Hidden With Christ in God

Dear Friend, 

To all who participated so generously in last week’s first-ever summertime event called “Gather,” THANK YOU. We asked the entire parish community to come together for a single Sunday Celebration of the Holy Eucharist, to strengthen our common bond as a community of faith. So many gave so generously - again, thank you.

I read recently about a poet whose art “shakes an ordinary moment from its shell, separating strands of thought and habit…”. For me, that’s what Christ is calling us to do and to be - and what GATHER was all about. When the Holy Spirit is alive in each of us, the ordinary moment - whether it be during Mass in the Mission church, or afterwards, standing in line for a coffee (or, as on Sunday, waiting for lemon lime shaved ice!), something new can happen, if we let our faith crack open the “ordinary.”

St. Paul tells us this week that our life “is hidden with Christ in God” and Christ comes out when we least expect it. In the Gospel Jesus tells us with wisdom and humor that when the walls of our spiritual “barns” (i.e. our shells) become too thick, our life cannot come forth when God asks us for it.  

What poets show us on a page with words, we, as disciples of Jesus, are asked to do with our lives: practice the art of living in faith, trusting that the kernel of each moment contains the rich possibility of love, generosity, and a special connection with those who can seem so different from us. When that holy and hidden place comes to life, says Paul, “there is not Greek and Jew…but Christ is all in all.” It’s precisely then that the Lord can GATHER us.

Gratefully,

Fr. Dan ofm