Message From The Pastor - Father Joseph Mazzone
My friends, it’s easy to feel that we are living through times of deprivation. On one level, we certainly have lost a lot. Many have lost money, through lost jobs and lost wages. With the closing of stores, schools, and with the stay-at-home mandate in effect, we’ve all lost mobility and a certain sense of freedom. With the suspension of wakes and Funeral Masses, some have lost the ability to grieve a loved one in the way that they were hoping. And aside from priests, we’ve all lost the ability to gather at our beloved churches to share in the Eucharist. In the blink of an eye, many of us feel we have gone from the Garden of Eden to a desert.
Sometimes, though, the most challenging situations in our lives turn out to be the most significant, especially spiritually. Sometimes, when it seems we have lost a lot or even everything, we are reminded of what is truly important and most real; the Lord. Deprivation can, paradoxically, be the first step towards feeling abundance; spiritual abundance. The early Church Fathers spoke of three stages of prayer; purgative, illuminating, and unitive. Purgative, in which we purge ourselves of everything that is not God; illuminative, in which we have our passions better under control and our mind becomes more and more enlightened (illumined) to spiritual things; and finally, unitive, in which our minds are detached from temporal things so that we can enjoy great peace because, at this stage, there is a union with God. We feel actual experience of HIs love. There’s a powerful passage in the Old Testament when we hear that Lord saying that the Israelites “have found favor in the desert’. Their time of trial was actually a time of great growth since they have nothing at that point to distract them from God. Sometimes, my friends, when we are too comfortable and complacent, we forget Him. Let’s always remember that the desert moments of our lives, the times when we only seem to be losing things, can be the times when we gain the most spiritually.
My experience has shown me that the Lord never leaves us deprived. Even — often — when our worldly, material blessings seem to disappear, our spiritual blessings become all the more noticeable, all the more apparent. Perhaps on some level, we took Mass and the Eucharist for granted, for example. How much more it means to us now! I have heard this from so many of you. That is a blessing, my friends, and I know that when the time comes, you will return to Mass with an even deeper appreciation for the great blessing that it, and the Eucharist, is. There are so many ways the Lord lavishes His abundance on us. Let’s take a moment this week to reflect on how even in these times the Lord has blessed us. It’s not always obvious — “My kids are driving me nuts!” — but it’s there — “but how blessed I am to not be separated from them.” Let’s take a moment to count our blessings, my friends, and then thank our good God who has provided them to us.
The "Risus Paschalis" (Easter Laugh)
Guest to his waiter: “Can you bring me what the lady at the next table is having?”
Waiter: “Sorry, sir, but I’m pretty sure she wants to eat it herself.”