From the Pastor's Desk: August 30, 2020

As the last weeks of the Florida hot summer continue, our lives undergo significant change to return to the ordinary demands of time with focus on work, return back to school, and many other responsibilities, including our journey of faith.

Today’s Gospel presents a major turnaround in comparison with last week’s message.  As we remember last week, Jesus called Peter- “the Rock on whom He will build His Church.” Jesus entrusted to him the Keys to the Kingdom and promised that “the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.”  Today, Jesus calls Peter, “Satan,” because Peter was trying to direct Jesus away from doing God’s will. Peter was trying to lead Jesus rather than to follow Him.  “You are thinking not as God’s does, but as human beings do.”
    
God’s plan for “the Son of the living God” was to undergo great suffering and be crucified.  Realities so difficult and almost impossible for humans to comprehend.  And yet, this is the way not only for Jesus, but for everyone who claims to be His disciple.  “If anyone wishes to become my disciple,” Jesus said, “he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.”  In order to be able to do that, we need first to deny ourselves, which means not just making small sacrifices like giving up sugar in coffee or settle for a diet coke, but to deny ourselves just like Peter denied Jesus on Holy Thursday evening: “I do not know the man!”  To deny ourselves means to say that we are not going to make our decisions by what we want, but by what God wants, to decide by His standards, not by ours.  And the good news for us is that we come to church,
we are here because deep within our hearts is the burning desire to be ever better followers of Jesus.  We want our friends and family members to be the best disciples of Jesus as possible.
    
The struggle to embrace the idea of being a disciple of Jesus comes with a profound and extremely challenging question Jesus asked His disciples:
“What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?"  Today, He asks us the very same question and demands some answers.
It is a very relevant question especially in the midst of life in our society that presents an incredible challenge to provide an honest answer.  In the letter to the Romans, our second reading today, St. Paul offers us an incredible solution, “not to conform themselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good, acceptable and perfect.”
    
Our answer will lead us to look at the most significant spiritual issues in our lives. Do we conform ourselves, our thought patterns, and our ways of life to the ways of the world, of our age? Do we think as all other human beings do? Or do we seek to think as God does, to discern what His Will is, and to allow Him to renew our minds with His holy wisdom?
     “The discovery of the living God inspires young people and opens their eyes to the challenges of the world in which they live, with its possibilities and limitations. They see the prevailing superficiality, consumerism and hedonism, the widespread banalization of sexuality, the lack of solidarity, the corruption. They know that, without God, it would be hard to confront these challenges and to be truly happy, and thus pouring out their enthusiasm in the attainment of an authentic life… Life build on solid rock, not only your life will be solid and stable, but it will also help project the light of Christ shining upon those of your own age and upon the whole of humanity, presenting a valid alternative to all those who have fallen short, because the essentials in their lives were inconsistent; to all those who are content to follow fashionable ideas, they take shelter in the here and now, forgetting true justice, or they take refuge in their own opinions instead of seeking the simple truth. Many people of the same age have the same aspirations and, entrusting themselves completely to Christ … who teaches, not something learned from others, but that which he himself is, the only one who truly knows the path of man towards God, because he is the one who opened it up for us, he made it so that we might have authentic lives, lives which are always worth living, in every circumstance, and which not even death can destroy. He is the one friend who does not deceive, the one with whom we wish to share the path of life.”
(Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, WYD, Madrid 2011)
    
I wish you a blessed week! Let us honestly reflect upon our relationship with the Lord this week as His faithful disciples.

With prayers,
Fr. Andy