Homily given on Sunday, 15.03.2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fr.\nJoseph Bolin<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201ewhoever drinks of the water that I give him,<\/em> In the past few days various measures have been taken that starkly impact daily life. The Church, too, does her part with the decision to celebrate no public liturgies until further notice. For many, these measures are a great sacrifice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1.\nLet us view this\nsacrifice as a mode of christian fasting, a particularly special\nlent. <\/strong>Whether\nwe have to cancel a planned vacation or have to give up physical\nattendance at the Mass, such sacrifice can be a fasting in the\nservice of charity and prayer, in thh service of the mystical and\nspiritual life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2.\nLet us not act from\nfear, but from love. <\/strong>\nIf we go shopping less\nfrequently, as far it is possible work remotely from home, refrain\nfrom shaking hands or hugging on greeting acquiantances or friends,\nor communicate via electronic means rather than in person, let\u2019s do\nit not out of fear of a virus, that might be hiding in someone, but\nout of love for others, whom we might unknowingly infect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\ncan show love of neighbor also in helping others who are unable or\nwho should not go out, by taking care of various errands for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3.\nAbove all, let us turn\nin faith and prayer to Jesus, who is always with us, even in the\nmidst of worries and we sometimes inclined\nto ask, like the\nIsraelites did ,\n\u201cIs the LORD in our midst or not?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes,\nthe LORD is among us, and he longs, in this time, for our faith and\nlove, he longs to be living water for us. His love longs to still the\nthirst of our hearts, to give us inner peace. We are given to grace\nto encounter him, the source of living water, not only in the\nEucharist, in the Holy Mass, but everywhere, where we seek him with a\nsincere heart, \u201cin Spirit and truth.\u201d The church building, the\nphysical presence at the liturgy stands in service of this spiritual\nreality, to be united with Jesus Christ in faith and in love, and\nwith his mystical body, brothers and sisters in Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Certainly\nthe church as a place of a worship can be conducive\nto prayer and remains open for personal prayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In\nplace of the communal celebration of liturgy, not possible at this\ntime, we can use the time for various forms of prayer and meditation,\nor we might unite ourselves in prayer to a Mass being celebrated and\ntransmitted live over radio, television or internet. In this way we\nunite ourselves to God, and also remain in spiritual union with one\nanother, even if we cannot come together physically to celebrate\nliturgy together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Homily given on Sunday, 15.03.2020 Fr. Joseph Bolin \u201ewhoever drinks of the water that I give him, will never thirst again\u201c In the past few days various measures have been taken that starkly impact daily life. The Church, too, does her part with the decision to celebrate no public liturgies until further notice. For many, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homily"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pathsoflove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pathsoflove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pathsoflove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pathsoflove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pathsoflove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pathsoflove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1520,"href":"https:\/\/www.pathsoflove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519\/revisions\/1520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pathsoflove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pathsoflove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pathsoflove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
will never thirst again\u201c<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n