Category: Parish News & Events

Rejection is often a difficult pill to swallow. At some point in life, everyone experiences rejection. Maybe it was from your high school sweetheart, a boss or job interview gone sour, your coveted university, a parent or significant adult figure. The list goes on. Some rejections are minor injuries. They sting in the moment but we bounce back, healing quickly with a good lesson learned. Other rejections cut more deeply, their wounds can fester and push against healing salves. These wounds can shape who we are, or at least our perception of who we are.

The Gospel today is a challenging one. Jesus’ parable of the master and the unruly tenants pushes us to look closely at our own lives. When God reaches out to us, are we receptive to His summons, or do we behave like the tenants? 

Jesus is utilizing this parable to teach multiple lessons. It’s about our relationship with the master, God the Father. It’s about obedience to the call of the Kingdom, to be productive workers within God’s good order. It’s about opening the Kingdom of God to all people, not just the chosen people of Israel. Significantly, it is also about Jesus’ own person and His role in the story of salvation. Jesus is the son that was slain, Jesus is the stone which the builders rejected. 

As Lent continues, we struggle to keep pace with our Lenten fasts. These fasts, these rejections, serve a number of purposes. Fasting teaches us self discipline. A well chosen fast will highlight areas of our life that we are clinging too tightly to. Fasting is also the conscious choice to reject something because we see that rejection can have a higher purpose as it draws us closer to God.

As it happens, there are two sides to rejection. There is rejection which wounds, but there can also be rejection which heals and brings growth. When Jesus died on the cross, He took the rejection handed to Him by humanity and flipped it over. Through His wounds, life springs forth and healing becomes possible between us and our Creator. We are called to a similar view. When we feel rejection, we can let the wound fester or we can look for the other side of the coin. When we choose to reject, we should look carefully at whether we are causing injury to ourselves or others, or finding a way to promote healing and growth.

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This Gospel story shares about Lazarus, a poor man resting at the gate of the rich man, who is longing for the scraps from the rich person’s excess. Despite his intense need, the owner of the home ignores him and fails to offer even the smallest consolation. Just a small act of kindness could have a significant impact on this poor man, yet the rich man takes no notice.

Jesus tells us that, “when the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham”, while the rich man was condemned to hell.  He makes it abundantly clear that when God gives us opportunities to help others we are expected to act.  Often, these opportunities aren’t even that difficult or challenging, as was the case of the poor man resting in the rich man’s very doorway.  He didn’t even have to leave his own house; that person in need of assistance was right in front of him, sitting on his front steps! Jesus is pointing out that often what we need to do is right in front of us; it doesn’t require a lot of thought or effort, merely a desire to serve and love others. 

Jesus goes on to recount how the rich man, who upon his death was suffering in hell, thought of his brothers and longed for the chance to warn them so they would have a chance for salvation. Often, we hope and pray for miracles or divine intervention for those we love so they might experience greater faith, but do we consider how our actions and how we treat people may be the exact witness to the Gospel they need to see in order to fully embrace it?  Jesus leaves us with the powerful words, “If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.”  May we not only seek to have faith ourselves, but put it into action in our lives each day when opportunities present themselves in order to be a witness to others.

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Lent is well underway, with today being the second Wednesday of this holy season. Typically, it’s the time that I usually catch myself slipping on my intentions for the season as well. This year I’m working on fasting from cynicism, snarkiness and complaining (csc).

Yes, you read that correctly. I’m trying to treat csc as the hunter’s snare or a path that causes another person pain, injury or unjust persecution. I’m trying to catch myself before I act on those thoughts, either in my mind or out loud, spoken or typed, in public or private.

It is a struggle, to be sure, but not an unusual one. In the reading from Jeremiah, the people of Judah and Jerusalem look to ‘destroy him by his own tongue…carefully note his every word.’ The Psalm takes this issue up by referring to ‘the snare they set for me.’

‘God himself will set me free from the hunter’s snare,’ is prayed every morning and evening in the Liturgy of the Hours during Lent. It reminds me that I must turn to God to help me avoid the traps and situations which can lead me into a bad or sinful choice.

I must remember that Jesus, the Son of Man, my God and my all, came to earth and gave his life as a ransom, a sacrifice for me and for the whole world. He was ransomed so I, so you, can be set free.

Today is the feast of St. Katharine Drexel She is a great example of setting aside the trappings of this world (including wealth and comfort in high society) to work for racial and social justice, especially for Native Americans and African Americans.

Pray with me these words of St. Katharine ‘Mother’ Drexel as the path of this Lenten journey continues.

“Teach me to know your Son intimately, to love Him ardently, and to follow Him closely.

It is a lesson we all need – to let alone the things that do not concern us. He has other ways for others to follow Him; all do not go by the same path. It is for each of us to learn the path by which He requires us to follow Him and to follow Him in that path.

The patient and humble endurance of the cross – whatever nature it may be – is the highest work we have to do.” Amen.

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Practice what you preach, it seems super basic doesn’t it? Well so is eating healthy and many of us don’t do that. So is sleeping enough but then midnight comes around and we are still up watching this or that show. Some of the simplest things in the world can be the things we struggle with the most. That was certainly the case for the scribes and the Pharisees in the Gospel today. Preaching for them was an easy thing. They knew the law, they knew the word of God, they knew how to talk about it, and they had status and power in their communities to do so, the hard part was to put what they preached into practice. This is where they ultimately failed. 

I always give the Pharisees a really hard time. I look at them in the Gospels and think, “How could they be so stupid?” The son of God is literally walking amongst them, the One they have been waiting for, and instead of throwing a massive celebration, they are suspicious. Suspicious to the point of turning him in and playing a role in his very death. They had one job to do. Preach the word of God and prepare the world for the coming of the Messiah. Well the Messiah came and they themselves weren’t ready, so how could they possibly prepare the way? 

So I look at them and give them a super hard time, and then I know that gaze needs to immediately turn and focus on myself. Something I believe I have been gifted with is an ability to give talks and engage a crowd. I love speaking to large groups of people about the faith. When you do this over and over and the audiences start growing it can be very easy to slip into the mentality of the Pharisees. Your “job” so to speak becomes helping others with their spiritual lives, and not caring so much about yours. I remember a time I was giving a talk on prayer for a Diocesan retreat once and halfway through the talk I realized I hadn’t prayed in a long time. Now, I worked for the Diocese so I was praying a lot for work, but I wasn’t personally reaching out to the Lord. 

This was a wake up call for me. Hopefully this blog post is the same wake up call for all of us. Do we practice what we preach? You might work at a Diocese or parish. Do you go to Mass as much as you are able? I know I need to work on this. I could swing daily Mass every single day, but other things pile up. The point here is not to feel bad about ourselves and wallow in self-pity. The point is just to ask, what more can we do to practice what we preach? 

Jesus had some harsh words for the Pharisees because they knew the law and didn’t follow it. Let’s pray for the grace to know the law and follow the One who came to set us free. From all of us here at Rodzinka Ministry, God bless! 

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