Dear Friends,

As we gather in the midst of this blistering heatwave, we are challenged by one of Jesus’ best-known parables: the story of a farmer who sows abundantly, pouring out seed into soils of varying degrees of receptivity, and promising an abundant harvest. 

On hot, humid days like those we have been enduring all week, we may well feel like the soil scorched by the sun!  When we go through troubles or trials, we feel like the thorny and rocky soil that chokes the seed and prevents it from taking root.  Finally, there are those moments – thank God! – that we begin to see some results from our work, and from God at work in our lives: then we are the seed that, against all odds, sprouts and produces a rich harvest.

The problem is that we expect to see results immediately. Many families, during this stay-at-home pandemic summer, have introduced their children to the practice of planting and tending a garden.  Often enough, we are like the child who, having just planted a vegetable seed or a flower bulb, comes back an hour later looking for results.  Then they say, “should we pull it up to check how it's doing?" 

In the spiritual life, we can be as impatient as these novice gardeners.  We would like instantaneous results. We forget that every aspect of our life is in a constant process of becoming, that at each stage of our life, we need to be open to growth and change.  And in this time of pandemic, as we are in a hurry for life to get back “to normal”, we need to prepare ourselves for the possibility of a “new normal,” in God’s own time and in God’s own way. 

The deconfinement committee is hard at work planning out the details of the gradual reopening of our church.  We promise to keep you posted, but it is likely to be another couple of weeks. If you have any questions or would like to offer to help out, please contact Gina at the parish office.  In the meantime, keep joining us for Sunday Mass online at: __________________.   

We also ask you to keep Fr. Bertoli in your prayers. He had a fall recently at his residence and was hospitalized, but he seems to be recovering well.  He asks for our prayers and promises to pray for us.

May these words from this Sunday’s Gospel acclamation remind us of the importance of keeping Christ at the center of our lives. Then whether we are by ourselves at home, or all together in church, we will know that with the presence of Jesus and his life-giving Word in our lives, we need never be alone:

“The seed is the Word of God, Christ is the Sower: all who come to him will have eternal life.”  Amen.    

God bless,

Fr. Raymond