Dear Members of our Catholic Communities:

As members of the Church, and as Church leaders we should be open to opposition and criticism. As Benjamin Franklin put it: ‘Love your enemies for they tell you your faults.’ In the history of the church, the times of changing culture and intense opposition produced the greatest of saints. Perhaps 90% of the work of the Church is very admirable in its outreach of caring, educating, healing and uplifting. But it is not bad to hear from the critics that the other 10% is not satisfactory. There are weeds in the wheat-field and it is important to know it. The Church is a mysterious mixture of divine and human, of grace and free will, of divine seed and human soil. Nobody has the right to expect a field of perfect wheat, a church of total perfection. Every member of the Church can harbor some or all of the seven kinds of weed – pride, greed, lust, envy, anger, gluttony and sloth. In the parable of the wheat and the weeds the qualities of God which emerge are patience and tolerance. Today’s First Reading from the Book of Wisdom makes the point that God’s great lenience and mildness of judgment only prove His strength and sovereignty. However, the patience and tolerance must not be taken as a permission to disregard the weeds or turn a blind eye to our faults. One great lover of the Church who always tried to see the wheat rather than the weeds, the potential for growth rather than the possible hazards, was John XXIII. Before his election to the papacy, in his days as of , one of his priests was the subject of rumors and complaints. That priest arrived home one evening to find his (the future pope) in the rectory. But Cardinal Roncalli did not question the man about the rumors, much less did he launch into an attack. He humbly knelt at the feet of the priest saying, ‘Father, would you please hear my confession?’ It was like St. Paul reminding his disciple Timothy: ‘Fan into flame the gift that God gave you when I laid my hands on you.’ The power and love of God are in the Church…even if there are situations where it as tiny as the mustard seed and as hidden as the yeast.

God bless,

Father Dan