Stewards
Dear sisters and brothers in Christ,
I pray that you are being doubly blessed, and I trust you had a great and hopefully relaxing holiday weekend. I want to thank everyone who welcomed Fr. Joseph and made generous donations to the mission work of The Church. Since some were not ready to make an offering and others were not present, due to the holiday, we will be giving you an opportunity to do so this weekend. Know that you can always make a donation to the missions by placing your donation in a blank envelope and writing “For The Missions” on the outside. If you want to make a donation specifically to the work that Fr. Joseph was talking about we will have that information in the office. Speaking of donations, if you saw our bulletin from this past weekend you had a chance to examine our end of the year financial report. If you did, you got a very nice surprise. We ended the year about $90,000 in the black. That was due to several factors, including a significant increase in the offertory (thank you very much), the return of the Fish Fry and a cut in expenses. It helps to make up for a few years in the red. It allowed us to give our dedicated staff a much deserved and needed cost of living raise. Your generosity also allowed us to meet the increase in demand at our various outreach ministries. So again, thank you very much, and may God pour out blessings upon you.
The value of life has been front and center recently, starting with all of the gun violence, especially in our schools, and then the abortion debate, and now Pope Francis calls our attention to the death penalty. If life is sacred, then ALL life is sacred. If we believe in Redemption and forgiveness, then we have to believe it is possible for ALL people. The other area of life that has been front and center in the news is the life of Mother Earth. I continually am amazed with those who deny the reality of “Global Warming” (or whatever you choose to call it). I watched a documentary about 5-6 years ago called “Chasing Ice.” It was extremely powerful and brought home just how impactful global warming truly is. I believe it is still online and I highly recommend it. Although there are probably newer versions, the story behind the making of the film is very interesting and inspiring in itself. As this endeavor grew in scope, the photographer had to create equipment and enlist the help of his sons and their friends.
At the dawn of Creation we were appointed “Stewards of Creation.” The entire earth and all that lives on it was placed in our care. Whether or not you believe that human activity has caused the earth’s temperature to rise and icebergs and glaciers to melt faster and the oceans to rise, as well as, more frequent hurricanes, floods and fires, there is no disputing the trash we produce. There is a floating island in the Pacific that is made up entirely of trash. Sea life is killed by it and our beaches are littered with all manner of trash. I have hiked into some fairly remote and beautiful places, only to find discarded bottles and cans, and the ever present cigarette-butts. Then of course there is air pollution, acid rain, and chemicals in our rivers & streams. Do you know that it is legal for a company to buy credits from an environmentally safe company instead of cutting back on their own pollution. It is a crazy world we live in and the wealthy and powerful continue to make the rules. But WE are still the stewards and must ask ourselves what are we doing to take care of this fragile planet our God entrusted to us. The planet that our children’s children hope to one day inherit, and to be able to live on, and not only have to drink bottled water but bottled air as well. What are WE doing? ...and will it be enough?
In the Redeemer, Fr. Rick