Dear Sacred Heart and St. Mary on the Lake,
Thank for your generosity in supporting our annual mission appeal. These annual appeals help remind us that we are truly part of a Universal Church. The Body of Christ is made up of Christians that cover the globe. Helen Alvaré wrote the following meditation titled “Put your Money where your Love is” that gives us the proper perspective on our call to Christian
Charity.
“Everybody who has children tells you that no experience—not marriage, not owning a puppy, not the toughest paid employment imaginable—transforms your heart and your mind quite as much as parenting. After twenty-nine years of mothering, I haven’t found a reason to disagree with ‘everybody.’
One of the unexpected effects of giving your heart away to children is how it transforms your relationship with ‘things,’ by which I mean the stuff in your house, your closet, and your
driveway. Sometimes I look back at my acquisitive ways particularly in the earliest years of marriage and I am—to put it mildly—not proud of myself. My husband used to joke that we
were nearing a time when we would have to emulate the Shaker custom of hanging our chairs on a wall to clear space for people on the ground.
I don’t know when it happened—perhaps when the children started leaving for college—but my trips to the mall and consignment stores dwindled. In part, it was because colleges cost almost everything you earn and we didn’t want to have too much debt. But more importantly, I genuinely stopped thinking of my earnings as ‘mine,’ or even ‘ours.’ They became instead instruments of love and care for the kids and sometimes for other people in much greater need than we were. I still get a thrill seeing a cheap, black, second hand blazer; but if I buy it, I know how small a thrill it is as compared with the big thrill of putting your money where your love is, in the manner of a Christian.”
-Helen Alvaré is a law professor at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University, and writes and assists the Church on matters concerning the family and religious freedom.
Many blessings on our teachers and students as they prepare to return to school this upcoming week. I am very grateful for all the help on summer projects that continue restoring and improving Sacred Heart School. It is going to be an exciting school year—I can’t wait for it to get started! The School Mass is at 9am on Fridays at Sacred Heart. If you are able to come, they are a joy. Come Holy Spirit and fill the hearts of our teachers and students!
This fall I am excited to start a monthly gathering to support our Homeschooling families. We will meet once a month at St. Mary on the Lake following our regular daily Mass. The dates for the fall will be Sept 14th, Oct 12th, Nov 9th, and Dec 7th. On Thursdays we have a morning Eucharistic Adoration from 8:15-9:00am leading up to our Mass at 9:15am. Confessions are heard starting at 8:30am. Following Mass, we will meet in the Church Hall for a presentation with time for Q & A built in. We will end by 11am. Feel free to participate in whatever portion of the morning that your schedule would permit.
God Bless, Fr. Todd
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