Pastor’s E-epistle
17 May 2013
 
Please pray for
 
Evelyn Gilbert  who is undergoing medical procedure this week.
Jeff Gremaud,  who was hospitalized this past week.
The men on the Spanish Men’s Christ Renews His Parish retreat this weekend.

Social Saturday is back!
Now that Lent is done, we will begin again with our monthly Social Saturday after the 5:00 mass in the narthex. Come and join us for wine and cheese and for a bit of time chatting and getting to know one another better. Social Saturday is also a great opportunity to welcome and to begin to get to know newcomers to our parish. I hope to see you there.

Pentecost and the color is red!
As a sign of our unity in the Spirit, I ask that everyone wear red to mass this weekend. Red is the liturgical color for Pentecost. Pentecost is a celebration of our call to unity in Jesus Christ. We express that on one level by our unity in gesture and prayer in the mass. Let’s enhance that a bit by wearing red as well.

Restaurant Recommendation
The Little Greek Restaurant opened very recently just a couple of doors away from the Donut Hole. That is located among the stores located at RR 620 and Lohman’s  Crossing. I have been there twice and I was quite happy with my meals. The first time I had a Greek Chicken pita and, on a whim because I usually don’t eat rice based soups, I tried a cup of their lemon chicken rice soup. The pita was quite good although messy because of the sauce. It required several napkins. I liked the soup. It had a tangy flavor because of the lemon so that overcame my usual indifference to rice based dishes. On my second visit I had the Greek salad with grilled salmon. It was one of the better Greek salads that I have found in Lakeway.

Book Recommendation
Boyne, John, The Thief of Time
I recently happened upon this early work by a relatively new Irish author. The main character is a man born in France in 1743 who at about the age of 50 stopped aging and just lived on. At first I was a bit leery of what Boyne was doing with that as a central element in his plot, but as the novel developed and Boyne guided the reader through his main character’s life and experiences back and forth through history up to the end of the 20^th century, I found myself fascinated. Indeed, since I read on the treadmill at the gym in order to keep myself on the treadmill, this book was a boon to my cardio exercise. There were times in which my hour on the treadmill ended but I was in the midst of particularly compelling passages so I just kept on going. I recommend this book highly to any who can suspend their own imaginations and enter into the very interesting world created by Boyne in this novel.

Pastoral Council Elections this weekend
This weekend we will ask you to elect two new members to the pastoral council. Ballots will be passed out by ushers at the end of mass. When you fill them out, you may either give them to ushers or place them in the ballot box which will be in the narthex. The pastoral council, along with the finance council, is the primary advisory body to me on the mission and vision of the parish. Please prayerfully consider your choices.

Looking to this weekend
Recently, I have been taking the opportunity to shape my homilies so that I can talk to you about how we can share our faith with others. Last weekend I spoke about the New Evangelization. That is a renewal of emphasis on sharing the faith most especially in this year which has been designated by the Holy Father as The Year of Faith. I gave you a simple approach to evangelization based on the example of St. Paul in the Book of Acts as he carried the message of the gospel to Athens. That approach requires us to recognize that we live in the midst of great diversity. People are at all sorts of places in their approach to faith. It is not our place to harangue, nag, tell them that they are going to hell if they don’t convert or any of the other methods that have often been used by usually well-meaning but very misguided individuals and groups. Instead, like Paul when he spoke to the people of Athens, we should meet them where they are. Paul acknowledged the people of pagan faiths who listened to him as religious people. In that way he met them where they were and acknowledged them as people on journeys of faith. Then he simply shared his experience of Jesus Christ. As he spoke some ended up scoffing at him and some walked away. Others acknowledged that they were interested in what he had to say and suggested that they might talk about it some other time. That done, Paul simply left. The point here is that Paul approached the people in an open manner, shared with them his experience and then moved off so that the Spirit of God could then do its work. He did not hang around trying to make things happen. He understood that he had a role to play and then it was his job to get out of the way and allow the Spirit to continue its work in the lives of those people who had heard him speak.

This weekend is Pentecost. We will celebrate the coming of the Spirit. With that, I want to talk to you about how we can know when it is the Spirit of God at work in our lives and in the lives of others and when it is not. Curiously, I have had a number of experiences recently that have underscored the reality that, among many of the faithful, that is very misunderstood. If you want a sneak preview of what I am going to say, check out Galatians 5: 16-23.