Fr. Michael’s Blog

Maybe you’re the kind of person that keeps up on your email. I wish I was. I’m working on it, but it’s not uncommon for me to be about 100-150 behind on emails on any given day.

Of course, some emails are more urgent than others, so there are times I scan down the list of senders and subject lines to make sure I’m reading anything that’s urgent or at least too important to leave for another time.

Now imagine something with me: as I scan my email inbox one day, I find a startling name in the sender column: “God.” Now imagine with me further that I determine that this is not some scam or marketing ploy, and imagine even further that I actually know for sure that it’s really from the Almighty Himself. How crazy would I be to either skip it over, shrug it off and say to myself “later.”  Or even worse, that I would see it, but without even opening it hit “delete.” That would be crazy, right?

But here’s what’s really crazy: you and I do this. All. The. Time.

The Words of God, as recorded in what we call the Holy Scriptures, the Bible, are better than just an email from God. They contain the fullness of divine revelation. The Old Testament tells the stories of our beginnings as a universe and as the human race. It quickly becomes the story of a people formed to prepare for the coming of the Christ, the Savior who will rescue a people plagued by sin, sickness and death. The New Testament picks up with the story of the birth of the Promised One, Jesus, and then leads into His teachings, miracles and eventually His suffering, death and resurrection. The Epistles, the letters written to the first churches, are by extension written to us, connecting us to the very history that began when God said “Let there be light.”

So as a community, let’s commit to work together to stop ignoring this not only urgent, but beautifully important message of love from God: the Holy Bible. Our parish will have a few series of studies each year for about eight weeks each, with the first one beginning tonight. The message of God is to all of us, so we will gather as a family for what we are calling “Family Night.” We will join together for food and fellowship at 6 PM sharp. Dinner will be hot and ready to be served thanks to a dedicated team of volunteers relieving us of the need to cook dinner once a week. We begin our studies at 7 PM. There will be a three groups: one for toddlers up to grade-school children, one for Middle School/High School students and one for adults, all concluding promptly by 8 PM. Our younger kids will be playing some games and watching some videos, while our teens dig deeply into St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. The adults will look closely at the book that was so important it was placed first in line of the books of the New Testament: the Gospel according to St. Matthew. I guarantee you that eachweek will bring startling insight, even into very familiar stories.

So bring a Bible and join us tonight. Each week will discover together the messages that we’ve too long ignored, and have for too long needed to hear, and hear well.