Few of the people of biblical times were literate and most were farmers and shepherds. The people of the writers' times were poor and politically oppressed. Their culture was predominantly patriarchal, racist and violent. Their people lived short lives and died from diseases and infections easily overcome in today's modern culture. Yet the Bible continues to be one of the widest read books today. Why?
The stories evoke a response. They often hit us where we live precisely because they are stories about being human. They are not about the technology that so fascinates us, they are not about computer geeks, net surfers or celebrity followers. At the very heart of the stories are people who are just like us. They search for deeper meaning, they ask the life questions, and they wonder what or who God is for them. They yearn for answers and they yearn for a connection to God.
The people of biblical times dealt with their deepest hopes and fears in the light of their sense of God. The authors of the Bible were thoughtful and faithful people recording what they believed for those who would follow. Their faith comforts and challenges readers today as much as readers in biblical times and throughout Christian history. These believers came to know a God who loves people so much that he gave us life, sustains that life, and calls us into a sharing of his own life through Jesus the Christ.
This God who loves makes demands on us as well. He teaches us how to live as faithful people and challenges us to make the right decisions in our lives. In all three of today's particular readings we find challenge and encouragement. We are called to live lives true to the gospel message. God's love story with all of humanity demands reciprocity and mutuality. It offers a freedom to choose what is right. The fruits we are to bear in the vineyard of life flow from the way we are as human beings.
Fruitful lives care about family, friends, those in need, the world around us. To be alive at all is to be called to make a difference in the world, to contribute something to its betterment, to be honest and just, considerate and caring. We are called to bear witness to the saving power of God's love. Something we share with all those who have gone before us and a witness to those who will follow us.
- TUESDAY, Oct. 4
-
St. Francis of Assisi
- 8:30 a.m. - † Pedro Geroche
- Requested by Nini Coren
- WEDNESDAY, Oct. 5
- Weekday
- 12 Noon - † Johanna Sheahan
- THURSDAY, Oct. 6
- Weekday
- 12 Noon - † David Simon
- Requested by family
- FRIDAY, Oct. 7
- Our Lady of the Rosary
- 12 Noon - † Samuel Johns
- Requested by Vivien Johns
Parish Bulletin for Sunday, October 9, 2005
28th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
WHAT ARE THE PSALMS?
- "The book of psalms
- is not a collection of prayers,
- but a school of prayer."
- – Anonymous
The Book of Psalms was Israel's meditation book. It expressed in prayer the history, beliefs, and feelings of God's people. There are 150 prayers in this book expressing all of the human longings, joys, doubts, angers, depressions, and praise of a people whose soul is revealed through a sharing of how they prayed.
The sentiments expressed in the psalms touch us today precisely because they are about the things we continue to pray about in our lives – at our best and at our worst. We pray because we believe – we believe that God cares. We believe that our God is involved in our lives. Our prayers express our hopes and our fears, our desires and our insecurities, our hope and our trust, and our thankfulness and need for forgiveness.
The Book of Psalms was also Israel's songbook. Imagine a day spent labouring and a gathering around a campfire as the day comes to an end. Someone begins to strum an instrument and those gathered together at the end of a long day begin to sing. Now it is a holiday or the Sabbath and these same people gather to worship in the temple. A dialogue between the choir and the congregation, very similar to the responsorial psalms sung every Sunday today, begins to rise to the Lord. Very often those with musical instruments would again lend their talents to the singing of the people. It is no great stretch to imagine these same people using the psalms to pray alone and offer their cares and joys and troubles to the Lord.
The psalms are the story of a people – God's people. The Jewish people saw the hand of God in all that happened in their community – the wanderings of their ancestors, the escape from Egypt at the time of Moses; the arrival in a land they hoped to call their own; the monarchy; the disasters of division and defeat. They reflected on their history and decided that God had been a part of it ever since the creation of the world.
The psalms are full of life. They speak to us today because they speak to the hearts of all people. We offer prayers for guidance and prayers for deliverance from fearful situations. We offer prayers of thanksgiving and prayers for forgiveness. We, too, search for consolation amidst our worries and fears and lamentations for those times we don't really understand.
Saint Ambrose, in the fourth century, said:
- A psalm is
- a cry of happiness
- the echo of gladness.
-
- It soothes the temper,
- lightens the burden of sorrow.
- It is a source of security by night,
- a lesson of wisdom by day.
- It is
- a shield when we are afraid,
- a celebration of holiness,
- a vision of serenity,
- a promise of peace and harmony.
-
- Day begins to the music of a psalm.
- Day closes to the echo of a psalm.
— Rev. Thomas G. Moore
Please note changed Mass times!
