Quick commercial… Newman Catholic at Montclair State is ending celebrating our 50th Anniversary of the Opening of the Newman Center. We’re trying to raise $25,000 for the establishment of a scholarship in honor of one of our previous chaplains, Fr. Art Humphrey, as well as to support our ongoing mission and ministry to the Montclair State University community. If you’re interested, please check out: http://www.msunewman.com/50th-ann-appeal for more information and a link to donate on line. Thank You!
HOMILY:
Along with courses in scripture, sacraments, church history, morality, we had a couple classes in seminary that tried to help us learn how to act in pastoral situations – encounters where as a priest we would be called to minister to families going through a multitude of different challenges. Over the course of the semester, the priest who was our professor underlined sentences that he said should never be uttered by a priest. Things like:
I thought about that as I was going through tonight’s Gospel. In the midst of these two miracles that Jesus performs, we hear Jesus saying “Do not be afraid, just have faith.” Coming from Jesus, I’m a bit leery to quote my professors criticisms. But thinking about some really heavy situations that some friends, some family, some parishioners are going through just in my life, I couldn’t imagine me saying His words to any of them in any of those cases:
Faith in Jesus calls us to believe in Him, to trust in Him, to know and love Him… To recognize the precious gift of life we’ve been given. To ask Him, listen to Him as He guides us throughout our journey of life. To not forget Him when things are going well and imagine that somehow we are truly in control of every aspect of our lives… To not give up on Him when we struggle, and doubt, and fail, and fear and are tempted to believe that faith is useless.