The country is not the same as its institutions. As we celebrate the 248th anniversary of the founding of the United States this week, let us take the time to reflect on that distinction, for in a time of heightened political polarization, which has led to ever greater social tension, this distinction can help remind us of the loyalty we should have “to the communities [to which we are a] part and [show] respect to those in authority who have charge of the common good” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1880). Since we always have the responsibility to contribute to the right development and wellbeing of the country, this loyalty should also lead us to a renewed faith-inspired involvement in the politics of the country.

​This country’s government is “of the people, by the people, for the people” (Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863), which means government is at the service of the people. I like how Mark Twain articulated this:

"My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its officeholders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death "(A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court).

Now take this loyalty, enlighten it with the faith, and we get involved in politics for these reasons:

1. Politics has a moral dimension. Being a human activity, politics may hurt or help people and thus lead to grace or sin.
2. The Gospel calls the Church and her members to political involvement, for the Gospel message is to be proclaimed to all creation (cf. Matthew 28:19). That includes the political order.
3. The Church is the vehicle of an integral salvation, which means Jesus wants to save the whole human person, body and soul. Integral salvation is the salvation of the total person: spiritual and temporal. This is why Jesus not only forgave sins but also healed people of physical sickness. The Church must likewise bring the healing grace of salvation to the temporal, which includes the political sphere.

Grateful for our country, we express our loyalty to it by contributing to its good “in a spirit of truth, justice, solidarity, and freedom” (CCC, 2239). This necessarily involves collaborating with the civil authorities who have the responsibility for marshaling our efforts, yet are stewards; it is our “right, and at times [our] duty, to voice [our] just criticisms of that which seems harmful to the dignity of persons and to the good of the community” (CCC, 2238).

David J. Conrad

Today’s readings (this Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time) fill me with hope for us fallible humans. Starting backward in the readings with the Gospel, we hear the stories of Jesus healing Jairus’ daughter, and the inadvertent healing of the woman who touches Jesus’ clothes on the way to Jairus’ home.  When Jesus arrives late to Jairus’ house, all there believe that the girl is already dead—that He was too late. He tells them: “Do not be afraid; just have faith.” These are words for all of us in any of life’s difficult, terrible, circumstances!

​Jesus says to the sick girl in today’s Gospel: “Talitha koum!” This means: “Little girl, I say to you, arise!” We have the faith to know that Jesus will raise us all to everlasting life. This is the hope for all of us who have faith and believe!

St. Paul exhorts us today to be our better, most generous selves. (Advice for so many…) He reminds us to “excel in every respect” in all the ways we must be in this world. His vision for us believers is one of sharing and love; as instruments of grace for God. In this time of so much selfishness, division, blame and fear, we have the words of St. Paul to remind us of our lives in Christ; and Jesus’ words reminding us: “Do not be afraid; just have faith.”

Today the Book of Wisdom teaches us that life, like all created things, is “wholesome.” “God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.” We know, though, that somehow that divine wholesomeness gets corrupted; that sin comes into our world, and as a result: illness and death surround us. Yet, we are not left adrift and alone. We have the teachings of St. Paul and the Words of Jesus for comfort and guidance. Because we believe, Jesus takes us by the hand like Jairus’s daughter, delivers us, and makes us whole. Praise be to God!

Keep singing!

Elizabeth Dyc

We hear the Lord remind Job in the First Reading today that God set the limits for the sea. This Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time we hear Jesus in the Gospel still the storm with a word: “Quiet!” We are reminded in both readings that when faced with the storms we encounter in our lives, God may still the storms, and that it is in God where we find our security and safety.

​St. Paul tells us today: “The love of Christ impels us…” I looked up “impel” in the dictionary. It means: to drive or urge forward; to incite or constrain to action; to propel or impart motion to; to start moving. Being impelled in our faith gives us the needed responses in any and all situations in our lives.

If we are impelled, or ‘pushed’ by Christ—rather than by the turmoil of this world—we will become a new creation in Him. The old way will fall away—like our panicking fear-response in crisis (as did the Disciples in the boat). In allowing God to “impel” us we will live in the calm that our faith gives us and we will be impelled to love in action. How to do this? Learn the refrain of today’s Responsorial Psalm: “Give thanks to the Lord, His love is everlasting.” Say it, sing it, believe it, and be at peace as He saves us in all things.

In the meantime: May God bless you, the people of St. Aidan, for all for your service, for giving your time, talent and treasure to this parish—for being impelled to action in our Community by Christ to work in service of the Body of Christ.

Keep singing!

Elizabeth Dyc

In this weekend’s Gospel, the scribes accuse Jesus of being possessed by Satan (Mark 3:22), and by Satan’s power drives Satan out of those possessed. Such a charge is, of course, false, but it is helpful for us to see how, so that we, unlike the scribes in our Gospel passage, don’t cut ourselves off from repentance for our sins and their forgiveness by God.

​Jesus asks the scribes, How can Satan drive out Satan (3:23)? To drive out, or expel, is to act on something with force. Since anything someone does to himself is done of his own accord, no one has the power to force or expel himself.

If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand; that is the end of him. But no one can enter a strong man’s house to plunder his property unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can plunder his house (3:24-27).

