Pastor’s Desk ~ Auguat 18, 2024

Dear Fellow Parishioners.

Coming back from vacation means returning to a pile of mail and emails, plus new tasks for the coming educational and liturgical years. Next week, we have a staff meeting to begin planning for Advent which is, after all, not all that far in the future. Tuesday, I celebrated the First Day of School Mass, and welcomed our elementary school students, staff and families – especially those joining us for the first time. For those entering Transitional Kindergarten – some still as young as 4 – it will be the first time they will be away from parents and family for extended periods of time, never to return so completely to family life. (Talk about a transition!) It’s amazing that “transition” from home to school works as well as it so often does.

After yesterday’s school Mass, I went by the market to buy a few things and saw that the sales displays for Halloween candy are already up. Not content to push the future on us as manically as possible, we have little encouragement to enjoy these landmarks as they come, without feeling the urge to press on to the next goal, the next shiny thing. This years TK-ers will graduate from college no sooner than the Class of 2042, and will have their own children alive well into the 2100s. Raising and educating children from early childhood to adulthood is both a long-term project, and (ideally) a profoundly anti-narcissistic project, for both parents and teachers. It is also the time for teaching and learning about the meaning of time and the art of living each day.

While I would not presume to recommend anything, I will say that I’ve really enjoyed, and learned a lot from, a YouTube channel operated by “Sprout,” who interviews people regarding the meaning of their own lives, choices and memories. One interviewee is a 103-year-old physician who still has a limited medical practice. The interviewer asked her, “What was it like living through World War II?” She said, “Every day for years there was a new scary thing.”

Quite apart from partisan politics, there is good reason to be concerned about the peace and stability of the world right now. My good friend, and former parish youth minister, is now at the front lines in Ukraine rescuing civilians – mostly women, children and the elderly. He sends me pictures, most recently of unexploded Russian rockets sticking out of heretofore peaceful farm fields. And the horrors of the Middle East are known the world over.

This is the world in which our children, grandchildren and students are being raised and must now live. In addition to a solid education, the best gift we can give our children is a supernatural outlook on life, and complete trust in God’s saving will, complete trust that God’s promises to each of us will be kept. There is no firmer foundation on which to base our lives, at whatever age. And if I were to give friendly advice (which nobody asked me for), I would encourage parents, within the limits of practical living and prudent discipline, simply to enjoy your children. Every day, every hour, is unrepeatable, no matter how many photos or videos are taken.

“It would be a crime against nature for any generation to take the world crisis so solemnly that it put off enjoying those things for which we were designed in the first place: the opportunity to do good work, to enjoy friends, to fall in love, to hit a ball, and to bounce a baby.” (Alastair Cooke)

Welcome back to school!

Fr. Bill Donahue