Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

     Today we hear St. Luke’s version of the Beatitudes.  We are more familiar with the Eight Beatitudes from St Matthew, which clearly lay out for us the moral code of Christian living.  St. Luke’s are a bit more circumspect.  Nonetheless both versions provide us with the compass we need to navigate the turbulent waters of life and keep us focused on where we are headed, namely the kingdom of God.

     It is necessary of course to keep in mind that the ascent to and the entrance into the Kingdom of God is not far off and unattainable until our departure from this earth.  As Our Lord reminds us as He had begun His ministry, “the Kingdom of God is at hand.”   So how do we affect the Kingdom here and now?  Live the Commandments and the Beatitudes! Easy to say, but a challenge to do.

That, of course, is where grace comes in and that grace is always and readily available to us through the Sacraments of the Church.  Our Savior never expects us to accomplish the moral life and the building up of His Kingdom on our own.  It is the grace of the Sacraments that strengthens us to do the work at hand.  The Sacraments are always augmented by prayer, meditation and catechesis.  The catechesis or instructional component is also readily available to us as we read the Sacred Scriptures and the Catechism of the Church, which bears the Sacred Tradition as passed down to us from the Apostles and affirmed and explained through the Magisterium of the Church.

      In order to expand our Faith and intellect an excellent resource is FORMED.  We have for the past several years carried an annual subscription for our parishioners in order to grow more deeply connected to the Faith. Regularly in our bulletin we inform you how to access and hopefully utilize this important source for formation.  In recent years we see that it does not receive the attention that it deserves.  Please consider making FORMED a par of your spiritual growth especially as we begin preparing for the Holy Season of Lent

With Blessings,

Father Langan