December 31, 2021
Dear Friends,
We’ve made it through another year. There have been ups and downs, but we made it to 2022. As we move into the new year, I would like to express my gratitude to all of you. Thank you for supporting St. Matthew’s in the many ways you have this past year. Thank you for the prayers, the generosity of using your gifts, your time, your talent, and treasure to allow our parish to continue to flourish and grow. Without your support, our parish would not be what it is. Thank you for that.
As we move into a new year, I would like to make a suggestion. In the list of resolutions that we make each year and promptly forget about, I encourage you to try something else. Instead of saying, I am going to lose weight, eat healthier, etc, (things that sound good on paper), why don’t we decide on something else? Why don’t we resolve to be more Christlike in everything we do? I’ll admit it isn’t going to be easy, there are so many challenges that we see, but I feel this is where we can make a difference.
Right before our Christmas masses, I needed to run out to BJ’s to get paper towels for the church (apparently, we have been blowing through both those and toilet paper at an alarming rate). Being just before Christmas, I ordered them online, because why go into a store just before the holiday? I had a pickup for late Thursday night. I got there and waited and waited for my order to arrive. Finally, a poor kid/young adult, came to apologize and said there was an issue with the order and could I come inside. Apparently, the person who operates the forklift left early and forgot to get the pallet of paper towels down, could I come back in the morning? I’ll be honest, I wasn’t happy about it, but it was not his fault. He apologized all over the place. I was fine with it.
The thing about this entire exchange that caught my attention was the comment he made at the end, “thank you for being so understanding, we are short staffed.” I said, “these things happen it’s not your fault, plus having worked retail at one point I get it.” The manager flatly said, “it’s always the people who work retail that understand. I think more people need to do that to understand.” There is a phrase out there that I am not going to mention regarding a certain type of attitude that people adopt when things do not go their way. Maybe, just maybe this year if we want to be more Christlike in our interactions everywhere, we can finally give that stereotype the boot.
It isn’t always easy to be like Him. There are those people who will test you. I feel in the age of social media, it is easy to forget to be human, to forget to be nice and go for the jugular when we do not agree with someone or something. We don’t have to agree with the person, but we also can still be nice to them. Let this year be one in which we open our hearts to the Lord. Let Him in, but more so channel His love to all.
Lastly, a final reminder we have mass tonight, December 31 at 5:00 pm. We have mass tomorrow morning January 1, 2022 (need to start getting ready to write that 22). There is NO 5:00 PM MASS SATURDAY JANUARY 1, 2022. Sorry for “yelling” just making sure people see it. Sunday masses are as normal as we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany!
Happy New Year,
Fr. Brian