The Diocesan newspaper is the CATHOLIC SPIRIT. All registered parishioners should be receiving this paper at your
homes in the mail. If for some reason you are not receiving it, please call the
parish business office so we can get the paper delivered to you. After all, we as a parish are paying for it
for all registered parishioners.
If you do receive the paper, then
I hope you take a few minutes to look it through. Watch especially for articles
written by your fellow St. Austin parishioners. Mary Lou Gibson has an interesting column on
“Saints For Our Times.” It is well written and informative. I always learn
something from her column.
Likewise, every issue there is a
wonderful column by parishioner Norman Farmer on Faith Through Art. Dr. Farmer,
an Emeritus Professor English and Humanities at UT, delves into the symbolism
and iconography of a work of Renaissance religious art, making the piece of art
come more fully alive as a statement of faith. It is always interesting. It
will also be interesting to see if he stays with the renaissance period, or
takes works of art from other periods as well.
And there are other interesting
and informative pieces in each issue of the CATHOLIC SPIRIT. This is not
to say that everything in each issue is worthwhile. One thing that catches my
attention each time is a sixth of a page yellow advertisement for Saint Francis
Village. Apparently this is a retirement community. But it also proudly
proclaims that it is a “gated community.” I just have trouble holding the
concept of St. Francis of Assisi and the concept of “gated community” together
in my head at the same time.
Perhaps I tend to view St.
Francis through the lens of Pope Francis, who is always going beyond barriers,
encouraging priests and faithful to go out, to mingle with the sheep, to get
out into world, to be among the people–especially the poor and marginalize –and
to even have the “smell of the sheep.” Pope Francis is not keen on gates. It is
hard for me, therefore, to picture St. Francis of Assisi as residing in a gated
community. It somehow just doesn’t fit.
Gated communities may all be well and good and have a proper place in
the selection of communities, but they just don’t come across as Franciscan. The
Franciscans I know, like those at St. Boniface Church in the Tenderloin section
of San Francisco, welcome the homeless and have dozens of people sleeping on
the pews of the church during non-Mass hours. The Franciscans there are very
open and almost the opposite of a “gated community.” You can read about what the Franciscans do at
St. Boniface Church at http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/SHAME-OF-THE-CITY-SACRED-SLEEP-At-St-3311437.php
and also at http://thegubbioproject.org/.
Given that we have a lot of homeless
in our neighborhood here, who are often sleeping in the alley behind us, under
our gym, in the stairwells of our garage, etc., it probably is a good thing
that our parish is staffed by Paulists and not by Franciscans. Otherwise we may
want to open the church during non-Mass hours for the homeless to come in and
catch some sleep in our pews. Could you imagine that? A bunch of homeless
snoring in our pews! Oh my God!
But as it is, when occasionally
someone does come in and nap in the pews, we usually rouse them awake and
inform them of no sleeping in the church. But if we wanted to be more like Pope
Francis, then obviously we wouldn’t.
So you never know where reading
the CATHOLIC SPIRIT will take you!
God bless,
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