{"id":1911,"date":"2016-09-25T12:22:31","date_gmt":"2016-09-25T16:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1911"},"modified":"2016-09-25T12:23:30","modified_gmt":"2016-09-25T16:23:30","slug":"26th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-c-cma-homily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/26th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-c-cma-homily\/","title":{"rendered":"26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C & CMA – Homily"},"content":{"rendered":"

26th<\/sup> Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C<\/a>
\nAmos 6:1a, 4-7
\nPsalm 146:7, 8-9, 9-10
\n1 Timothy 6:11-16
\nLuke 16:19-31<\/p>\n

Today Jesus speaks about the rich man who wore fine garments and dined sumptuously each day.\u00a0 This in and of itself won\u2019t be all bad but he did it seemingly oblivious to the poor man Lazarus lying at his door covered in sores.<\/p>\n

People acting like this is nothing new.\u00a0 Writing a few hundred earlier, Amos speaks about those who laid in \u201cbeds of ivory<\/em>\u201d and had the \u201cbest oils<\/em>\u201d while being complacent to the needs of others as Israel was collapsing.<\/p>\n

Are we complacent?\u00a0 Are we aware of others?\u00a0 I\u2019m grateful that we have some parishioners who are very generous giving of their time, talent, and treasure to help in our parish.<\/p>\n

In the psalm we hear about how the Lord secures justice, gives food, <\/em>and raises up those who were bowed down.<\/em>\u00a0 God helps us and when we help others we are all \u201cRaised in Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n

How much do we look beyond ourselves?\u00a0 How much do we look beyond those we see every day?\u00a0 Remember that the rich man was oblivious to Lazarus.\u00a0 After they both died, they were separated by a great chasm, Lazarus in Heaven and the rich man in Hell.<\/p>\n

Do we live like we are alone in the world or do we live mindful of how we are part of much larger than ourselves?\u00a0 To me, one of the great gifts of being part of the Catholic Church is that we are not individuals, we are no just part of one parish.\u00a0 We are part of a \u201cuniversal\u201d (catholic means universal) church that is much bigger than what we see in human terms in one little parish.<\/p>\n

We are St. Michael\u2019s parish and we will celebrate our parish feast day this week but we are also part of the Diocese of Rochester.\u00a0 Sometimes we don\u2019t feel connected to the diocese apart from the fact that Bishop Matano leads our diocese.<\/p>\n

What might ask what does the diocese do for us?<\/p>\n

Well, in terms of community, the diocese very much supports the work of Catholic Charities in our community.\u00a0 For the parish, do you know that the diocese does all the work to set up and maintain our computers and we just pay for equipment and materials?\u00a0 Do you know that the diocese helps us with all the rules and regulations from the government that keep changing that we need to follow for our finances and administration?<\/p>\n

What else does the diocese do for our parish?\u00a0 Our diocese provides the priests for our parishes.\u00a0 The diocese paid for my entire education in seminary.\u00a0 Since becoming a priest the diocese has supported me with continuing education in leadership development.\u00a0 In short, I am here because the diocese makes it possible for me to be here.<\/p>\n

The diocese does support us.\u00a0 With this in mind, it is the time of the year when we start our annual Catholic Ministries Appeal.\u00a0 You may have already received your letter from Bishop Matano announcing the theme of this year\u2019s campaign, \u201cRaised in Christ.\u201d\u00a0 We are all called to stop being complacent and to help each other.\u00a0 When we help each other physically and spiritually, we are all \u201cRaised in Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n

We help others in our direct support of Catholic Charities and our Community Food Closet to people in physical need.\u00a0 We do it spiritually in our faith formation programs.<\/p>\n

We are also called to support our diocese to do the same beyond our parish boundaries.\u00a0 In supporting the CMA, you also support our national bishops\u2019 conference as well as the work of Pope Francis.<\/p>\n

Your contributions to the CMA help make it possible for our diocese to no longer charge annulment fees to make it easier to help those dealing with broken marriages.<\/p>\n

The CMA makes up about 60% of the entire diocesan budget.\u00a0 It is vital to the work of the diocese.\u00a0 For instance, do you know that a little over 10% of the money raised in the CMA goes to Catholic Charities?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if you aware of it but our parish has a history of not making its goal.\u00a0 Last year the goal was around $51,600.\u00a0 The total raised was a little less than $37,000.\u00a0 When a parish doesn\u2019t meet its goal, it pays the difference out of its general budget.\u00a0 That means we sent a check to the diocese for a little over $14,000.<\/p>\n

Now the good piece of news here is our diocese has lowered our goal for this year to $45,750, a decreased of nearly $6,000.\u00a0 That\u2019s the good news.\u00a0 The bad news is compared to last year that would still leave us almost $9,000 short of our goal.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a lot but I believe we can do it.\u00a0 This is the fourth parish I have served in since my ordination.\u00a0 In each of the three parishes I have served in before, we stepped up our promotion of the CMA and raised the total given in a year by amounts of $8,000 or more.<\/p>\n

We can do this.\u00a0 It means we all have to dig a little deeper.\u00a0 We need people who regularly contribute to the CMA and are able to increase their contribution.\u00a0 We need more people to donate.\u00a0 Every little bit helps from the $5 donation to the $5,000 donation.<\/p>\n

As I prepared my homily for today, I went online to our diocesan website and gave my contribution online.\u00a0 You can contribute online or by check in the mail.\u00a0 All registered parishioners should get a mailing from the diocese.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t starting next week we will have donation envelopes available in church.<\/p>\n

I ask you to please prayerfully consider what you can give.\u00a0 Every little bit helps.\u00a0 Some can give more.\u00a0 Some can\u2019t.\u00a0 Give what you can.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to our diocese.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to our parish.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to me.\u00a0 When you give, it shows me you believe in what we are trying to do.\u00a0 None of us is perfect but we strive to do the work of Christ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C Amos 6:1a, 4-7 Psalm 146:7, 8-9, 9-10 1 Timothy 6:11-16 Luke 16:19-31 Today Jesus speaks about the rich man who wore fine garments and dined sumptuously each day.\u00a0 This in and of itself won\u2019t be all bad but he did it seemingly oblivious to the poor man Lazarus …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C & CMA – 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":true,"_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":[82,49],"tags":[192],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-uP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1911"}],"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=1911"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1913,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1911\/revisions\/1913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}