Pastor's Column 1-21-2024
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January 21, 2024Dear Parishioners,
It’s a new year and already a lot has been happening throughout the parish. The past few storms with heavy winds and rain have taken their toll on the roof of the garage. You may have stepped over a few of the tiles that flew off on your way to church! That roof was already old and showing signs of needing replacement. So, in the next few weeks the roof will be replaced.
The decorations for Christmas have been put away and we have returned to Ordinary Time in the Church’s liturgical calendar. For the next few weeks, we will hear about our Lord’s first acts. As I mentioned in my homily last weekend, we call this time “ordinary” because our Lord’s acts, teachings, miracles and parables characterize the ordinary life of the Christian. We might take those things for granted, but what we consider ordinary is truly remarkable in comparison to the ordinary lives of everyone around us. For example, our ordinary lives as Christians includes: hearing life saving truths every week in the scriptures, the ability to pray to God who will hear and answer those prayers, the reception of supernatural grace that raises our natural abilities, (at least) once a week we can receive Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, and finally the prospect of life after death. Because of our faith we do not live boring lives.
The philosopher Charles Taylor coined a phrase: “buffered self.” The buffered self is a way of life in which there is nothing supernatural, transcendent, or mystical that can be experienced or thought. For a person who is buffered, the world around them consists merely in material realities. Atheists and agnostics would fall into this category, but also some versions of “spiritual but not religious” people. The growing category of “nones,” that is, people who have no religious belief could fall under Taylor’s category as well. For such people, ideas such as God becoming one of us, experiencing a miracle, life after death, or God exists would not be entertained. They cut themselves off (or buffer themselves) from supernatural realities. Likewise the search for happiness is limited to the goods of this life and comes to an end at death.
As Catholics we do not live as buffered selves. The world around us consists of so much more than mere limited material appearances. Our ordinary, everyday existence is quite remarkable.
God bless,
Fr. Barrow
