Month: December 2023

It’s hard to believe that some of the people attending Mass today were not born when the movie “Jerry Maguire” first debuted.  That was 1996 and the movie, a romantic comedy-drama starring Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding Jr., Renée Zellweger, and Regina King. One of the most iconic lines in the move, and one of the biggest lines of garbage in movie history, was when Jerry Maguire turned to Dorothy Boyd and, with tears in his eyes, emotionally, says to her: “you complete me.” The sentiment is not unusual. In fact, this sort of expectation of another in relationships, courtships, and marriages, is very prevalent and, at the same time, very deadly. If you expect anyone else to complete you, in a friendship, a relationship, a marriage, or a family, you are destined for disappointment and failure. 

The Book of Genesis tells us that nothing God had made was suitable as a friend for Adam, so God created Eve. Adam and Eve were made to be companions for each other, so that Adam would not be alone, he would have accompaniment in life. Human beings accompany each other in life, and through life. We are all born into relationships. The first relationship we have is with our parents, our mother, who first, in her own body and then from her own body, feeds us. We are sheltered, made safe, we learn, we grow, through our relationships. We make friends, we marry, we have children of our own, we are community beings, and we help each other, but we don’t complete each other. And, to put those expectations on another, on a friend, a parent, a wife, a husband, a mother, father, son, daughter, brother, or sister, is to put too great a burden on them and to expect too much. The created world, and even the created person, is not enough to fill what only God’s love can fill.

The truth is that the Book of Genesis also teaches us that God created us to be loved by Him and to love Him. We are created to be in relationship, first, with God. Created by God and for God, only God can fulfill us, only God’s life, God’s love, God’s grace, can complete us. From within we search for completeness, every person knows this, or at least feels this instinctively. Even those who have never heard of God seem to know that their soul, heart, being, longs for something more than the world can offer or give, even people, even the people we love most and who love us most, cannot fulfill the longing we hold deep within. Often, as we all know, we search for fulfillment in all sorts of places, people, and things. We discover that created things cannot take the place of the one uncreated thing we long to have and to love. Made for God, we long for God, and only God can fulfill that longing. 

This is not to devalue the other riches in our lives, in fact, these also are gifts from God that are to help, enhance, brighten, give purpose and they are signs of God’s love and care for us. However, only God can fulfill us. As we begin a new year if we want to find completeness, if we want to find our purpose and destiny, if we want to be fulfilled and live as fully as we can, we should let God enter our lives fully so that we might be complete and live life as God intends us to live it, to experience life as God intends us to experience it. Anything else, everything else, is just not enough. Only God!

EFFECTIVE DECEMBER 22nd, 2023 Kathy Wandstrat is retiring from the position of Regional Secretary for St. Simon the Apostle and St. Aloysius on the Ohio.  Please direct any bulletin information to simonalsbulletin@olv.org.

For other needs  please contact Beth Schumacher at 513-941-3656, #3

A few weeks ago, I flew to Ireland and the flight from Newark landed in Dublin at 4.30am. Two of my nieces, Lyn and Emma, were flying back from Britain the same day so I arranged to meet them at Dublin airport. What I didn’t realize when I made this arrangement was that my flight would get in so early and their flight didn’t land until 9am. That’s right, a four and a half hour wait, for the most impatient person on the planet. My nieces were returning from a baby shower for my cousin’s daughter who was expecting her second child. The expectation and then the birth of a child is so important that family from all over help prepare for the new arrival. It is both an expectant celebration and a time for preparation.

I’m sure most of you are familiar with the experience of expecting a newborn. It is not a time of passive waiting but a time that involves a lot of excited preparation and even change. As soon as a child is conceived change begins to happen in the body of the child’s mother. While it seems on the outside that this change is slow and almost, except for a bump, unperceivable, interiorly the whole of the mother’s body changes to receive and help create a new human being. Families also prepare, they buy things they think will be essential like toys, stuffed animals, Reds and Bengals gear, balloons and then stuff that is actually needed like diapers, clothing, formula, a savings account for Catholic education. They paint rooms for the baby, make the house “child-proof,” they sell the Ferrari and buy a van. They actively prepare.

