{"id":2642,"date":"2018-09-24T09:43:44","date_gmt":"2018-09-24T13:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=2642"},"modified":"2018-09-24T09:43:44","modified_gmt":"2018-09-24T13:43:44","slug":"to-one-who-has","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/to-one-who-has\/","title":{"rendered":"To One Who Has"},"content":{"rendered":"

The gospel for today’s (9-24-18, Monday of 25th Week in Ordinary Time<\/a>) is a fairly short gospel but I would like to break it into three parts.<\/p>\n

Part One
\n“Jesus said to the crowd:\u00a0\u00a0“No one who lights a lamp conceals it with a vessel\u00a0or sets it under a bed;\u00a0rather, he places it on a lampstand\u00a0so that those who enter may see the light.”<\/em><\/p>\n

When one turns a lamp on, no one then covers it up.\u00a0 That would defeat the very purpose of turning the lamp on,\u00a0to bring light to the\u00a0<\/strong>situation<\/b>.\u00a0 Jesus is the light of the world, a light to be shared.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the Light of Christ is hidden from many.\u00a0 Today there are people who tell us not to share the Light of Christ.<\/p>\n

Part Two
\n“For there is nothing hidden that will not become visible,\u00a0and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light.\u00a0\u00a0Take care, then, how you hear.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

The good news is that the Light of Christ will not remain hidden.\u00a0 God will see to that (thanks be to God).\u00a0 Here I will say that because of what has been in the news recently, I see this line from the gospel in a different way and this is what prompted me to write this blog article this morning.\u00a0 My heart has been hurting over the news in the last two to three months regarding the clergy abuse scandal.\u00a0 The sin of clergy sexual abuse was hidden for a long time until the scandal broke in 2002.\u00a0 The cover-up was also hidden for years.\u00a0 One might try to hide sin but sooner or later it comes to light.<\/p>\n

Things changed a lot (thanks be to God) when the scandal broke in 2002.\u00a0 The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)<\/a> put a new policy into place (often referred to as the “Charter) on how allegations were handled and requirements for training for the protection of children and vulnerable adults.\u00a0 Since then, most cases of clergy abuse that come forward date back to incidents before the Charter.\u00a0 Unfortunately, recent news shows elements of a “cover-up” continue.\u00a0 This hurts me<\/em>.\u00a0 We need to stop the cover-up so that our church can be a credible witness of caring for children and to the Light of Christ.<\/p>\n

Part Three
\n“To anyone who has, more will be given,\u00a0and from the one who has not,\u00a0even what he seems to have will be taken away.”<\/p>\n

This verse might seem backwards to what we normally hear Jesus say.\u00a0 Elsewhere we hear Jesus speak of how it is difficult for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.\u00a0 We cannot love God and mammon.\u00a0 One of the prevailing themes in Luke’s Gospel is the “reversal of fortune” where God lifts up the lowly and sends the rich away empty.\u00a0 How does this verse today correspond to that?<\/p>\n

When Jesus speaks of more being given, he is not speaking about material wealth.\u00a0 He is speaking about faith.\u00a0 God plants a seed of faith in each one of us.\u00a0 When we open ourselves to that faith, God will help it grow within us.\u00a0 In today’s world, the numbers who actively live out our Christian faith are dwindling.\u00a0 For people whose faith is weak, the scandal and the cover-up are leading some to question their faith more.\u00a0 It grieves me that people are leaving the church because of the scandal.<\/p>\n

There is hope.\u00a0 There are those in the church who have fallen short of fulfilling their role as shepherds.\u00a0 As one can read in the Bible (see chapter 34 of the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel<\/a> for an example.) this, unfortunately, is not the first time this has happened.\u00a0 Is there hope?\u00a0 Of course!\u00a0 We can count of God for the Lord is our shepherd (Psalm 23<\/a>) and Jesus is the Good Shepherd (John 10<\/a>).\u00a0 God will get through this.\u00a0 We just need to listen and follow his will.\u00a0 Embrace the faith you have been given and more will be given.<\/p>\n

Peace,<\/p>\n

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

The gospel for today’s (9-24-18, Monday of 25th Week in Ordinary Time) is a fairly short gospel but I would like to break it into three parts. Part One “Jesus said to the crowd:\u00a0\u00a0“No one who lights a lamp conceals it with a vessel\u00a0or sets it under a bed;\u00a0rather, he places it on a lampstand\u00a0so …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘To One Who Has’ »<\/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":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-GC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2642"}],"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=2642"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2643,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2642\/revisions\/2643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}