Setting Out On the Road to Service and Freedom

Dear Friend,

Setting out, beginning again, and making a new start - these phrases come to mind as I ponder the texts which the Church presents us for the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Coming after Pentecost, and the great solemnities of the Holy Trinity and Corpus Christi, these themes strike me as very timely for us as a parish. As we prepare to enter a new fiscal year with an updated pastoral plan, what will be our response to the Spirit, to God’s majesty in Trinitarian love, and to the gift of God’s presence in the eucharist?  

At the risk of being crass, it may be that the responsorial psalm gives us the most apt image for our new fiscal year: “You are my inheritance, O God”. The question becomes: What will we do with that inheritance? As a parish community, how will we activate and distribute the treasures of the Spirit and our Franciscan tradition at this decisive moment in our history? The pastoral plan shapes our budget, frames our priorities and holds us accountable to what St. Paul in the second reading calls that most fundamental grace: the freedom to love and serve one another.

Meanwhile, the first reading and Gospel show us what “setting out” on that road to service and freedom really entails. The prophet Elijah throws his cloak over the plowman Elisha who responds by leaving his old “pastoral” work (field work) in a way that borders on the outrageous. In a similar fashion in the Gospel, Jesus makes it clear that his (and our) journey to Jerusalem requires that we leave the past behind if in any way it keeps us from entering the freedom of God’s kingdom of love and justice.  

Our moment of challenge and opportunity is now!

Gratefully,

Fr. Dan ofm, Pastor