis is always referring to the fact that we live in a "throwaway culture".

     Here are the thoughts of Pope Francis to the Pontifical Academy for Life that he gave at the Vatican on September 27th of this year in this regard.  I thought they were worth contemplating.

     "We are victims of a the throwaway culture ... there is the throwing away of children that we do not want to welcome, with that abortion law that sends them back to their sender and kills them.  Today this has become a "normal" thing, a habit that is very bad; it is truly murder.  In order to grasp this, perhaps asking ourselves two questions may help: is it right to eliminate, to end a human life to solve a problem?   Is it right to hire a hitman to solve a problem?  Abortion is this.  In doing so, we deny hope, the hope of the children who bring us the life that makes us go forward."

     He also goes on to speak of the elderly, "the elderly who are a bit of "throwaway material" because they are not needed ... But they are the wisdom, they are the roots of the wisdom of our civilization, and this civilization discards them!"

    He concludes these thoughts with these words: "This is a path which we cannot take: the throwaway path."

    The pain and struggle of the issues are not "black and white" ... but the truth cannot be ignored - life, from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death, is a gift from God, is sacred, and deserves the rights and dignity that law can afford.

     Food for thought and a call for action.

The Saint of Assisi

       October 4th is the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, a saint much beloved and respected by many facets of society throughout the years since his death in the early 1200's.  Many of my seminary years were under the guidance of the Third Order Regular Franciscans at Saint Francis in Loretto.  I have a great love of Francis and find a universal inspiration in his life and example.  I was the celebrant at our liturgy this morning, and the following is what I shared in my homily.  It comes from the words of the Francis of our day, Pope Francis, in his encyclical "Laudato Si!" of a few years ago.

    Pope Francis says of his namesake: " Francis loved, and was deeply loved for his joy, his generous self-giving, his open heartedness.  He was a mystic and a pilgrim who lived in simplicity and in wonderful harmony with God, with others, with nature and with himself.  He shows us just how inseparable the bond is between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society and interior peace. 

     His response to the world around him was ... for him seeing each and every creature as a sister united to him by bonds of affection.  That is why he felt called to care for all that exists.

     If we feel intimately united with all that exists, then sobriety and care will well up spontaneously.  The poverty and austerity of Saint Francis were no mere veneer of asceticism, but something much more radical.

     Francis invites us to see nature as a magnificent book in which God speaks to us and grants us a glimpse of his infinite beauty and goodness."

     Great words to ponder the gift of this first Saint of Assisi.