Friday, August 15, 2025

Steady

This photo is also from 2006.

This week, a “blast from the past.”  Just for kicks, I went looking in my files for the first bulletin column I had saved there.  I found this from July 2006.  It seems not to have aged too badly, and probably still applies now as much as it did then.  So enjoy it this weekend, and see if you find any anachronisms.   Summer is a time for reflection after all, and what better object of our reflection than to discern what has changed, and what has stayed the same?

What a great neighborhood!  Everybody knows everybody and keeps track of one another’s families.  People leave, but they come back, and bring with them whatever they gained by their adventures.  Families, friends, community; it is a remarkable place to live.

But Jesus was not able to perform any mighty deed there.

What, you thought I was talking about Four Corners?  No, no – Nazareth.  They all knew one another and looked out for one another’s kids.  “Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?”  But somehow, that neighborhood pulled itself together and pushed Jesus away when He came back and started preaching the Kingdom of God.  
And they took offense at him.  Somehow, in their tight-knit little community, there was not room for repentance and the call to conversion.   Maybe they thought they were doing just fine the way they were.

Well, you know, THIS is a great neighborhood, too, and I am glad to be back here.  It is a genuine community in a metropolitan area where so many people are satisfied to live as strangers; trust me, after my eight months at 5th and H NW.  And yes, that does mean that people here are definitely doing something right, and truly have something to be proud of.  

But the challenge for us here at Saint Bernadette, whether we call Indian Spring, Woodmoor, Burnt Mills, or whichever, our neighborhood, is to be the good ground on which the seed of the Word falls, and bears fruit thirty-, sixty-, or a hundredfold.  We need to make sure that the prophet who calls people back to God finds not a rebellious house, but ready hearts.  We cannot let our familiarity with one another – even our familiarity with Jesus – make us so comfortable that we turn away when He calls us to conversion.

My brothers and sister, we do live in a great place, among wonderful people.  I, for one, am grateful to be here.  But we have miles to go to the City of God, so let us always make room for Jesus – and his challenges to us – in our neighborhood.  He will perform many mighty deeds here!

God bless you and Our Lady watch over you,

Monsignor Smith