This weekend's Mass video is now available on our parish website.
Button not working? Watch directly on YouTube at https://youtu.be/eNZY6WgFDz8
The cantors for this Mass are Zachary Ratliff, our parish youth minister, and his wife Maya. The prayer during Communion is the "Prayer of Spiritual Communion" as adapted by the Diocese of Columbus.
HOMILY FOR 8/2/2020: 18TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
MSGR. ENKE
At the very moment that we are taping this Mass on Thursday morning, Presidents Bush, Clinton, and Obama--along with other mourners--are attending the funeral of Congressman John Lewis at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Last Sunday, after our 10:00 Mass, I watched the horse-drawn cart carrying his body for the last time over the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Of course, this was the site of Bloody Sunday in 1965, where he was severely beaten--along with many other marchers--for their efforts to advance the civil rights of black citizens.
Lewis would go on to be one of the founders of SNCC, to be present in the hotel room of Bobby Kennedy on the night that he was gunned down. He was the first and youngest speaker at the March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial. Later, he would serve as a member of the House of Representatives for over thirty years. He had come a long way from being arrested forty times for his non-violent protest against racism in our country.
The inspiration was, for him, for everything he did, Jesus Christ and love. And there are two little words that link John Lewis and Jesus Christ. And those two little words are "good trouble"...because those are the words that he had told his sharecropper family when they had advised him as he grew up in the South to just lay low.
And here's what I mean from today's Gospel. We heard, "When it was evening, the disciples approached [Jesus] and said, 'This is a deserted place and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.' " And then Jesus, ever the good trouble practitioner, tells them, "There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves." (Matthew 14:15-16)
The disciples' request had been utterly reasonable, of course, but Jesus showed them and us that--practicing good trouble--what they could do with just those five loaves and two fish. With just that, they could make sure all could eat and go home satisfied that night: a much better outcome than sending them home on empty stomachs. And I'm sure that, probably, those disciples might have grumbled a bit.
God knows there are enough people in our world today who want to make bad trouble for others. Resist that, my dear friends. Let us, then, follow the example of Jesus today, and with him and John Lewis in finding the week ahead ways to make a whole lot of good trouble.
And may I suggest something as simple, perhaps, as simply wearing a mask.
Lewis would go on to be one of the founders of SNCC, to be present in the hotel room of Bobby Kennedy on the night that he was gunned down. He was the first and youngest speaker at the March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial. Later, he would serve as a member of the House of Representatives for over thirty years. He had come a long way from being arrested forty times for his non-violent protest against racism in our country.
The inspiration was, for him, for everything he did, Jesus Christ and love. And there are two little words that link John Lewis and Jesus Christ. And those two little words are "good trouble"...because those are the words that he had told his sharecropper family when they had advised him as he grew up in the South to just lay low.
And here's what I mean from today's Gospel. We heard, "When it was evening, the disciples approached [Jesus] and said, 'This is a deserted place and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.' " And then Jesus, ever the good trouble practitioner, tells them, "There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves." (Matthew 14:15-16)
The disciples' request had been utterly reasonable, of course, but Jesus showed them and us that--practicing good trouble--what they could do with just those five loaves and two fish. With just that, they could make sure all could eat and go home satisfied that night: a much better outcome than sending them home on empty stomachs. And I'm sure that, probably, those disciples might have grumbled a bit.
God knows there are enough people in our world today who want to make bad trouble for others. Resist that, my dear friends. Let us, then, follow the example of Jesus today, and with him and John Lewis in finding the week ahead ways to make a whole lot of good trouble.
And may I suggest something as simple, perhaps, as simply wearing a mask.