{"id":7728,"date":"2021-01-16T09:00:43","date_gmt":"2021-01-16T14:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stgenevieve-stmaurice.org\/parish\/?p=7728"},"modified":"2021-01-14T12:49:25","modified_gmt":"2021-01-14T17:49:25","slug":"from-fr-tom-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stgenevieve-stmaurice.org\/parish\/2021\/01\/16\/from-fr-tom-23\/","title":{"rendered":"From Fr. Tom!"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOPEFULLY THE FIRST WEEK OF ORDINARY TIME WAS EXTRAORDINARY FOR YOU!<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to begin with the story: A stranger once asked a teacher, \u201cWhat\u2019s your profession?\u201d The teacher replied, \u201cChristian,\u201d The stranger continued, \u201cNo, that\u2019s not what I mean. What\u2019s your job?\u201d The teacher asserted, once again, \u201cI\u2019m a Christian!\u201d Puzzled, the stranger clarified, \u201cPerhaps I should ask, what you do for a living?\u201d The teacher replied, \u201cWell, I\u2019ve a full-time job as a Christian. But, to support my sick husband and children, I teach in a school.\u201d<\/p>\n

The main theme of today\u2019s Scripture readings is Divine vocation \u2013 that everyone is called by God to be a witness for Christ by doing something for others with his or her life, using his or her unique gifts and blessings. Hence, today\u2019s readings remind us of our personal and corporate call to become witnesses for Jesus, the Lamb of God, by leading lives of holiness and purity.<\/p>\n

Our Christian vocation is to live and die like the Lamb of God. How do we do that? We live like the Lamb of God:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. by leading pure, innocent, humble, selfless lives, obeying Christ\u2019s commandment of love;<\/li>\n
  2. by appreciating the loving providence and protecting care of the Good Shepherd for his Church;<\/li>\n
  3. by partaking of the Body and Blood of the Good Shepherd in the Holy Eucharist and deriving spiritual strength from the Holy Spirit through prayer and the Sacraments.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    But we are also called to die like the Lamb of God:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. by sharing sacrificially our blessings of health, wealth, and talents with others in the family, parish, and community;<\/li>\n
    2. by bearing witness to Christ in our illness, pain, and suffering through our graceful acceptance of all of it;<\/li>\n
    3. by offering our sufferings for God\u2019s glory, as penance for our sins, and for the conversion of sinners.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Our call is to bear witness to the Lamb of God. We cannot do that without our personal experience of Jesus as our Lord and Savior. How can we get that experience? We get this personal experience of Jesus in our daily lives through the meditative reading and study of the Bible, through personal and family prayers, and through our active participation in the Eucharistic celebration. Once we have experienced the personal presence of Jesus in our daily lives, we will start sharing with others the Good News of love, peace, justice, tolerance, mercy, and forgiveness preached and lived by Jesus. The world needs Jesus today, the world is hungry for Jesus. Do you live and die like the Lamb of God!? Do you imitate Jesus? What\u2019s your profession?<\/p>\n

      Fr. Tom<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      HOPEFULLY THE FIRST WEEK OF ORDINARY TIME WAS EXTRAORDINARY FOR YOU! I\u2019d like to begin with the story: A stranger once asked a teacher, \u201cWhat\u2019s your profession?\u201d The teacher replied, \u201cChristian,\u201d The stranger continued, \u201cNo, that\u2019s not what I mean. What\u2019s your job?\u201d The teacher asserted, once again, \u201cI\u2019m a Christian!\u201d Puzzled, the stranger clarified, \u201cPerhaps I should ask, what you do…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fr-tom","ctfw-no-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stgenevieve-stmaurice.org\/parish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stgenevieve-stmaurice.org\/parish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stgenevieve-stmaurice.org\/parish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stgenevieve-stmaurice.org\/parish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stgenevieve-stmaurice.org\/parish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7728"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stgenevieve-stmaurice.org\/parish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7741,"href":"https:\/\/stgenevieve-stmaurice.org\/parish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7728\/revisions\/7741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stgenevieve-stmaurice.org\/parish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stgenevieve-stmaurice.org\/parish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stgenevieve-stmaurice.org\/parish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}