From Our Pastors
This past week a parishioner shared a quote from Oscar Wilde.
“It takes great courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it.”
It seems a timely reminder as we end a year that will live in infamy. The promise in the neatness of the numerals 2020 turned out to be anything but well-ordered. This past year our lives and communities have been turned upside down, and many have found themselves vulnerable, alone, fearful and tired. The impact on the poor and vulnerable has, as always, been hardest, and once again the urgent need for a more just and equitable society cries out for long overdue redress.
This past Wednesday throughout the diocese of Brooklyn the Bishop asked every church that was able to ring their bells at midday, to remember all who had died this past year from COVID.
Typing this on Saturday January 2, 2021, the latest grim death toll is 348,000+.
We all know someone on that list. Each is a person. A child of God. A loss. They deserve our respect.
Traditionally bells are rung not only at funerals but as a call to prayer and as a sign of hope and, indeed, to announce joy.
Please take a moment to pray for the souls of all the departed who have and will die from COVID. Pray for their families and friends and colleagues. Pray for a healing for the losses their absence brings. Pray for all who continue to care for them.
Pray too for hope and resolve to learn the lessons of this past year. Pray for leadership that will forge a better tomorrow for all who call our country home. Pray for a redress to the injustices and inequities that the pandemic has once again exposed.
Wilde’s quote goes on to say: “And (it takes) even more courage to see it (the glory) in the one you love.”
Pray for love. The love to see the world in all its tainted glory. The love to work together for a future for our children and all our sisters and brothers. Pray for our shared planet and its health and vitality.
We can hold both these truths together –a sober and honest recognition of the tainted glory of our society and our world AND still find the courage and hope to love it and each other.
Resolve this New Year to be a force for positive change in our families, our communities, and our world. Resolve to be the love that makes that change both real and just.
Arise! Shine, for your light has come, the glory of the LORD has dawned upon you. Though darkness covers the earth, and thick clouds the peoples, upon you the LORD will dawn, and over you his glory will be seen. Is 60: 1-2
Fr. Mark Lane, c.o. and Fr. Michael Callaghan c.o.
