FROM FATHER JOHN: “You, O LORD, are good and forgiving, abounding in kindness to all who call upon you. Hearken, O LORD, to my prayer and attend to the sound of my pleading. All the nations you have made shall come and worship you, O LORD, and glorify your name. For you are great, and you do wondrous deeds; you alone are God. You, O LORD, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and fidelity. Turn toward me, and have pity on me; give your strength to your servant.” ~ Psalm 86

I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me!

One of the things that I plan to do here at St. Ann’s is have a memorial mass for Fr. Peter Jarosz in our parish church. I am planning that for some future date when we are back to the normal celebration of the mass without limits on attendance and with the ability to sing during the mass. I know that liturgical music was important to Fr. Peter and I would like the people of this parish to have the chance to say goodbye to him in the way in which he would have liked.

I plan to invite all the priests of the diocese to concelebrate the memorial mass, Fr. Balluff to preach the homily (as he did at Fr. Peter’s funeral mass) and our new Bishop, the Most Reverend Ronald Hicks to be the principal celebrant. Of course, I will also invite Fr. Peter’s family to be involved in any planning of the memorial mass and to attend the memorial mass.

Bishop Pates celebrated a funeral mass for Fr. Peter but it wasn’t the same as what normally happens for a priest of the Diocese of Joliet. Priestly attendance was limited to ten priests and the assembly was limited to family and a few close friends. It pains me deeply that we could not have a public funeral mass for Fr. Peter at St. Ann’s with all of our parishioners in attendance. Nor could we have a public visitation for him in the church as is proper for a priest’s funeral.

I do not have a date or a time to give you for Fr. Peter’s memorial mass because I’m not sure when the limits imposed on us due to the pandemic will be lifted. I think it’s important to wait for those limits to be lifted so that we can all assemble together as the Body of Christ in the world and pray together as a community of faith for the repose of Fr. Peter’s soul. This is what would have happened if the pandemic had never happened.

I will be sending a letter to Bishop Hicks this week inviting him to preside at Fr. Peter’s memorial mass and I will also be sending a letter to Fr. Balluff asking him to preach the homily at the memorial mass as well.

Fr. Peter passed away on April 26th. I would like to have his memorial mass sooner rather than later. But if that is not possible, I think it would be appropriate and fitting to celebrate his memorial mass on April 26th of next year; the one-year anniversary of his re-birth into the heavenly kingdom.

Here is a link for the readings for the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071920.cfm

My Homily: (Please note, that if you were able to attend mass today, my spoken homily may not be exactly the same as my written homily below. It seems that the homily never comes out of my mouth exactly as I wrote it earlier.)

Things aren't always what they seem. This is one of the great spiritual rules of life. Things aren't always what they seem.

Our Lord Jesus speaks to us in parables in today’s gospel. He often taught his disciples through the use of parables. In fact, when we read the bible we will find that the language of the sacred scriptures is paradox, mystery and symbol. Sometimes it is really difficult to understand exactly what Christ is driving at when he uses a parable.

There were people in Our Lord’s time who wanted Him to separate the bad from the good. Among them were the Pharisees whose name means “the separated ones.” They were the people who claimed the moral high ground but never lived it out. Even John the Baptist expected Jesus to separate the wheat from the chaff. In Matthew Chapter 3, he said that our Lord Jesus “will baptize you with the holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand. He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

That’s precisely what Our Lord didn’t do. He had all sorts of people around him. He had the learned, the ignorant, good holy people, people who had committed great sins, he had tax- collectors, prostitutes, you name it. They all traveled with our Lord Jesus and were counted among his disciples. Why doesn’t our Lord Jesus separate the wheat from the chaff in today’s gospel? Why doesn’t he get down to business and weed them out?

Years ago, a friend sent me a story about two traveling angels who stopped to spend the night in the of a wealthy family. The family was rude and refused to let the angels stay in the mansion's guest room. Instead the angels were given a small space in the cold basement. As they made their bed on the hard floor, the senior saw a hole in the wall and repaired it. When the junior angel asked why, the senior angel replied, “Things aren't always what they seem.”

The next night the two angels came to rest at the house of a very poor, but very hospitable farmer and his wife. After sharing what little food they had the couple let the angels sleep in their bed so they could have a good night's rest. When the sun came up the next morning the angels found the farmer and his wife in tears. Their only cow, whose milk had been their sole income, lay dead in the field.

The junior angel was infuriated and asked the senior angel” how could you have let this happen? The first man had everything, yet you helped him. The second family had little but was willing to share everything, and you let their only cow die.”

“Things aren't always what they seem,” the senior angel replied. “When we stayed in the basement of the mansion, I noticed there was gold stored in the hole in the wall. Since the owner was so obsessed with greed and unwilling to share his good fortune, I sealed the wall so he couldn’t find his gold. Then last night as we slept in the farmer’s bed, the angel of death came for his wife. I gave him the cow instead. Things aren't always what they seem.”

With God, Things aren't always what they seem. We can’t understand what’s in the mind of God. It’s kind of like looking at the Mona Lisa. If we walk up and get real close to the Mona Lisa, if our eyes are one inch from the painting, all we see is a little one inch square of paint. It doesn’t look like anything like the Mona Lisa. All it looks like is a blob of paint. But, if we stand back, six, eight or ten feet from the Mona Lisa, we can see all the beauty of the painting, we can see all its glory and what a true masterpiece it is.

It’s like that with God. Oftentimes, we stand way too close to the world, we stand way too close to the good and evil that is in the world. When we do that, we can’t see the beauty of God’s plan. At times we suffer through life, suffer through pain that seems unbearable, we suffer through challenges that seem to be overwhelming.

But with God, things are not always as they seem. With God there is hope. God does have a plan, a plan for each of us that involves mercy, clemency, leniency, kindness, beauty and love. All we have to do is trust in God, to trust in the plan he has for us. My sisters and brothers, the Spirit of God is with us, our Lord Jesus is with us always, guiding us, protecting us and loving us. It is in our Lord and God that we find our hope and our salvation.

May God Bless you and all those who love the Lord.