Our Gospel readings this summer will be from St. Luke now that we are (finally) out of the Easter Season. Luke’s theme repeatedly will be the need to follow Jesus without compromise. The central message of the Gospel is not the teachings of Jesus, but the very person of Jesus.
Everything we do and believe and practice as Christians flows directly from our being invited into relationship with Jesus. If we lose that core, we can so easily fall into kinds of religiosity that are just not true to Him: scrupulosity, divisiveness, intellectualizing everything, and judgmentalness of others who believe differently. This weekend in our Gospel, we have Jesus challenging the excuses that are so readily made — reasons why we just will not embrace fully the life he is offering.
I pray that this summer will help each of us raise the bar on our own response to Jesus’ invitation to know him personally, grow in that relationship, and go forth and live it in every part of our lives. We firmly believe that there is both a horizontal and a vertical dimension of our lives. The horizontal refers to all the normal, daily activities, tasks, “stuff” of our lives; the vertical refers to the spiritual dimension. And, it is so important to know that as people called to follow Jesus, these two dimensions have to merge so that nothing in our lives escapes being surrendered to the Lord and being used by him.
Perhaps that is one reason why the central image of Christianity is the cross — a combination of the horizontal and the vertical. As Mother Teresa said, “the smallest task of our lives, if done with love, has eternal merit”!
A reminder that we have a group that meets here at the parish every other Thursday for survivors of abuse. The group meets from 6:30-7:45pm in the parish office conference room and is led by Lisa Knudsen. She asks that you call her for details and to see if this is an appropriate support group for you. She can be reached at 503.341.2694.
Congratulations to Kristen Malabanan and Joseph Aguilar, who were married here on June 29
th. Blessings to you both, and to all of our married and engaged couples!
A funeral service is scheduled for Perla Ortega on July 6
th at 11:00am in the chapel with a reception. May her soul and all the souls of the faithful departed, rest in peace.