28th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Dear Parishioners,
On Sunday October 21st at 4:30 p.m. our parish will be having a special prayer service. The service will be for healing in our church. We all struggle with how to respond to the sexual abuse scandal that has traumatized innocent lives. The wounds are many layered. Some of us know children who have been abused by a minister in the church. We also have known priests who have had to leave the ministry. The scandal touches many of us and we do not know how to respond.
We do know one thing, if we stop praying then the evil force that has been unleased will achieve its end purpose which is to drive a wedge between us and God and to divide the Christian community. We can find it hard during this turmoil to love our God and love our neighbor. We become suspicious of both.
Our parish staff decided that we need to come together to pray so we have been preparing this service in recent days. We plan on having scripture and petitions and music. The service will be patterned after a service that was held in Ireland. The Irish church has been gravely wounded by the sexual abuse scandal.
At the time of the service, there will be an opportunity for action. Many church leaders have promised reform. We would like to encourage our Bishops to take steps to make sure that children are safe in church settings. We would like our church leadership to be transparent as they have said they want to be.
We will be providing an example of a short letter to the President of the National Council of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Daniel R. DiNardo. The bishops have said that they will be addressing the abuse crisis extensively at their fall meeting in November. We would ask that they do this in an open manner and that they include lay experts as they seek to mend the wounds of the church. The bishops have said this is what they want to do, and we would expect that they would. We would like to let the bishops know we are praying that they will have wisdom and courage to face hard truths.
I would invite everyone to attend our prayer service who feels the need. I would hope it would be a prayer of lament over what has transpired and a prayer of hope for the future of the Catholic Church. The Holy Spirit is still with us no matter how difficult things seem.
Blessings,
Fr. Mark