Loading...Dear St. Peter’s Family and Friends,
This past week has been a week for prayer. We prayed as we listened to the stories of the many people who visited the office seeking social assistance and expressing their fear and concern about the current sweeping changes in Federal administration, and we also coped with our own individual fears and concerns about current world events. We offered prayers of thanksgiving for the family who visited my office to show me their new passports which St. Peter’s helped them secure, for the generosity of the Santa Barbara Food Bank and the Martha’s Market volunteers who help ameliorate hunger in our local community. We gave thanks for birthdays, anniversaries, healing, sobriety milestones, and safe travel. We prayed as we worked on finalizing preparations for the Children’s Summer Arts Camp, and other Parish initiatives. Our prayers were answered when we welcomed our new Office Assistant, Melissa Ruiz, and we prayed for our future as we all move forward together in a seemingly increasingly divided world.
For many people, this country does not feel like a safe place to be. Grandstanding, rhetorical fear mongering, and alienation of other people seems to increase daily, augmented by irresponsible reporting and over analysis by talk-news show hosts and guests. It can feel, irrespective of one’s nationality, background, or political stance, as if we are under siege on all sides and can rely only on ourselves. It is a feeling that I am certain the early followers of Jesus knew all too well. Yet Jesus, in this week’s gospel, still sends his followers out into the world in all directions, exhorting them to live their faith by word and example, taking nothing with them except the Good News of Jesus Christ, and open hearts and minds. They were to keep their minds on their tasks without distractions, and to accept whatever reception they received with equanimity and humble hearts, knowing that they would not always be successful in their work. The disciples’ task, like ours, is not to boast of achievements, successes or innate gifts, but to respond to needs, wherever we encounter them knowing that the kingdom of God is near and we bring it one step closer each time we actively participate in God’s redeeming work. Like lambs among wolves, we are to be both sincere and innocent. We must allow ourselves to be vulnerable, and practice non-resistance as a means of countering hostility, anger, and danger. Much is being asked of us, and there are always too few laborers to bring in the harvest. And so, we pray,
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen
(St. Francis of Assisi)
Reverend Courtney +
