Simon’s Says
As if the weather can read the calendar, the page turns from August to September and the morning temperature dips into the mid-50s. The fair is over, the kids are back in school and a new church year is about to commence. In next week’s Uniter you’ll read about our Rally Day on September 10 to be followed by a community pot-luck picnic (outdoors, we hope). Please feel welcome to invite a friend to join you that morning.
Pope Francis was in the news this week. He voiced his concern about parts of American Catholicism that focus on narrow issues like abortion and sexuality to the neglect of Jesus’ broader mandate to minister to the poor, the immigrant, and to care for creation. Such fixation, he maintains, is an exercise in looking backwards, a longing for the past instead of focusing on the totality of the church’s mission with all its present and future complexities. “I would like to remind these people that backwardness is useless,” Francis said. “Doing this, you lose the true tradition and you turn to ideologies to have support. In other words, ideologies replace faith.” What he left unsaid, of course, is that it is not just American Catholics who do this; broad swaths of the church stand fairly accused of the same narrow perspectives. We’re going to turn to the apostle Paul’s words to the Galatians this week to see if we can find a way through this conundrum: “[Practice] love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” It’s a good place to begin, anyway!
Here are the links to Sunday’s bulletin and service, and remember, worship is back to 10:00 this week.