Jesus makes a shrewd argument. Every system of authority divided against itself does not stand (kingdom; household). Then Jesus shows by means of logical fallacy how Satan cannot drive out Satan: either Satan has authorized Jesus to cast out Satan (option 1), or Satan has not authorized Jesus to do so (option 2). If option 1, then Satan is divided against Satan and his kingdom cannot stand, which is absurd. But if option 2 is the case, then it is as if Jesus has tied up a strong man to plunder his property.

Amen, I say to you, all sins and all blasphemies that people utter will be forgiven them. But whoever blasphemes against the holy Spirit will never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an everlasting sin.” For they had said, “He has an unclean spirit” (3:28-30).

Jesus issues us a warning: let us not cut ourselves off from Him and forgiveness in general by claiming He is in Satan’s party. On the contrary, let us embrace Jesus as the One who has come to plunder Satan’s kingdom/household and save us from sin. Let us commit anew to being faithful followers of Jesus, repent of our sins, and receive His forgiveness and grace. As St. Augustine says: “Impenitence itself is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit which has no remission…not because there is a blasphemy, which cannot be remitted, since even this might be remitted through a right repentance” (Aquinas. Catena Aurea: Gospel of Mark).

David J. Conrad

“I believed and therefore I spoke…” This line of Scripture is from the second Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians today. It made me think about hearing, listening, and what we need in order to be able listen well, and hear what must be heard. This is of great importance to me as a musician—as sound and silence is what I am all about. I am talking about music as example—but it is about communication that is key. Too many people treat listening like it's only a pause as they think about what they want to say next. Real listening is really a radical act of humility: it’s not about you and your issues; it’s about humbly taking in what is being shared by someone else. When you let yourself humbly listen, you let yourself be holy; and wholly, remade. No matter what words people use--everyone is just asking to be loved—to be listened to, to matter to the listener.

​“When we listen to words not to indict someone other, but to inform us, they can form us into a cup of understanding. This quenches the world's parched places.” (Rev. R. Rohr) Though sometimes listening to words changes our minds when we can see the Truth of the Word in the words!  Sometimes words don't need to change our minds as much they just need to change our hearts—to change not the way we think— but the way we love—and that opens the door to grace. When grace walks in the world is better for it. (Thanks Rev Richard for the thoughts you share!)

I do think of these things as I fill the silence with sound. In song, the text—based on the Word, matters. Sound, well-orchestrated, can open hearts and minds to God’s grace.  It does matter though, how we listen—to sound and to silence.

Are you attending, paying close attention, to the story being told—both spoken and sung? Are you adding your voice, your own story, to the music and harmony of unity and communion of us all? Is your heart open to really hear what is being said and sung? If not, don’t be discouraged. Everything takes practice; everything—every little or large thing—takes practice. You just need to start somewhere. My suggestion is to begin with the opening hymn; pick up the hymnal and take in the text and join us in singing God’s Word. Listen to how your own voice layers into the voices around you. Joining is joy when God is the point.

Keep singing!

Elizabeth Dyc

Moses in the Book of Exodus from the Old Testament today says: “All that the Lord has said, we will heed and do. He then speaks of the covenant between God and His people and uses blood to “seal the deal.” This was a blood oath—and there was nothing stronger and more binding than that kind of promise. We have that same serious covenant with the shedding of Christ’s blood for us—the sacrifice He made to “cleanse our consciences from dead works.”  Christ is the mediator of the New Covenant—and so we are saved (St. Paul to the Hebrews). The Psalm (#116) and the Gospel today makes me revisit Holy Thursday from the Triduum—the covenant response, and then the story of the Last Supper in which Jesus reminds us: “This is the blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.” Then He shares the bread and wine, the Body and Blood, with His Disciples and with us. We celebrate this today—a remembrance; but also an act in this moment and at this time.

​I looked up synonyms for “remembrance,” and here are some of them: commemoration, commendation, keepsake, memento, memorial, recollection, gift, monument, reminder, reproduction, reminiscence…all good words for us to hold in our hearts and minds as we receive Eucharist—along with remembering the sacrifice that brought us to the table. The idea of a “remembrance” made me think about other important moments we humans experience, or do, as a remembrance such as going to the cemetery to clean and adorn the graves of our loved ones; or eulogies at funerals. But not all remembrances center necessarily around death and we celebrate many other things in our lives and mark them in remembrance: births, wedding anniversaries, sacraments, to name a few.

Remembering and marking moments is something we do for many good reasons—as humans we need the reminders of the past in order to move forward in our lives—and we always hope to learn from our experiences of “before” as we look toward the future.

We are told today to “heed and do” what the Lord says—and to remember that it is vital to understand ourselves, and that our remembrance is necessary. We remember the sacrifice of Jesus and commemorate His actions every time we receive the Eucharist—but wouldn’t it be wonderful to live “In Remembrance of Him” in all the different moments of our daily lives? No matter where we are or what we are doing we can live in a state of remembrance and reverence toward God. Lord, let me know You in the washing of dishes, the cleaning of the house, gardening, tending, and mending and fixing. Let me know You in the notes in right order, in the words on any page, in those we meet daily and in all the faces of those near and far. Let me know and remember You in all things, Lord.

Keep singing!

Elizabeth Dyc

Just a Note: I would like to extend a grateful thank you to all the dedicated volunteers of our Music Ministry at St. Aidan as they conclude their season today until the Fall. Have a much needed hiatus to rest and renew! May God bless you for all your hard work!