Dear Parishioners,
Today we celebrate the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Sunday readings this weekend call to mind Pope Francis’s strong advice that priests and leaders of the church must be shepherds who “smell like (their) sheep.” The Scriptures remind us that the shepherd shall bring peace and justice to his people, shall reconcile differences, unite all peoples and teach, minister and serve the God’s people with compassion that mirrors God’s own.
Next week we will celebrate the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. We will begin reading most of Chapter 6 of Saint John’s Gospel next week and for the next few weeks. When we are tempted to think we go it alone, when we doubt that God will hold us up and sustain us, we should take another look at the Scriptures for next Sunday. They are yet one, more clear directive to believ- ers of how to live. Bear with one another, strive for humility and patience, preserve unity among us and trust that the Lord will feed and sustain us. When we feel overwhelmed and the path forward is not clear, we must not forget that our work is really the Lord’s and he will provide what we need
The Annual Catholic Appeal: We are within “striking distance” of the Challenge Goal as requested by the Archdiocese … just around $1500. We could use a few more NEW donors because all gifts, small, medium, or large, will support the Archdiocese and its mission to spread the Good News and assist the people of our 10-county (plus the City of Saint Louis) area. Please contact the Parish Of- fice if you wish to contribute to this important part of our Archdiocesan Life. Thank you. Thanks to Kathy and Troy Steffenson who had been SO instrumental in the success of our parish in the ACA over the past many years. We are so grateful! May God bless you in your “retirement” from chairing this important collection!
Last weekend: Just to keep you posted, I had a great time at the wedding last weekend in Detroit. The Church where the wedding took place is the former Cathedral of the then Diocese of Detroit, Saints Peter and Paul. In 1877 the Bishop turned the church and some property over to the Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus to start a College … now the University of Detroit Mercy. The Church is the “anchor” of the Law School property and a very important “player” in the revitaliza- tion of the “Bricktown” area, around the Renaissance Center, spear headed by GM, but including hotels and many offices. If you ever get to downtown Detroit, you will be amazed (I was!) in the true “urban renewal” taking place. PLUS the Church is a masterpiece not unlike our Church of Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist at Plaza Square. Please pray for the couple whose wedding
I had last week … and please pray for all who are preparing for Christian Marriage.
That is a perfect segue to the topic I want to address today: Blessed (soon to be Saint) Paul VI’s encyclical, Humanae Vitae, which was issued on July 25, 1968, fifty years ago this week.
I hope you read the editorial in last week’s Saint Louis Review. (If you didn’t, it is available “on line.”) It is a masterful retelling of the sum and substance of the encyclical. Pope Paul VI was a prophet. He predicted, in paragraph 17 about many of the “Consequences of Artificial Methods” problems facing modern society (my italics).
17. Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law.Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contra- ceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.
Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a govern- ment which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family diffi- culty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and inti- mate responsibility of husband and wife.
The second paragraph predicts what is currently happening in China! BUT, please note the first paragraph! That is all happening … and then some.
Pope Paul recognized how his teaching might not be accepted, because he also speaks about “responsible parenthood,” in paragraph 10:
- Married love, therefore, requires of husband and wife the full awareness of their obligations in the matter of responsible parenthood, which today, rightly enough, is much insisted upon, but which at the same time should be rightly understood. Thus, we do well to consider responsible parenthood in the light of its varied legitimate and interrelated aspects. With regard to the biological processes, responsible parenthood means an awareness of, and respect for, their proper functions. In the pro- creative faculty the human mind discerns biological laws that apply to the human person. With re- gard to man’s innate drives and emotions, responsible parenthood means that man’s reason and will must exert control over them. With regard to physical, economic, psychological and social condi- tions, responsible parenthood is exercised by those who prudently and generously decide to have more children, and by those who, for serious reasons and with due respect to moral precepts, decide not to have additional children for either a certain or an indefinite period of time. Responsible parenthood, as we use the term here, has one further essential aspect of paramount importance. It concerns the objective moral order which was established by God, and of which a right conscience is the true interpreter. In a word, the exercise of responsible parenthood requires that husband and wife, keeping a right order of priorities, recognize their own duties toward God, themselves, their families and human society.
As the Saint Louis Review editorial points out “A survey by Pew Research Center in 2016 noted that among Catholic who attend Mass weekly, just 13 percent said contraception is morally wrong, while 45 percent said it is morally acceptable, and 42 percent said it isn’t a moral issue.”
I urge you all, young and old, to read the entire encyclical. It is available “free” on line at http:// w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae- vitae.html , or you could just “google” it. Please pray about it. And be open to the message that Blessed Paul VI presents there.
Faithfully yours,
Fr Joe Weber