Brothers and Sisters,

Oh Those Children!

I imagine that most of the readers of this bulletin have children, the obvious  exception being our nuns and priests.  I am not even certain that they read the bulletin, but I will find out after this Sunday.  It is definitely easy to say the words “Amen”, “Let it be done to me according to your word”, “Your will be done”.  But to discover how to put these words into action, we need to understand that there is a third son whose example appears in today’s Gospel scene.  The third son is the one who says “Yes” and then goes and does what he was asked to do.  The third son is the answer to this allegory:  Jesus Himself, Who is with us today.  As we read in the letter to the Hebrews, Jesus, coming into the world, said to His Father, “Here I am Lord.  I come to do Your will.”  (Heb.10:7-9)  Jesus never changed His mind as did the first son in the parable, for in His mind, He always sought whatever the Father wanted.  The more we think like Christ and live in keeping with His mentality while helped by God’s grace, the more pleasing we will be to the Father.  This is exactly where St. Paul leads us in the second reading when he urges: “Have in you the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus.”   Jesus tried so hard to do the will of His Father that “He humbled himself and became obedient to death…even to death on the cross.”  In response to Jesus’ question in the Gospel “Who…did the father’s will?” we are called to answer that Jesus fulfilled the Father’s will.  And today, Jesus calls on us to follow Him in carrying out the will of His Father.  He calls us to say “Yes” to the Father and to proceed in keeping with that “Yes”.  This is not so simple.  After all, each of us was once a child.  So there is a reason why we have our parish community, whose patroness is St. Constance.  Here, we wish to learn very often how to tell our Father “Yes”.

Your Priest,

 Fr. Paul