6th Sunday of Easter

05-26-2019Weekly ReflectionFr. James Aboyi

Dear Parishioners,

I sincerely apologize to everyone for postponing our scheduled Parish Listening/Discussion Session last week. The meeting was intended to give me a chance to hear how we are doing as a community. However, we realized at the last minute that this was not the best me to hold the event. You may recall that we had two similar sessions recently; one in the Fall last year to discuss the scandals in the Church, and the other one in February of this year when we discussed our Parish Building Campaign. In the mean time, feel free to contact me personally with your questions and comments. We look forward to having the next session some time in the Fall.

Reflections on the Scripture Readings

What we heard in today's First Reading from the Acts of the Apostles is simply a report of the first General Council in the history of the Church, the Council of Jerusalem. The main reason for this Council was to discern what the non-Jew converts had to do in order to belong to the Church community. Are cultural laws, such as circumcision for men, the purification rules for women and eating laws, binding on the converts? As we heard, at the end of the Council, the Apostles for the first time, declared in writing a kind of formal separation of Judaism from Christianity, which in our own time is equivalent to the separation of Church and State. The General Councils of the Church are typically called only when there are serious doctrinal and pastoral issues to be addressed in the Church. Several other General Councils of the Church have been held at different mes through the history of the Church. The last one, as we all know, was the Second Vatican Council (1959-1962).

We see how disagreements among early Christians were resolved through dialogue, community discernment and prayers. After many discussions and prayers, they came out with a resolution which begins "It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us" (Acts 15: 28). The Church still follows this model of the decision-making process today, especially when the Church leaders gather to make major decisions that bind all Catholics. We learned from the Apostles in the First Reading today that, in our lives, it is always good to consult the Holy Spirit through prayer before we make major decisions and during major events. What are some major moments in our families when we need to pray together? It could be to pray together before deciding the names for our children, before bringing them up for Baptism, before our children go to school and college for the first time, pray before an interview, pray together before a family member goes to the hospital, before family members get married, pray together before retirement, etc. Let us remember to pray for these moments and many more.

Thank you and Remain Blessed.
Fr. James

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