STEWARDSHIP WEEKEND
“Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God” (Mt. 22: 21). As we hear in St. Matthew’s Gospel, when some of the religious leaders try to trap Jesus with a question about whether or not to pay the Roman taxes, Jesus reminds his listeners that everything belongs to God. After all, he is the creator of the universe and gives us all that we have. And so, on this Stewardship Weekend, I invite you to reflect on how we can all be better stewards, using our time, talent and treasure to build up God’s kingdom right here in our midst. We read in the Bible that, after God had created the heavens and the earth, he planted a garden and placed man there to tend it for him. We also read that God blessed Solomon when he built a magnificent temple to God. When Peter acclaimed Jesus as Messiah, Jesus told him, “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church.” And, we read throughout the Bible that God commands us to love him with all our heart, all our understanding and all our strength.
And so, first of all, we are called to adore and worship God. Every time we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, we proclaim that God’s glory fills all of creation and we rejoice, proclaiming “Heaven and earth are full of your glory! Hosanna in the highest!” We thank God for all his blessings as we learn about how, down through the ages, he has called us back to himself and then, in the fullness of time, sent his Son to show us the way back to Him. As we have learned over the past few weeks, the first priority of our Next Generation Pastoral Plan is to provide transformative liturgies that will help all parishioners grow spiritually and increase the number of parishioners who attend Sunday Mass.
Sacred Scripture also teaches us, over and over again, to love our neighbor as ourselves. Our worship of God – who has blessed us in so many ways – leads us, in gratitude, to want to share this good news of our salvation with others. So, we use our time, talent and treasure to make God’s goodness known to everyone. We care, in a special way, for those who are forgotten by the rest of society or who struggle, for one reason or other. We recall that our eternal destiny depends on our love of neighbor: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink” (Mt 25:34+35). The second priority of our new Pastoral Plan is to energize all parishioners to participate in active ministry, especially in those parish organizations and activities that serve the needy in our community and beyond.
Finally, we hear our risen Lord command his followers to “go and make disciples of all nations, …teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19,20). We who have experienced Jesus’ saving work in our lives are called to share our faith with those around us and lead them to an ever-deepening encounter with our Lord. The third priority of our Pastoral Plan is to equip parishioners to share their faith with family and friends as we build a more mission-oriented parish.
This week, we observe, once again, Stewardship Sunday as we kick off our Annual Stewardship Appeal. Over the past several years, you heard of stewardship in our parish. As I have noted a number of times, stewardship is what we do once we say “I believe.” As we grow in our faith we need to ensure that all of our resources, including our treasure, are adequate for this essential work of worshiping God, caring for the needy and sharing our faith. I want to thank you for your generous past response and ask you to prayerfully consider how you can even more generously provide the financial support we need to accomplish our mission as a parish.
If you haven’t yet, you will soon receive my Annual Stewardship Appeal letter, along with a brochure that highlights our Next Generation Parish Pastoral Plan. As faithful stewards, it is our privilege to worship God, serve our neighbor in need and share our faith. Please read my letter carefully and prayerfully consider how you can contribute to the financial strength of your parish where we gather to worship God and are sent forth to love our neighbor and proclaim our love for our Lord.
WORLD MISSION SUNDAY
We join with the Church Universal in celebrating World Mission Sunday with its theme: “You shall be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8). This year is the 200th anniversary of the distribution of the first funds collected for the missionary Church. This was accomplished by a most remarkable woman, Pauline Jaricot; allow me to tell you a little about her.
Pauline Jaricot was born on 22 July 1799, the last of seven children born to Antoine and Jeanne Jaricot in Lyon, France. She was baptized on the day of her birth. Although she witnessed and was inspired by her parent’s faith and generous acts of charity, Pauline grew into a pretty, worldly and flirtatious young woman. Since her family was wealthy, she flourished in a life of high society. But then, Pauline’s life changed forever. She suffered a serious fall which left her with nerve damage that affected her movement and speech. Her older brother and her mother died around this time and Pauline shut herself off from the world as her health continued to deteriorate.
A local priest started to visit her and, with his help, Pauline’s faith was reinvigorated. Slowly, her health improved and as soon as she could walk safely, she asked to be accompanied to the sanctuary of Fourvière, where she committed herself to the Blessed Mother. Pauline began to change her life. She gave away her finery and began to take care of people living in poverty. She began to long to help the Missions – China and the United States, at the time – a desire nurtured by her brother Phileas, who was preparing for the priesthood and who told Pauline all about the work and witness of missionaries. Pauline came to believe that “to truly help others is to bring them to God.” One day while at prayer, 18-year-old Pauline had a vision of two lamps. One had no oil; the other was overflowing and from its abundance poured oil into the empty lamp. To Pauline, the drained lamp signified the faith in her native France, still reeling from the turbulence of the French Revolution. The full lamp was the great faith of Catholics in the Missions, especially in the New World. By aiding the faith of the young new country of the United States of America, Pauline knew that, due to her frail health, seeds planted would grow and bear much fruit. Unable to travel to the mission Church, she came up with a plan to support missionaries. She gathered workers in her family’s silk factory into “circles of 10.” Each one pledged to pray daily for the Missions and to offer each week a sou, the equivalent of a penny. Each member of the group then found 10 friends to do the same. Within a year, she had 500 workers enrolled; soon there would be 2,000. Pauline’s efforts became what we know today as the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, the first of the four Pope’s mission societies. She was “the match that lit the fire.” In 1963, Pope John XXIII would sign a decree which proclaimed her virtues, declaring her “Venerable.” He wrote: “It was she who thought of the society, who conceived it, and made it an organized reality.”
In May of 1822, the first collection of the newly formed society was sent one third to the missions of China, and two thirds to the young church in the United States, to the missions in Louisiana, which, at that time, extended from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada, and to the missions of Kentucky. By 1922, the Society for the Propagation of the Faith – and three other societies established to help the missions – became Pontifical, with their headquarters moved to Rome, under the direction of the Pope. In the first 100 years of its existence, the Society for the Propagation of the Faith sent some $7 million in help to the young Church in the United States. The young Church here at home started contributing to the Propagation of the Faith in 1833, with a humble gift of $6.00. Today, Catholics here at home generously respond with support for the 1,150 mission dioceses worldwide, mostly in Africa and Asia.
Pauline died on January 9, 1862; the prayer found after her death, written in her own hand, ended with these words: “Mary, O my Mother, I am Thine!” In 1963, 100 years after her death, Pope John XXIII signed the decree which proclaimed the virtues of Pauline Jaricot, declaring her “venerable.” On May 22, 2022, Pauline was beatified, declared “Blessed.” The cause for her canonization continues. I present this brief biography for your inspiration and encouragement. We can all support the missions for, as Pauline once wrote, “some give to the missions by going; some go to the missions by giving.” Please be generous in your support of the missionary Church.