The image of an expectant mother is also an image that is related to the Holy Season of Advent – in three ways. First, the Blessed Virgin Mary is heavy with child – she is carrying God’s own Son, Jesus. This is a historical fact that we celebrate every year. God sent His Son, “born of a woman, born under the law” (Galatians 4:4). Mary and Joseph, and their families, prepared in the same way for the arrival of Jesus as we all do for our children today. Thank God Mary said yes to God or there would be no Jesus. What a difference a child can make. We celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas; the season of Advent is a time of preparation for His arrival.

Second, we prepare each year for a celebration that remembers that Jesus came, and we give thanks to God for the gift He has given us. The gift of salvation, the gift of receiving God’s grace and God’s love. All this is made possible by the birth of God’s Son at Christmas. And so, we celebrate by giving gifts to each other because this reminds us that God has given us a gift. We don’t only give gift to our family and friends at Christmas because Jesus Himself told us that when we celebrate, we should be careful to provide for the poor and the less fortunate. So, we share our joy with others, especially those in need, at Christmas.

Advent also remind us to prepare in a third way, in looking forward to the Second coming of the Lord. Jesus Himself tells us that He will come again. The next time He won’t come as a child but as a judge. Jesus also tells us how to prepare for this Second coming: He will ask us “did you feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, visit the imprisoned, give a drink to the thirsty, care for the widow, the orphaned, search for the lost? And if we did, He will say to us come and stand on my right, you belong to me and with me. Advent reminds us to prepare, not in a passive way but in an active way, for the Second coming of the Lord. Our life is a time of active waiting and preparing.

One of the major images of the Christmas story is the “Star of Bethlehem.” For centuries people navigated by looking at the stars. The intrepid adventurous and the ordinary traveler looked to the sky in order to find their way. At Christmas a star figures prominently in the story of the birth of Jesus. The Maji follow their star and it leads them to the meaning of their journey – not a king, or an emperor, not the powerful or the rich, but a child, a poor child, a humble, little child. Yet, this child was their treasure. Shepherd’s also saw the star and found their way to a stable – and the comfort of knowing God had come to be with them.

I have always been struck by the engagement of families in the life of the schools here at St. Dominic and Victory. When I was a child, we didn’t have that back home in Ireland. Typically, except for infants, children found their way to school and back home in the afternoon. There were no pageants at Christmas and Easter, there were no grandparents’ days, and no open house. School was school and that was all. Today, for my nieces and nephews and grandnieces and grandnephews it is different.

I am privileged to witness something very special here at our schools. It’s amazing to see the joy that parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, families, have in participating in the life and events of their children and grandchildren. And to be honest, as I stand back and observe as a privileged witness, it’s even more wonderful to see the joy on the faces, and in the hearts, of our children when they see their parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, families. You can see the children’s deep sense of gratitude, excitement, joy and love. Your children love you and they love to be with you, and they love when you are here with them. They look at you and you can see their absolute conviction that you are theirs and they are yours. They love to be with you. You are their life, their treasure.

You are their stars and for them you shine out and show them the way. They want to be you, they want to be like you, and they want to follow you. I wonder if you know that, I wonder if they know how important you are to them. Without the star no one would have found their way to Bethlehem. The star pointed the way and guided the kings and shepherds to the Baby Jesus. God has sent you into the world to shine for them. God sent you into the world to show them the way. You are the star that will lead them to Jesus, the child of Bethlehem.

Children need stars to follow, and you are the most important stars in their lives. Children follow where you go, you show the way. You show them how to live, how to love, how to be a good loving husband or wife, a loving mother or father, a loving son or daughter, a good person, a kind person, a courageous and compassionate person. Who you are they will become, where you lead, they will follow, what you do, they will copy? Children need stars to follow, and they need those stars to lead to a life worth living, values worth having, a character well formed in love. Most of all they need to follow you, their star, to the same Child, the same God, that the original star led kings and shepherds to find in Bethlehem. They need you to lead them to God – who is life – the only life worth having and the only life worth living.

God sent you into their lives to be a star. Shine for them!