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Sunday, March 15, 2020 * Third Sunday of Lent * www.stjosephparish.org When I prove my holiness among you, I will gather you from all the foreign lands; and I will pour clean water upon you and cleanse you from all your impurities, and I will give you a new spirit, says the Lord. “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” Wonders THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT MARCH 15, 2020 At sea level, at a temperature of 32 degrees Fahrenheit, one cubic centimeter of air (that is, a space about the size of a sugar cube) Reflection This Week: would contain 45 billion billion molecules. And they are in every Theresa Shepherd-Lukasik single cubic centimeter you see around you. Think how many cu- Homily Next Week: John D. Whitney, S.J. bic centimeters there are in the world outside your window—how many sugar cubes it would take to fill that view. Then think how Weekend Mass Schedule many it would take to build a universe. Atoms, in short, are very Saturday - 5 pm abundant. Sunday - 9 & 11 am & 5:30 pm -Bill Bryson- Readings for March 22, 2020 FIRST READING: 1 SAMUEL 16:1B, 6-7, 10-13A Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration SECOND READING: EPHESIANS 5:8-14 and awe, the more often we reflect upon them: the starry heavens GOSPEL: JOHN 9:1-41 above me and the moral law within me. -Immanuel Kant- Weekday Mass Schedule Monday - Friday, 7 am, Parish Center The story is told that St. Ignatius, during the years he spent in Rome, Reconciliation working as Superior General and writing the Constitutions of the Saturday - 3:30-4:15 pm in the Church Society of Jesus, would often go to the roof of the Jesuit residence or by appointment in the evening and look up at the heavens, weeping at the grandeur Parish Center of creation and at his own small place in it. There, in a time before 732 18th Ave E, Seattle, WA 98112 light pollution, he would be able to see the vast sweep of the milky Monday- Friday - 8 am - 4:30 pm way, its billions of stars blurring like a delicate white-wash across Saturday - 9 am - 1 pm the black canvas of the sky. He would watch Venus and Mars— www.stjosephparish.org morning star and evening—as they rose and set across the seasons, Parish Receptionist (206) 324-2522 while Jupiter and Saturn, the great wanderers, twinkled brightly in their vast orbits. And dominating the sky whenever she was full, he Pastor would see the moon as she made her monthly trek from darkness Rev. John D. Whitney, S.J. x107 to light, and then back again—her phases hiding and revealing the [email protected] face of shadows on her surface. It is not hard to imagine Ignatius— Parochial Vicar worn out from a day of correspondence and meetings, of huddling Rev. Glen Butterworth, S.J. x103 [email protected] with men on their way to the missions or soothing Cardinals who Deacon sought Jesuits for their own diocese—standing on that roof and lis- Steve Wodzanowski x106 tening to the silent music by which the unending skies danced in [email protected] their great circle around him. It did not matter that, at the time of Pastoral Staff: Ignatius, so little was known about this universe—about the billions Marti McGaughey, Business Mgr x108 [email protected] of galaxies beyond his sight, about the thousands of years it took for Renée Leet, Admin Assistant x100 the light he saw to reach his rooftop, even about the many planets [email protected] and moons that roamed his own solar system—still in gazing up Theresa Lukasik, Adult Faith Formation x111 at the sky, Ignatius stood awed by the wonder of the Creator, who [email protected] loved him, even in his smallness. And so he wept. Claire Hansen, Youth Faith Formation x112 [email protected] I have always loved this image of Ignatius, weeping on that rooftop Mary Wiseman, Stewardship x114 [email protected] in the middle of Rome, overflowing with awe and with that profound Bob McCaffery-Lent, Liturgy & Music x109 sense of incomprehension that comes whenever we recognize the [email protected] wonder of this universe. For, indeed, the universe is wonderful, in Caprice Sauter, Comm. & Scheduling x102 the truest sense of that term: i.e. filled with wonders. And were I [email protected] not so often distracted by things of my own making or by the tech- Lianne Nelson, Bookkeeper x113 [email protected] nological gizmos of my privileged life, then perhaps, I, too, could Yuri Kondratyuk, Facilities x110 find a place for awe and wonder, for humility and tears. But as it is, though I know so much