Last week I wrote about the upcoming retreat we will have in our parish the first week in Lent next year. I am looking that far in advance because it is the most engaging and enriching retreat experience I have ever sought to offer to the people of the parish. It will not only involve three nights of presentations, it will open the door to meeting weekly during the next year to grow in our faith. Am I trying to open a door that seems too intense or time consuming? One of the common answers we give when people ask how we are doing is: I am busy. That is good. But what can we do in all this busyness that will really enrich us. We are in the midst of Major League Baseballgames, National League Football games, and College Football. Whether you watch sports on TV or attend in person, the games from beginning to end take approximately three hours. There are 162 baseball games for our favorite team plus additional games for teams that make the playoffs. There are 17 regular season games in the NFL followed by the playoffs. College football has about 12 games per team plus the playoffs. Each of these games takes approximately three hours of our time to watch. To go to a game takes much more time than that, plus the expense of tickets and refreshments. To watch 20 games of our favorite teams would consume about 60 hours of our time. That is more time than we would spend coming to Mass and Holy Days in one year.

In the next six months there will be two important projects in our parish. The first will happen the last two weeks of October and the first week of November. It will be an outreach to you, the people of the parish, thanking you for your financial support and asking you to consider making an increase in your weekly donations. I know this is a very trying time financially with the price of almost everything going up. You experience it in your homes and we experience it in our parish. There will be mailings and words spoken at Mass on those weekends explaining where we are financially and where we are looking to go. This is a big parish plant: we have 19 acres, four buildings, and almost 100 employees on our payroll between full time and part time people. For the past 19 years I have been amazed and inspired by your financial support and I thank you for it.

It is one thing to lose things, another to lose peace of mind. In the Gospel for today’s Mass (Luke 15:1-32) we have three parables. The first two present people who lost something tangible. In the first, a man loses one of his one hundred sheep and searches until he finds it. He brings it back full of joy. In the second parable a woman loses a coin and searches her house until she finds it. She too shares her joy. The third parable has much more to think about; it is the parable of the prodigal son. Today we mark the 21st year of the terrorist attacks by four teams of suicide terrorists who crashed into both towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a fourth plane which the passengers overtook and forced it to crash into a field in Pennsylvania. We remember with great sadness and mourning all who lost their lives (2,996) -passengers on the planes, people in the buildings, and the brave men and women who attempted to rescue and save them as the Twin Towers fell. How horrible it was to watch this disaster live on television and to live with the mourning and pain, then and still. No matter how good things were that morning at 9:00 AM, that fateful day put an inner fear and sadness in all of us. Dear loved ones were taken from us and it changed the way we think as we travel, especially by air. In our love, we pray for those innocent souls and their families in a heartfelt way today.

Profiles in Courage was a book written by John F. Kennedy in 1955, fives year before he was elected president in 1960. In his book he spoke about eight people who were unsung heroes at different points in our nation’s history. This past Monday we celebrated the feast of the Passion of John the Baptist, a well known saint and true man of faith. He had the courage to live and speak the truth. Some of the lines from the Gospel for that day (Mark 6:17-29) said, “Herod feared John, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man and kept him in custody. When he heard him speak he was very much perplexed, yet liked to listen to him.” Sadly, when Herod was given an opportunity to see the light of truth he closed his eyes and had John beheaded because of a promise he made to give his wife’s daughter anything she wanted.