Pearl of Great Price
What would you pay for this treasure that we call our faith? Jesus teaches us that it is priceless - beyond compare, and worth everything we could possibly give. Not easy? Perhaps not at first, but when we realize what the treasure is in comparison with this world’s passing goods and pleasures, we become willing, even eager. The apostle James, Patron of our Archdiocese, whose Feast is Monday, July 25th, was asked by Jesus if he and his brother John would be willing to “drink the cup that I am going to drink?” James and John did not hesitate; they said “We can.” (Matthew 20:22) James backed up his boldness by becoming the first apostle to be martyred. (Acts 12:1-3a) May we, through the intercession of Saint James, purchase this beautiful pearl for ourselves, by thinking, speaking, and acting in ways that show our love for God and our neighbor.
Bits & Pieces
Gabriel Project: We have been fortunate to have five angels working with five moms already in our Gabriel Project. One of these moms has already given birth! Praise God we were able to be with her and support her together with volunteers from St. John the Baptist in Covington. If you would like to join this priceless ministry, please contact Cecilia Foster at gpststephens@live.com.
Father Brian: As of this writing (7/18/11), Father Brian is doing well and hopefully coming home this week after a successful surgery. Please keep him in your prayers as he recovers.
Priest Time: I am always trying to devise new ways to organize my time and our community so that our time together would be best spent. Sorry for any delay in your getting to see me or speak to me. A few things may help. 1) Pray for vocations! 2) Support our Strength Finders movement so that you can use your gifts to the fullest. The laity can do much of what a priest does if they are using their Baptismal gifts to the fullest. Imagine Brother Andre (St. André Bessette), not a priest, going through the Quebec countryside healing the sick and consoling the sorrowful and instructing souls in the truths of God. He was not a priest. So many of our saints were not priests. 3) I welcome your ideas on how I can effectively use my time to be more present and available to our community.
Commandments for Husbands and Fathers:
1) Get close to Jesus.
2) Prioritize: Jesus, wife, children, work
3) Realize that you are a priest in your home.
4) Protect your children by knowing how their school environment and curriculum affects them in mind, body and spirit.
5) Pray with your wife regularly.
6) Spend quality time with each child. Treat each child in a unique and personal way. The power of a father’s affirming love is tremendously overwhelming and something truly wonderful. Children need it. They require it for their full and proper development. Let each child share his or her ideas, feelings, fears and problems with you. Do everything in your power to ensure that your child can always approach you in any matter. Be sure to share periodically with your wife your insights concerning each child. Discipline with firmness and love (again, your model here is that of the wise and prudent King who rules over the inhabitants of his kingdom with a firm, but great love; and not of the master who rules over his slaves). [from Fr. Wade Menesis] I say that a child looks to their father for strength and guidance. It is a strength ruled by gentleness and compassion however, not a Rambo-kind of machismo. Fathers can give a child a sense that there is structure and order in the universe, and that they are consistently and unconditionally loved and cared for. [EW]
And from John Paul II: Love for his wife as mother of their children, and love for the children themselves, are for the man the natural way of understanding and fulfilling his own fatherhood. Above all, where social and cultural conditions so easily encourage a father to be less concerned with his family or at any rate less involved in the work of education, efforts must be made to restore socially the conviction that the place and task of the father in and for the family is of unique and irreplaceable importance. (72) As experience teaches, the absence of a father causes psychological and moral imbalance and notable difficulties in family relationships, as does, in contrary circumstances, the oppressive presence of a father, especially where there still prevails the phenomenon of "machismo," or a wrong superiority of male prerogatives which humiliates women and inhibits the development of healthy family relationships.
In revealing and in reliving on earth the very fatherhood of God, (73) a man is called upon to ensure the harmonious and united development of all the members of the family: he will perform this task by exercising generous responsibility for the life conceived under the heart of the mother, by a more solicitous commitment to education, a task he shares with his wife, (74) by work which is never a cause of division in the family but promotes its unity and stability, and by means of the witness he gives of an adult Christian life which effectively introduces the children into the living experience of Christ and the Church. Familiaris Consortio 25, Pope John Paul II
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