PARISH NEWS

KEEPING THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE

Science reveals the universe to be about 14 billion years old. Which puts into perspective the few million years of life on our little planet and our own lives. Those of us who were there know just how much life has changed since mid-twentieth century when our milk and bread deliveries arrived by horse and cart, there was no TV and telephones were what the wealthy people down the road had in their homes. Nonetheless, whatever our age, this 21^st century of frenetic electronic pace is “our time.” Change is the only constant; once seemingly invariable aspects of our world have disappeared without trace and others at least while the pandemic rages.

What is there to rely on? Well: Jesus! However long the universe lasts; whatever and whoever passes away, his words will not pass away. (Mark 13:28-31). Pope Benedict reminded us that all those tangible circumstances we might think are reality “are only realities of a secondary order. Who builds his life on these realities, on matter, on success, on appearances, builds upon sand. Only the Word of God is the foundation of all reality, it is as stable as the heavens and more than the heavens, it is reality” (Synod on the Word of God, October 2008). “The only thing that will stand is the Word of Jesus, the command of Jesus that we love one another as he has loved us.”(Moloney, F. p201). 

“One of the truths that burns at the heart of evolution is our kinship with Creation, with nature, with stars and with planets, with the almost 14 billion years of our infancy.”(O’Leary, D. p240). How do we fit into this reality? How do we love like Jesus? It always comes back to this question and the answer: In loving all creation as the Creator loves us we best fit the reality of Jesus Word.

Deacon Mark Kelly