Dear St. Philomena Parish Family,<\/p>\n
Blessings to you all this day! I am writing this week from my continuing education program at Mundelein Seminary. This is the third week of what will be nine weeks altogether, over the course of the next three years. I really appreciate so many of you giving encouraging comments and prayers after the Masses last weekend! I have already found the first two sessions so helpful and inspiring\u2014I am hoping that this program will push me to grow and that our parish will benefit from the fruits of that growth over time. Know of my prayers for you all in the Masses this week!<\/p>\n
I hope all of you have been enjoying our shift back into Ordinary Time\u2014we will be in this first section of Ordinary Time until March 5, Ash Wednesday, when we will enter into the Lenten Season. Ordinary Time certainly can sound\u2026well\u2026ordinary! Perhaps the name itself makes us think that this will be a time that isn\u2019t as exciting. No doubt, the special seasons of the Church year can be full of excitement\u2014especially our two main celebrations of Easter and Christmas.\u00a0 Those celebrations focus on who Jesus is as our Savior and how close He wants to be to us. It really is incredible to think about\u2014almighty God, the Creator of all that is\u2014loves us and wants to be near us\u2014that is amazing! Our seasons of preparation before Easter and Christmas help us focus on the gift of those celebrations and help us prepare to receive those gifts.<\/p>\n
Compared to all those wonderful truths, it might make sense for us to think that Ordinary Time is not as important\u2026but, of course, there are tremendous graces and blessings for us during this time as well! As you may know, the focus of Ordinary Time is on all the rest of the life of Jesus, when he isn\u2019t being born among us and isn\u2019t offering Himself as the one perfect sacrifice\u2026.and that turns out to be a lot! The call of the disciples and apostles, the teachings of Jesus, the many miracles\u2014Ordinary Time is our longest season of the Church year for a reason! This time provides us an opportunity to grow in our life with Christ\u2014to grow in prayer and faith\u2014and to work on living our faith in the midst of our daily living. The green color that we wear during this season invites us to concentrate on growth in our life with Christ.<\/p>\n
One of the things I really enjoy during this season is that we do a much more continuous reading of a Gospel. Whereas in the other seasons we jump around the Gospels for specific readings related to the celebrations, during Ordinary Time we make a journey through chapter by chapter. This year, we will be focusing on the Gospel of Luke, which happens to be my favorite Gospel. =)\u00a0 This weekend, we have one more passage from John (the Miracle at Cana) and then we\u2019ll dive into Luke\u2019s Gospel starting next weekend. A common description of St. Luke\u2019s Gospel I really like is \u201cThe Great Reversal.\u201d All throughout we will be reminded about how the poor and lowly are raised up\u2014those that often are looked down upon in a worldly sense are being lifted up through life with Christ. This always reminds me that being a good Christian and follower of Christ is not about being the best, the fastest, the smartest, the toughest\u2014it is about being humble and generous\u2026it is about listening to Jesus and striving to follow Him faithfully\u2026it is about trusting in our Lord\u2019s love and wisdom…it is about sharing with others the goodness of God we have experienced.<\/p>\n
Another popular description of the Gospel of Luke is the \u201cGospel of Wine, Women, and Song.\u201d The \u201cwine\u201d part of the name comes from the many banquets in this Gospel\u201419 of them! We\u2019ll often see that the meals are an opportunity for Jesus to teach on a deeper level\u2014seeing the dignity of every person and seeing joyfully that we all are invited by Jesus to join in. The \u201cwomen\u201d part of the Gospel comes from a good number of women who are named in St. Luke\u2019s Gospel (like Joanna and Susanna), and a description of how they helped support the ministry of Jesus and were faithful followers. The \u201csong\u201d part of the description comes from the three unique ancient songs that are included:\u00a0 the song of Zechariah (father of St. John the Baptist, Luke 1:68-79), the song of Mary (occurs during the visitation to cousin Elizabeth, Luke 1:46-55), and the song of Simeon (happens when Jesus is presented in the temple, Luke 2:29-32). These songs are so significant that anyone who prays the Liturgy of the Hours (priests, deacons, sisters are committed to pray these; anyone else is welcome) would pray through them every day. In addition to all these people and things to note in St. Luke\u2019s Gospel, we also can look forward to unique passages like the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37) or the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31).<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know about all of you\u2026but can you tell I\u2019m excited for Ordinary Time?!?!?! Know of my prayers for you all this week and that I send my blessing from the Mass!<\/p>\n
In Christ,<\/p>\n
Father Luke<\/p>\n
P.S.\u00a0 Next week we\u2019ll have a special guest for the pastor\u2019s column! =)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"