On Wednesday, our new Shepherd, will be ordained.  Pray for Bishop Stephen D. Parkes and watch his Mass of Ordination as a Bishop via livestream at 1pm on Wednesday. 

Bernard “Butch” Lowenthal died on Wednesday after sustaining injuries in a car accident on Monday.  If Butch had made it home, he would have gotten the terrible news that his grandson, Bradley Stone, had died suddenly of a brain aneurysm on Monday morning.  What a surprise for
Butch to be greeted by Bradley at the pearly gates.  Butch and Trisha Lowenthal were long time members of St, Michael and our 2011 Gartland Award Recipients.  Butch is the brother of Jimmye Lou DiBenedetto.  I am offering the 8am Mass this Sunday for Butch and Bradley.

The incivility that is commonplace in the public square during this election season has been slowly getting worse over the years.  I had forgotten how bad the 2012 election season was until I came across this bulletin article that I wrote back then: “What are the other issues that need to be a part of the present political debate?  Unfortunately, our country is on a downward path that is clouding our ability to have an honest and civil debate about the important issues that we face.  Too many of us are getting caught up in the nastiness of the current political climate.  It is creating a great divide within our Democracy.”

 I am a fourth degree Knight of Columbus and I was so proud that at the time the Knights launched a national, non-partisan initiative to give voice to Americans’ desire for civility in public discourse.  The petition that they asked people to sign in 2012 read:

“We, the undersigned citizens of the United States of America, respectfully request that candidates, the media and other advocates and commentators involved in the public policy arena employ a more civil tone in public discourse on political and social issues, focusing on policies rather than on individual personalities. For our part, we pledge to make these principles our own.”  Asking people today to sign such a petition seems kind of fruitless.

Taking the Gospel Home
Prayerfully read Matthew 20:1-16a

1. This Gospel reading is not about strict justice but outrageous generosity. Are any of us ever worthy of grace, first hour worker or eleventh, no matter what? What is the message of this parable? What is the message for you in your everyday life?

2. How would grace be handed out if humans made the rules? What if God’s ways were like our ways, if God’s bountiful generosity did not exceed the level of simple distributive justice?

According to Pope Francis in Joy of the Gospel, paragraph 48, who are the “last” in “the last shall be first”?

If the whole Church takes up [the] missionary impulse, she has to go forth to everyone without exception. But to whom should she go first? When we read the Gospel we find a clear indication: not so much our friends and wealthy neighbors, but above all the poor and the sick, those who are usually despised and overlooked, “those who cannot repay you” (Lk 14:14).

… Today and always, “the poor are the privileged recipients of the gospel,” and the fact that it is freely preached to them is a sign of the kingdom that Jesus came to establish. We have to state, without mincing words, that there is an inseparable bond between our faith and the poor. May we never abandon them.
                                                        -- Pope Francis in the Joy of the Gospel, paragraph 48