Dear Parishioners,
A fanatic is a person filled with excessive and single-minded zeal. While it’s ok to be a fanatic about your sports team– the Orioles, the Ravens, the Terps, people are uncomfortable with and look down on religious fanatics. As a result, many people are reluctant or shy about bringing their faith into the conversation. This is especially the case with Catholics. Perhaps some of that has to do with the discrimination so many of our ancestors encountered in America. The noted Harvard historian Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. referred to the prejudice against Catholics as “the deepest bias in the history of the American people.” Or maybe it’s the politically correct thing to keep faith and religion out of the conversation. And so we tend to hide the light of our faith under a bushel basket contrary to the teaching of Jesus. Yet in today’s Gospel, Jesus’ disciples refer to our Lords’ actions as zeal for his Father’s house. Today Jesus invites us to be less politically correct and more zealous and a bit more enthusiastic about our faith. He wants to inflame us with a loving faith that will be like a light on a stand “where it gives light to all in the house…”. (MT 5:15)
Fr. Carl
Rev. Stephen Hook is Pastor of the Pastorate of the Visitation which includes the Catholic Churches of Pasadena, Maryland: St. Jane Frances de Chantal (Riviera Beach) and Our Lady of the Chesapeake (Lakeshore). He is assisted by Associate Pastor Rev. John Belinki, Deacon Howard Klohr, and Deacon Rick Clemens. To learn more about our pastorate, please visit www.catholicpasadena.org.