- TUESDAY, Oct. 11
- Weekday
- 12 Noon – Intentions: for her children
- Requested by Lucia
- WEDNESDAY, Oct. 12
- Weekday
- 12 Noon - † Samuel Johns
- Requested by daughter R. Dunot
- THURSDAY, Oct. 13
- Weekday
- 12 Noon - † James Sheahan
- FRIDAY, Oct. 14
- Weekday
- 8:30 a.m. - † Amelia Couvinha
- Requested by Helena Sousa
Parish Bulletin for Sunday, October 16, 2005
29th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Today's gospel begs for a brief history lesson in order to understand a bit more about the answer Jesus gives to those who seek to discredit him. Isaiah's reading gives us an opportunity to do just that. The Persian emperor, Cyrus, overran the Babylonians and earned the Israelites' gratitude by permitting them to return to their ravaged homeland. The prophet calls Cyrus God's "anointed" – a name that was used to describe the Messiah.
The former prisoners returned home and tried to re-establish their society and culture amid the ruins. They did not re-capture their former freedom and remained an impoverished tribute-paying people, first of the Persians, then of the Greeks under Alexander the Great, and, finally, of the Romans. It is into this era that the Messiah is born and it is under Roman rule that he sets out on his public ministry.
It should not surprise us that the Jewish people had varied reactions to being considered subject to Roman rule and taxation policies. For some, self-interest meant collaboration with the invaders. For others, Roman rule was accepted as a part of life with no other choices available. A minority of the Jewish people disliked Roman intervention in their lives and plotted revolt. Jesus' ministry caused many leaders of the people to see him as a threat to the status quo. They then began to plot how to discredit him and undermine his growing influence with the crowds gathering to hear him speak. If they could also bring him into conflict with the Roman authorities, then the threat would be ended once and for all.
We recognize the question in today's gospel about whether or not it is lawful to pay taxes to the emperor for what it is – an obvious trap. The questioners hoped that no matter what his answer would be, Jesus would alienate at least one part of the people and possibly even come under Roman scrutiny. This tax was called a poll tax and payment was required in Roman coin for every subject of the empire. No one was exempt.
Jesus' answer revealed his understanding of the motivation behind the question. Instead, he deflects the purpose and states that paying the tax is simply giving back to Caesar what already belongs to him. All would recognize the wisdom of his answer. The coin used to pay the tax would have been a Roman denarius that bore the image of Tiberius and the inscription "Tiberius Caesar, august son of the divine Augustus, high priest." Jesus refuses to be drawn into the trap. His answer transforms the question by reminding his listeners that the real issue is not Caesar, but God. We are to give to God what belongs to God.
For Jesus, and for us, God is the creator, the Lord of history, the origin and goal of all that is. Everything and everyone belong to God. No power or institution can claim exemption from God's will and purpose for human life.
— Rev. Thomas G. Moore
- TUESDAY, Oct. 18
- St. Luke
- 8:30 a.m. - † Lydia Arsenault
- Requested by husband
- WEDNESDAY, Oct. 19
- Weekday
- 8:30 a.m. - † Johanna Sheahan
- THURSDAY, Oct. 20
- Weekday
- 8:30 a.m. - † Helena Buckley
- Requested by Martha Vardy
- FRIDAY, Oct. 21
- Weekday
- 8:30 a.m. - † Anny Garlichs
- Requested by Marian Moore
Parish Bulletin for Sunday, October 23, 2005
30th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
The Mosaic laws followed by all good Jewish people in the time of Jesus and continued by many Orthodox Jews to this day, contain approximately 600 distinct positive and negative precepts. For the Pharisees, the question put to Jesus is one more test element to see what he knows of his own tradition and whether or not they can trip him up.
If we think back to last Sunday's gospel about the payment of taxes to Caesar, we realize that both the Sadducees and the Pharisees are bombarding Jesus in a prolonged effort to undermine his influence on the people gathered to hear him preach. His response brings together laws from the Torah and puts a new spin on what love is all about. He roots us in these two laws and makes them pivotal in our developing relationship with God.
The first of the great commandments calls us to love God with all of our beings – our hearts, our minds and our very souls. This love calls forth all that we are. It is dedication to God and to doing God's will with everything we have – no holes barred. Our emotional energy, our will, our consciousness, our capacity to think and to plan, must be totally committed to this all-encompassing love.
For Jesus, God is the great reality of not only his own life, but all life. Jesus teaches that God is near and is concerned about us. He wants to establish with us the most intimate of relationships. He loves us and invites us to love him in return. We cannot see God nor does he enter into our lives in the same way as others can and do. Yet he is there – that silent partner in all our experiences, moving and drawing us beyond ourselves to him. God is the beginning and the end and the goal of all that we are and all that we do. In Jesus, God is revealed as infinite and compassionate love.
