January 6, 2023

Dear Friends, 

         At mass this morning, the reading from First John caught my attention. And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever possesses the Son has life; whoever does not possess the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you so that you may know that you have eternal life, you who believe in the name of the Son of God. I said this at mass this morning. When we hear something like this, I really shouldn’t have to say more. I mean I always do, but I shouldn’t need to.

         During Christmas masses, I touched on our redemption through the birth of Christ and all it means. The phrase from St. John pushes that point home, if we have Jesus in our lives and in our hearts. As we moved into the new year, I spoke about New Year’s resolutions and their successes and failures.  I did not really mock them but put things into perspective. Sometimes with resolutions, we set ourselves up for failure.  There are better ways to succeed. 

         This, too, can be applied to our faith. It is very easy at Christmas and Easter to get involved in our faith on the big holy days. It is easy to show up for palms and ashes because we know we should.  We need to build on the framework, not just because we are called to come mass weekly, but because coming to church helps deepen our relationship with the Son of God. As John told us today, to possess the son is to have life. To follow Him, we have eternal life. I ask the rhetorical question of why would we not want this?  If we look around, we realize that people do not want this or think paying lip service is enough. 

         To have a strong relationship with our Father, we need to be active and engaged in our faith. If we are not, when we face stress and bad times, we are going feel like God has abandoned us.  It is more because we have not been able to make that connection that He is there walking alongside of us this entire time. We just do not recognize His presence. Faith is like every other skill or habit that we have. It is something that needs to be worked on consistently. If we fall out of practice, it makes it harder to see Him when we really need Him.

Have a great day. 

Fr. Brian

P.S. A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.