{"id":2038,"date":"2017-02-15T09:13:13","date_gmt":"2017-02-15T14:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=2038"},"modified":"2017-02-15T09:13:13","modified_gmt":"2017-02-15T14:13:13","slug":"making-hope-visible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/making-hope-visible\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Hope Visible"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first reading for today’s (February 15, 2017) Mass<\/a> comes from the story of Noah and the Great Flood. \u00a0The reading picks up at the point where it has just stopped raining for forty days and forty nights. \u00a0There is water everywhere.<\/p>\n

When God first spoke to Noah to tell him about the coming flood and destruction Noah might have feel good to know he had been good enough to be chosen to be saved from the flood. \u00a0Now, put yourselves in Noah’s shoes as he is on the ark. \u00a0He can see nothing but water. \u00a0How would he even know if the water is receding? \u00a0Where can the water go? \u00a0It might have been difficult to have any hope that they would ever get off the boat.<\/p>\n

Multiple times Noah sends out a bird to search for land. \u00a0I wonder how much dejection there was each time the birds returned without any sign of the waters receding. \u00a0But\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>then came the day when the dove returned with an olive leaf! \u00a0HOPE!!!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Now, look at today’s gospel reading. \u00a0It is a story of Jesus healing a blind man. \u00a0The man is physically blind but it serves for us as an analogy for spiritual blindness. \u00a0How do we see the world today? \u00a0When we are spiritually blind and\/or living in difficult situations do we see hope?<\/p>\n

Think of the young woman who finds herself pregnant and alone. \u00a0She has no idea how she would provide for the child in her womb. \u00a0What about the young girl who finds herself pregnant and fears that her parents will throw her out if they find out she is pregnant. \u00a0She might not see any hope and that can lead to bad decisions.<\/p>\n

What about the person at the end of life who feels no hope and can only see pain and suffering. \u00a0They might like no one cares or that their live no longer matters.<\/p>\n

What about the family without a job? \u00a0How can they provide for their family?<\/p>\n

What about the person who works but too few hours or too little pay?<\/p>\n

What about the person who feels all alone in the world? \u00a0They struggle to maintain any relationship.<\/p>\n

All of these people need\u00a0HOPE<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

We can show them hope. \u00a0To the pregnant girl, we can help her through the pregnancy\u00a0and<\/strong><\/em> caring for the child after<\/strong> <\/em>it is born.<\/p>\n

For the person at the end of life, we can offer them compassion, show them love, and help ease their pain. \u00a0We can show them we care.<\/p>\n

For the unemployed, the underemployed, and those who can’t make enough money to make ends meet, we can show them we care.<\/p>\n

For those who feel alone and struggle in relationships, we can show we care.<\/p>\n

When we wonder how, as individuals, we can do all this, the answer is we can’t do it alone but we can help by being generous to support the individuals and to support programs and agencies that do help. \u00a0We care pray for the people and for the programs that help them. \u00a0For those considering abortion it can be Crisis Pregnancy Centers (locally CareNet of Wayne County<\/a>). \u00a0For those at the end of life it can be programs that offer comfort homes (locally\u00a0Laurel House<\/a>\u00a0is under construction in Newark or House of John<\/a> in Phelps is fully operational). \u00a0For those in between the beginning and end of life, I recommend starting by looking to see what Catholic Charities offers in your area. \u00a0You can find them \u00a0locally here in Wayne County<\/a>, throughout our diocese<\/a>, and\u00a0nationally<\/a>.<\/p>\n

May all our efforts show those in need hope. \u00a0In showing them hope, we show them God and his love.<\/p>\n

Peace,<\/p>\n

Fr. Jeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first reading for today’s (February 15, 2017) Mass comes from the story of Noah and the Great Flood. \u00a0The reading picks up at the point where it has just stopped raining for forty days and forty nights. \u00a0There is water everywhere. When God first spoke to Noah to tell him about the coming flood …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Making Hope Visible’ »<\/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":[1],"tags":[32,249],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-wS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2038"}],"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=2038"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2042,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2038\/revisions\/2042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}