July 15, 2022
Dear Friends,
For most of us, we do not think about technology or the ins and outs of what is going on until we need to. To us, everything happens, and all is right with the world, until it isn’t. While I do not have the full reason or how of things and probably never will, I do have at least a good story. Last Saturday morning, the church’s server decided it was done and stopped working. We are thinking the two power blips on Saturday morning caused this issue. The server is what controls everything in the church from IP address assignment to the livestream. So, we were dead in the water, so to speak, and I was away. Not that my being here would have salvaged anything. On top of that, the power loss on Saturday caused the thermostats in the church to reset their functionality as they pull the time and date from the internet. As a result, the temperature in the church was hot on Saturday/Sunday. Like I said, technology is great until it isn’t anymore.
Monday and Tuesday were spent pulling the church and its network slowly back together. I am grateful to both John Greco and Ron Conti who helped get the network running and salvaged the data stored on our servers. It’s funny to me since I use a mac and have replaced things over the years. I am used to things moving along quite well, as I spent the week jumping from computer to computer to fix the other things that needed to be done. I realized just how important technology is for us. If we avoid looking at it, including just the normal desktops, how unlucky we will be when they fail.
Thankfully, we are pretty much back to normal, aside from the fact that some of our computers are going the way of the server and must be looked at, but that’s not the root of the story. While the technology explanation of what happened is more whimsy than wisdom, the real wisdom was in the second sentence of this letter. To us everything happens, and all is right with the world, until it isn’t. Just as with technology, we don’t think about it until it’s too late, the same at times can be applied to our faith. There is a parable sometimes known as the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders - Matthew 7:24-27. Wiseman builds his house on stone, while the foolish man builds his house on sand. When the storm comes and things get tough, the wiseman withstands the onslaught where the foolish man does not.
Over the years we have all heard the message that our faith is a process. It is a work in progress. It is the foundation of faith, that is hopefully rock solid, that sees us through the good and bad times - which is why we work on it, which is why we take time to pray, go to adoration, come to mass, etc. All these different options allow our faith to flourish and grow so it is there for us in the good and bad times. When things do not go right for us, this is where our faith is key. Otherwise, if a storm hits and the power goes out, your internal server might crash and bring chaos into the world. (I realize that is a very strong metaphor and chaos may not come into the world but let me have this one).
God Bless,
Fr. Brian
P.S. What has been the world’s most ground breaking technology?
The shovel!