A LETTER TO THE FAITHFUL FROM BISHOP ED

In the days ahead, I hope you will take the time to share your heart with your family, friends and those closest to you.

“Persevere in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving; at the same time, pray for us, too, that God may open a door to us for the word, to speak of the mystery of Christ, for which I am in prison, that I may make clear, as I must speak” (Col. 4:2-4).

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

What is St. Paul talking about? What “prison” is he in? He doesn’t say. Maybe it doesn’t matter. All of us right now can empathize with that feeling of being caught in a dismal place. Whether it is the shock and confusion of abandonment, the ache of grief whether discharged in tears or held in to seethe as anger and outrage, the pain may be overwhelming. Two priests have been taken from us, with whom all of us in different ways have shared both joy and sorrow. Their active lives on earth are now but memories, narratives that, for many of us, were far from complete or fully understood. Only God knows why such moments come when they do. We are left now only to turn to the Cross where Jesus himself cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46, Mk 15:34).

We need to take what is in our hearts, both personally and as a family of faith, and cry out to God as Jesus did. Whether steeped in uncertainty (what now?), anger (why now?) or fear (where now?), we must acknowledge the hurt – own it! – and give voice to it. God is listening.

It is a fact of life that at times like these, a very human reaction is to slam the door, find some place just to be alone for a while. All wounds take time to heal. Sometimes only silence seems the best response. That may be the stoic model, but it certainly is not the way the Psalms deal with it. Pick up the Bible and start reading them. They are full of passions. Anger, disappointment, grief, near despair on the one hand, cries for vindication, even vengeance, and not little schadenfreude when claiming victory. It doesn’t matter. Any way we can find a voice to be honest and true to what our hearts are experiencing is a voice that God wants to hear from our lips.

In the days ahead, I hope you will take the time to share your heart with your family, friends and those closest to you. I will be seeking ways – and I need your help – to be present to you and hear what is in your heart. I ask for your prayers as I pray for you. For me, there is nothing that brings me closer to God and you than the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. For the Mass IS Calvary. That awful display of the worst thing that ever happened to a human being – an unjust and untimely death – born by the most innocent and undeserving one who ever lived, and his response in the words, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34)! Yet knowing that it is the Word incarnate, God feeling it all in the human nature of the Son, assures us that there is nothing we are undergoing now that is alien to the loving heart that created us and will free us from all that now enchains us.

Jesus has the key to our hearts. He IS the key that will open the breath of divine life that is in them. Often the spiritual growth promised from acknowledging, offering up and “going with” the stabbing pains of grief. It is a mystery we can only enter into with complete trust in the One who alone can lift us up, as a meditation on the Cross inspires us to embrace. Our deliverer is with us. We are not alone.

“Lord Jesus, I trust in you!” We lift one another up with the power of that Cross given to us and shared in the breaking of the bread, the Body of Christ, the life of God poured out generously through the wounds of the crucified. Hang on to the Cross!

Yours in Christ,

Bishop Ed