Jesus makes sure we understand that the second commandment is as important as the first and is indeed the necessary compliment of loving God. For many in Jesus' time and for us today, this second commandment may open the way to living the first. We may think that love comes to us naturally and yet experience tells us it does not. It may be that our ability to love comes from those experiences of love in our lives. It is through that experience that we come to understand what it means to love.
The devotion of parents caring for a sick child, the life of someone dedicated to caring for the sick and dying, the lives of married couples who have mirrored God's love in their lives together are all examples of how we can experience love in our daily lives. When we think abut it, we can expand this list to contain many more examples of love in our everyday lives.
Today's gospel is short and to the point. No argument is entertained. For Jesus, and for his disciples, love is at the heart of all true morality and authentic religion. If it is not, it is just so much smoke and mirrors.
— Rev. Thomas G. Moore
- TUESDAY, Oct. 25
- Weekday
- 8:30 a.m. - † Edward Shannon
- WEDNESDAY, Oct. 26
- Weekday
- 8:30 a.m. - † James Sheahan
- THURSDAY, Oct. 27
- Weekday
- 8:30 a.m. - † Antonio Deberardinis
- Requested by wife and family
- FRIDAY, Oct. 28
- St. Simon and St. Jude
- 8:30 a.m. - † Daniel Jude Florentino
- Requested by Florentino family
Parish Bulletin for Sunday, October 30, 2005
31st SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Matthew 23:1-12
Many of us are really unfamiliar with the fine distinction in factions operating in the time of Jesus. We sometimes tend to forget the fact that Jesus was very much a product of his environment. Jesus was a Jew; his friends were Jews as were many of his enemies. There were many different factions in Jewish religious society and often they disagreed with each other. The surprise for most of us is the fact that occasionally, Jesus agreed with some of them, even while he was castigating them for how they acted.
The scribes were those who could write down what they knew and taught about the Jewish Scriptures and traditions. Their followers called them rabbi, a title meaning master or teacher. While Jesus was not a member of this sect, his followers called him by the same name. They were showing honour to his teaching, although he was not a scribe by profession as far as we know. Scribes were opponents to the teachings of Jesus and were involved in his trial and supported his execution. They continued this course of action and were active in the pursuit of the early Christian community.
The Pharisees were scholars united by a point of view and represented one school of thought in the Jewish community. They studied the Law of Moses with particular care to detail and were vocal in their interpretation of the Law. It is an interesting note to recognize that it was the Pharisees who took charge after Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed in 70 CE and re-organized the community into the form of Judaism that survives to this day.
Scribes were most often members of the Pharisees and both sects sometimes get lumped together, as in today's gospel. Rather than lose ourselves in a trip down memory lane and focus on what these sects were up to in Jesus' time, perhaps we need to see what the gospel is saying to us in the here and now. How can we apply it to ourselves, how can we recognize our own failings, and what are the ideals that we should be pursuing, based on Jesus' teaching?
People in positions of authority, be it in church or state, home life, school life or work life, can be blinded by their own self-importance. They can become insensitive to the struggles and difficulties of those under them and can be blind to their own inadequacies. What drives such people is not service or help to a fellow human being but rather a deep concern with their own rise in power over others and fulfilment of their own ambitions. Jesus teaches that this is totally at odds with discipleship. The Christian community should be marked by a sense of radical equality and shared dignity.
We are all sisters and brothers, children of a single Father. We all exist under a single authority, that of God and of Christ. Authority means service. This theme of mutual service marks all of Jesus' public life and teachings. Think of the washing of feet recorded by John at the Last Supper. Throughout his public life, we see a Jesus dedicated to service of others, right up to his last meal with his friends. This model of fidelity to God's call must resound in the way each one of us respond to this gospel. If it does not, then we have really learned nothing at all.
— Rev. Thomas G. Moore
- TUESDAY, Nov. 1
- Feast of All Saints
- 8:30 a.m. – Mass
- WEDNESDAY, Nov. 2
- Commemoration of all the Faithful Departed
- 8:30 a.m. – Mass
- THURSDAY, Nov. 3
- Weekday
- 8:30 a.m. - † Lydia Arsenault
- Requested by husband
- FRIDAY, Nov. 4
- St. Charles Borromeo
- 8:30 a.m. - † Roger VanNieuwenhove
- Requested by his father Alfred
The Bible has often been described as a love story, a love story between God and his people, a love story to end all love stories. If, indeed, this is a love story, it is one of epic proportion, written to us through God's own inspiration and meant to engage all people for all time. It is a collection of the greatest religious writing of one particular ancient culture developed over a millennium.