more than Ignatius about the universe, I St. Joseph School - Main Office x210 rarely experience it as he did, rarely move beyond mere knowledge Patrick Fennessy, Head of School x218 to the deeper understanding which is the birthplace of awe, and the Mary Helen Bever, Primary School Dir x215 beginning of wisdom. Vince McGovern, Middle School Dir x219 To approach the natural world not as something to be desert with Jesus to encounter the Spirit of God, which used or something to be controlled, not even as some- is Scriptures’ way of speaking of the profound reality at thing apart from ourselves, but as something of which the heart of all things. We are invited to encounter the we are a part, begins, I think, to move us towards a pro- truth, that in the vastness of all reality God loves us, each found truth that I, for one, often miss. We stand, in the of us—not to the exclusion of other creatures, but loves midst of creation, not in the old pre-Copernican sense us in the midst of creation. The sources of temptation, that we are the center of all things, but more in the sense which keep us from embracing this truth, though they of the second chapter of the book of Genesis, where may have different forms, are the same today as they God has created us and placed us in the midst of all were for Jesus: the fear of our frail human nature, which that is. Beyond us, in every direction, is a universe of calls us to covet things (as symbolized by Satan’s en- which we are a part, but not of which we are the source. couragement to Jesus to turn the rock into bread); the Rather, this universe dwarfs us in the earth and her sea- fear of a lack of control, which calls us to put God to sons, in the depths of the ocean and the ozone above us. the test (as when Satan wanted Jesus to leap from the It includes gravity and magnetism, quasars and perhaps parapet); and the fear of unimportance, which calls us trillions of galaxies, which are creating space by their to seek power (as when Satan offers Jesus the kingdoms expansion into it—an idea that cannot be imagined, but of the earth). Yet truth rejects these temptations, hold- only posited. And this creation goes inward, as well, ing on to that uncomfortable balance point, in which into cells and microbes, the coronavirus and the DNA we come to know that we are small in the universe, yet of every creature, however small. Then, making up the beloved. That we are not everything nor in command of DNA are smaller and smaller parts, all the way to at- everything, but we are beloved. That we are one humble oms, which somehow—though they themselves are not part in the midst of an awesome creation, but we are alive—create life in their coming together, and create beloved. consciousness in their coming together as us. And with- in the atoms are even deeper worlds, universes unseen, Today, in our world, the temptations to despair and fear where laws we take for granted seem to not quite work. are many. The coronavirus, or even more, our anxiety We have been placed in a creation of dark matter, hold- over the coronavirus, seeks to undermine our sense of ing the vastness of the universe together, and of quanta, ourselves and our place in the universe. In some ways, which seem to go from one place to another without perhaps, this is a gift, since too often our sense of our- ever being in between. And though we seek analogies to selves lacks truth and perspective. Like Lent, this terrible describe or mathematical models to quantify it, this uni- pandemic may strip away our hubris and remind us that verse—which we are within and which extends beyond we are part of a vast universe beyond our control. But in us at countless levels in every direction— ultimately be- a deeper sense, this fear—like all fear—is a lie, arising lies all we would do to reduce it to ourselves. As the from the enemy of our human nature. For the universe, biologist, J.B.S. Haldane once said, “The universe is not from the farthest galaxy to the smallest virus, is won- only queerer than we suppose; it is queerer than we can drous and awesome, but so, too, are we. And we are suppose.” beloved of God, whose Spirit still holds all the universe as one. To be beloved in this way is not to say we may For some people, considering the vastness of creation not be stricken, but to recall that we are never forgot- leads to a denial of God—though, in my experience, ten, never released from a love even greater than the such denials are often only of the anthropomorphic universe in which we live and move and have our being.