The Good News - Sunday, July 10, 2022 - St. Austin Catholic Parish

First of all I want to thank all of you who have been praying for my surgery and recovery. I had a partial knee replacement on my right knee on Tuesday, June 28. It went very successfully, and now [July 6], just over a week since the surgery, I am recovering quite well. Thanks to some great TLC from several parishioners, and an abundance of prayers, I have surprised the Physical Therapist with both my pace of recovery and very little pain. Thank you all for your support, and I hope to be back celebrating Mass in person with you very soon.

With the tragedies of continual gun violence across our country, the awful and horrific war in Ukraine, threats of famine in Africa, more environmental disasters as storms and destruction intensify and become more frequent, the resurgent Covid virus in new forms, and all sorts of economic woes and dislocations, it is very easy to become discouraged, disheartened, disgusted. It would be all too easy to give in to depression and defeatism.

I think that as Christians, who claim to have heard the GOOD NEWS of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ, and that God in Jesus has already won the victory over sin and over death, we have a special mission and responsibility to act and live in HOPE. We cannot sugarcoat nor downplay the very real difficulties and problems that we all face today. We must work to do all we can to change the systems of evil and to assist those in need. But I think one of the best things we can do is live out of a stance of HOPE.

The Gospel is GOOD NEWS. We must embody that good news to make it present and effective in our world. We do that by not giving in to despair, but rather facing the future with confidence that it is in God’s hands, not ours. And God loves us so much that God gave His only Son to be our Savior, saving us from a pointless, meaningless existence, and also saving us to live for all eternity in the light of God’s love. We have to HOPE.

I conclude with a passage from Pope Francis’ 2020 encyclical,"Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship.” I believe it is worth pondering.

God bless!

Worth Pondering From Fratelli Tutti

“Yet we Christians are very much aware that if the music of the Gospel ceases to resonate in our very being, we will lose the joy born of compassion, the tender love born of trust, the capacity for reconciliation that has its source in our knowledge that we have been forgiven and sent forth. If the music of the Gospel ceases to sound in our homes, our public squares, our workplaces, our political and financial life, then we will no longer hear the strains that challenge us to defend the dignity of every man and woman.” - Pope Francis (277)

Fratelli Tutti Explained
(In four Minutes)