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18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Added Aug 07, 2017 •

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Fr. Tom Wilson, Pastor

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years ago when the technology for taking video started to get very very inexpensive and making it very easy play for us rank amateurs to to take video pictures and it seemed like every child every moment and every child's life was getting started a friend of mine pretty wise and in his own right said something that I will never forget he said with all this video technology We are Becoming observers of our own lives We are Becoming observers of our own lies and that little that that little quip was was a man in an observation frankly that sometimes we can take the recording or The Taking of a picture so importantly that we actually miss out on the moment that we are actually living the grace in the moment that God is giving us gets lost in the fact that we want to hold on to it that we want to record it that I want to photograph of it and probably most of us have seen that get together for four events in our families or whatever and there's always the the one person in the crowd that becomes far more worried about getting a Perfect Picture Perfect video than actually the Gathering that's that that's going on play an end the end the truth is we we do this we do this as I think as as human beings we want to we have these good experiences and we want to we want to record the we want to maybe even possess them very recently I also had a man a parishioner here who said one of the very very calm intangible gifts that he experiences coming to mass every Sunday was the ability in good conscience to shut off his phone able to shut off his phone he's very busy guy gets gets peppered on the on on the cell phone all the time and he says you know what up for for one hour a week at least I can shut it off and it have some peace and have an and have some peace and those two things come together today as we celebrate the the Transfiguration is to sayings in in our lives the ability to record things in the in the fact that we we we live in an awful lot of distraction things that can become that are minor annoyances for awhile that have that run the risk of becoming habits in our life at these distractions aren't simply distractions that are in playing us become that they become habitual in in our life as we celebrate the Transfiguration today we get an opportunity to do this on a Sunday about once every six or seven years it's always celebrated on August 6th it is it it it's this opportunity for us to to reflect on Peter James John going up the mountain invited by Jesus to go up the mountain to see him in his glorified State and we get a preview and get a do you have it with Daniel seeing the Heavenly liturgy with the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit and fire the ancient one is the father and the son of man Vision Daniel is getting a getting a precursor of the Heavenly liturgy the trinity in the trinity in heaven which is inviting people into a which is which is perfected in the mass it's perfected in our celebration of the mass the prayer of the father to the the the unto the father and the union of the Father the Son and Holy Spirit that they invite us into and the the apostles Peter James and John their first experience change of that vary directly with seeing Jesus transfigured on the top of that mountain seeing the glory of the Lord seeing everything that he had said about himself and about the father about the truth of of Faith about the truths of the world become true and horrified in front of them they have that gift it is a spiritual high if you will that they are that they are experiencing on the top that mountain unless we think that the tendency to want to record things and and hold on to them with within us is brand new with with the modern technology that that we have it's actually very old it's actually very old cuz Peter if heater it is has that experience and Peter immediate instinct is that he wants to hold on to it he wants to hold on tight and he says if you wish Lord we will build three monuments will three Boos one for you one for Elijah one for Moses so that we can hang onto and memorialize this moment Peter is doing is the same thing that any of us who have had great spiritual moments in our life tend to want to do we stay there we want to stay there we want to memorialize that we want to get it in a picture as if we can continue to to live that and be in that moment rest of our lives but we also know that we can't we simply can't the great and joyful moments the great spiritual experiences that we have we have them they are gifts and then they go away Peter James and John had to go back down the mountain they had to go back down the mountain precisely then so that they can share the person of the Lord Jesus to everyone else and whether it's Peter Jane binge on coming down off the off the mountain at the Transfiguration or if it's us coming off of a wonderful Retreat we had the opportunity a couple of weeks go to have almost 50 of us from the parish go to a Steubenville conference in Missouri have powerful powerful Spirit spiritual experiences are doing wonderful things in the hearts of 4100 people gathered at the at the conference and there is a tendency in the hearts of all of us to want to hey there to want to hold on to it frankly then to ignore all the stuff of the rest of the world to live in that moment in fact the moment that the Jesus gave us at that time the moment that Jesus gives us in our in in in great and deep consolation or when we're on Retreat or or wherever it comes are meant to be great gifts so that we can go back out so that we can go from the mountain that he's in guided us to back down the mountain to share him with other people that is the whole point Peter James and John got beautiful glimpse of Heaven in the glorified Jesus and anybody who gets a glimpse of heaven doesn't want to go it would make absolutely no but Jesus in his command in Jesus in His Grace has no no we get a little piece of it now now go down share it and the truth is that we experience that every time we come into these walls every time we come into these walls Heaven Come you lost and we touch it Jesus comes to us and we touch him the Holy Spirit fills us not so that we can stay turn all week but so that we can go out be nourished and then serve the people around us and make Jesus known and loved that is the that is the mystery that is the mystery of the Sacred and divine action that we do every week we don't come simply to observe but we come to participate we're not observers of the action of God but we are participants in the action of God every time we come here to worship and we we live in culture we live in a world which teaches us to watch and to observe and to record but not to participate God calls something deeper God calls us to something deeper to experience the depth and the richness of the relationship between Father Son and Holy Spirit in his youth is that we celebrate precisely so that we are not just observers but we are participants and then in anticipation in that Divine action of of God where then strengthen to be able to share it with the with the world around us I pray I pray that everybody in this church tonight has had an except our full experience of the Lord that maybe they didn't want to leave I never said it was our moments of great consolation and should be remembered absolutely in a great exercise for this week would be to go back and think about that scary Retreat sometime in her past maybe an experience in in the reception of the sacrament maybe a conference or or or someplace so we just experienced the spot where God Was Made Real the truth and the healing in the mercy of Jesus Christ became absolutely real for us and then think about how we reacted and then ask the Lord how we can share that with other people his Heaven Knows heaven knows there's an awful lot of people in our everyday lives who have no idea what that means they have no idea what it means to be consoled and filled with God and to be able to participate in his life not simply sit back as an observer it is a great gift it is a great gift to see in a participate in the glory of God and we in get that opportunity to do that every single week at mass and then when we do so we come in not to be not to be rivers of the life of God but to be participants in the life of God precisely so that we can share that life of God with the world

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18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

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