{"id":1689,"date":"2015-09-27T16:56:28","date_gmt":"2015-09-27T20:56:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1689"},"modified":"2015-09-27T16:56:28","modified_gmt":"2015-09-27T20:56:28","slug":"26th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-b-homily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/26th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-b-homily\/","title":{"rendered":"26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B – Homily"},"content":{"rendered":"

26th<\/sup> Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B<\/a>
\nNumbers 11:25-29
\nJames 5:1-6
\nMark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48
\nSeptember 27, 2015<\/p>\n

Moses said, \u201cWould that all the people of the Lord were prophets!\u00a0 Would that the Lord might bestow his spirit on them all!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

What are we called to be in this world?\u00a0 Are we all called to be prophets? It depends on how you mean \u201cprophet\u201d.\u00a0 We are not all called to be full-time prophets like Elijah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah but we are all called to share our faith but we do in different ways.<\/p>\n

One of the great thing about our faith is that it shows us that we don\u2019t have to do everything for ourselves.\u00a0 In faith, God reveals to us that we are given different gifts to work together.\u00a0 We are not supposed to do it all ourselves.<\/p>\n

When faced with a new task, many will ask, \u201cWhat\u2019s in it for me?\u201d\u00a0 This is the wrong<\/em> question.\u00a0 We should be asking ourselves questions like \u201cdoes this help grow the Kingdom of God\u201d or \u201cis this what God is calling me to\u201d or \u201cHas God given me the gifts to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

We are not created to be a bunch of individuals, each seeking our own wealth or interest.\u00a0 We are called to be concerned for others, to give others a \u2018cup of water\u2019 to drink.<\/p>\n

To me, what of the great gifts of our Catholic faith is that we are not a bunch of individuals who happen to come together to sing and hear scriptures.\u00a0 We are united in what we do and what we believe.<\/p>\n

In every Eucharistic Prayer there is a point where we pray for the unity of our church, including an explicit reference to unity with Francis our Pope and Salvatore our Bishop.<\/p>\n

In the Eucharistic Prayers, we ask God to transform the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus.\u00a0 In the Eucharistic Prayers, we also ask God to transform us into one body, one spirit in Christ<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul speaks of the different gifts we have been given to use together as one body.\u00a0 All the parts need to work together to accomplish its purpose.\u00a0 Our purpose is not to build up ourselves but to build up God\u2019s Kingdom.\u00a0 We are called to work together as a parish, as a diocese, and as a church united across the world.<\/p>\n

With the crowds that have travelled this week to see Pope Francis this week, I see a desire in the people to be part of something larger than ourselves.<\/p>\n

The coming together has been wonderful but it is something we should seek every day.\u00a0 Obviously, we aren\u2019t going to see the Pope every day.\u00a0 What we can do is always be mindful of our brothers and sisters in faith, remembering that we are all one body<\/em>.\u00a0 We are called to help all God\u2019s children, whether they know they are God\u2019s children or not.<\/p>\n

As a parish, we do this with our Food Pantry, our thanksgiving and Christmas programs for those who are poor.\u00a0 We do it with the items we collect for Catholic Charities.\u00a0 These are ways we address people\u2019s physical needs but we must also help them in their spiritual needs.<\/p>\n

We do this with our celebration of Mass.\u00a0 We do this with our Family Based Religious Education and youth ministry programs.\u00a0 We do it with our Adult Faith Enrichment series, the CD\u2019s, and my presentations.\u00a0 All of this is to help each person grow in faith.<\/p>\n

We do not do this alone.\u00a0 We are part of a diocese, specifically the Diocese of Rochester.\u00a0 We are united under Salvatore our Bishop who leads us in our mission.\u00a0 The diocese supports us in our own endeavors with things like free technical support on our computers and administrative support to handle the business end of things.\u00a0 They support us in our faith formation programs, especially right now with redesigning our sacramental preparation program.\u00a0 All this support comes with a cost.<\/p>\n

Of course, it is that time of year when we start our annual Catholic Ministries Appeal.\u00a0 If we think of the appeal as the diocese billing us for their services we have missed the point (of everything I just said).\u00a0 The appeal is not about the money.\u00a0 The purpose of the appeal is to provide support for the mission we are all called to.<\/p>\n

Many of you probably have already received your letter from the bishop.\u00a0 I received mine on Thursday and made my contribution online.<\/p>\n

Our goal this year is $58,542 and I will say this will be very difficult to meet.\u00a0 I raised my contribution $30 more from last year.\u00a0 What can you contribute?\u00a0 Some people give $10, some people give several hundred dollars.\u00a0 Every dollar is important and makes a difference towards our mission.\u00a0 The theme this year is We Are All One Body<\/em>.\u00a0 May we always seek to be united in our mission as one body.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B Numbers 11:25-29 James 5:1-6 Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48 September 27, 2015 Moses said, \u201cWould that all the people of the Lord were prophets!\u00a0 Would that the Lord might bestow his spirit on them all!\u201d What are we called to be in this world?\u00a0 Are we all called to …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B – Homily’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82],"tags":[134,135],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-rf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1689"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1690,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1689\/revisions\/1690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}