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Weekly Bulletin

Pastor's Blog,

Pastor’s Blog,

O God, who founded all the commands of your

sacred Law upon the love of you and of our neighbor, grant that, by keeping your precepts,

we may merit to attain eternal life.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

This week’s Gospel is the parable of the vineyard in which Jesus proclaims the last shall be first. We often personally react to what appears to be injustice: everyone who was chosen throughout the day receives the same pay at the end of it. Rather than reprint any of the readings, I was struck by the Opening Prayer, now known as The Collect. Since the New Missal translated many of our prayers to conform to the literal Latin, we also renewed our focus on what distinguishes “Collect” from any other Opening Prayer.

The General Roman Missal explains, “By an ancient tradition of the Church (spanning over 1500 years ago), the Collect prayer is usually addressed to God the Father, through Christ, in the Holy Spirit and is concluded with a Trinitarian ending, or longer ending in (specific ways). While we have begun our liturgy with music, the sign of the Cross, the Penitential Rite, and various announcements and welcomes, the Collect focuses not as much on ourselves but toward God. As Jeremy Driscoll wrote in “What Happens at Mass”, “Of course, we have been praying from the start, so this invitation means to signal a shift of levels, prayer with a different kind of attention, (that) effectively places us all together in one succinctly expressed address to God…” (p. 27)

In the world of political unrest, societal tension, wildfires, hurricanes, and the pandemic, we find ourselves yearning for beyond what we once considered normal and into a new understanding of who we are as Children of God. The ‘Collect’ struck me this week because we pray that by keeping the precepts, following the rules, we are capable of meriting eternal life. Our motivation is the sacred Law: the commandment to love God and our neighbor.

Our world and our perception of it, is signaling its own shift which requires a different kind of attention. Let us root our response in Good so that we can branch forth into the Lord’s vineyard. Let our love of neighbor keep us from resenting each other, especially those who may enter in at different times. May all our actions glorify God by what we say and do.

“Through Him, with Him and in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, almighty Father, forever and ever.”

Fr. George

Below are PDF versions of each week's bulletin. If you cannot open it, you can download a free version of Adobe Acrobat Reader off the web.