RBWords - Volume 30 - Number 2: February 2017
Something to Think About
RBWORDS - VOL. 3O - NO. 2 - FEBRUARY 2018
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT -
As I write this I am in the Miami, FL, area to preach the second of three straight parish missions in South Florida. The first and third take place north of Palm Beach. The second is here in Kendall, FL, a suburb of Miami. As may be imagined, the news is dominated by the terrible school shooting in Parkland, FL, just north of here. The issues of gun control and mental illness are being joined together along with lofty statements about 2nd amendment rights to create a bewildering response to an awful tragedy. Teachers are reacting to proposals to arm them, and worried that schools may become fortresses. The National Rifle Association is beginning to feel the pinch of a loss of sponsors for various programs because of their resistance to reform in this matter. Yet, a big gun show near here is attracting a huge crowd. Is gun control helped by buying more guns?
Our nation is noted on the planet for its lack of gun control. Our international reputation is not helped by the continual gun-related violence reported daily in the media. Until we have a cultural shift, legislation will have an uphill battle. However, I recall that legislation was able to help that shift in the Civil Rights movement with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. One can only hope that common sense will prevail in Congress and in our culture. In the meantime, Jesus' teachings about violence should be remembered by every baptized person who contemplates the use of a gun to harm anything except an inert target in a range. IT'S SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
SCHEDULES AND EVENTS.
February began with me on the road to a retreat house called ROSARYVILLE, east of Baton Rouge, LA, to preach a retreat for Permanent Deacons of the Baton Rouge diocese along with their spouses. The retreat went well. After Ash Wednesday I flew to South Florida, where I have three parish missions to preach. I am currently at the beginning of the second one in a suburb of Miami. I will return to Lubbock on March 8th. On February 25, I celebrated my 75th birthday.
I'll be in Lubbock from March 8 to 23 and then travel to Leavenworth, KS, to preach a Holy Week retreat from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, after which I will go south to Carencro, LA, to baptize Jacob Francis Baker, born by emergency C-section on Dec. 22.
IT HAS BEEN SAID: "The Word in the sacrament is an embodied Word. It is not a representation of the Word. Only something which is not present can be represented. But the Word is present. The elements of water, bread and wine, named by God by name, become sacraments. Through the address of the Word of God they become the corporeal form of the sacrament just as the creature only becomes creature when God addresses it by name. The word of preaching is the form in which the Logos reaches the human Logos."
From CHRIST THE CENTER by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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