A WORD FROM THE PASTOR

We All Have Something.… To Share

St Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) went to serve the slum dwellers of Calcutta, India with just twenty cents in her pocket.  When she died forty-nine years later, God had turned those original twenty cents into eighty schools, three hundred mobile dispensaries, seventy leprosy clinics, thirty homes for the dying, thirty homes for abandoned children, and forty thousand volunteers from all over the world to help her. 

We can begin our own humble efforts at "sharing" right in our parish by participating in the works of charity done by organizations like Knights of Columbus, Ladies Altar Society, and so many other volunteer groups. We may say, “I do not have enough money or talent to make any difference.”   But we need to remember that the small boy in the gospel story had only five barley loaves and two dried fish. 

The Bible guarantees that every believer has at least one gift from the Holy Spirit.  This is our one “tiny fish.”  Perhaps our “fish” is not money, but a talent or an ability that God has given us.  We all have something. If you have never trusted God with your time, or your talent, or your treasure... all your resources... this is the time to start.  Let us offer ourselves and whatever we have to God saying, “Here is what I am and what I have Lord; use me; use it.”  And he will bless us and bless our offering, amplifying it beyond our expectations.  When we give what we have to God, and we ask him to bless it - that is when the miracle happens. 

We, too, can perform wonders in our own time and place, by practicing the four "Eucharistic verbs” of Jesus:   Take humbly and generously what God gives us, bless it by offering it to others in God’s love, break it off from our own needs and interests for the sake of others, give it away with joy-filled gratitude to God who has blessed us with so much.

We are called by Christ to become the Eucharist we receive at this altar, giving thanks for what we have received by sharing those gifts - our talents, our riches, ourselves - so that he can use them and us to work miracles in creating communities of joyful faith.

I beseech you all to reflect – ‘how/when am I going to share something that I have, so that I may become an instrument in creating communities of joyful faith.’