From the bulletin for The Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (Oct 06, 2024)
27th Sunday
Oh October, month of much, what are you about?
If months could choose their identity like the modern world proposes, this one would have a hard time. If you are a baseball fan, October means playoffs. For the commercial world and its secular decorators, it’s time to push the Halloween kitsch. For those of German heritage and their fair-weather friends, it’s the season for outdoor beer-drinking and activities that facilitate the same. Politically speaking, these weeks are the culmination of months of campaigning and the time to avoid (or create!) sensational scandals and accusations. In Minnesota and other states at our latitude, it’s also a time for fall colors and trips to the apple orchard. And according to NationalDay.com (an authority on the subject) October is also the month for awareness of (drumroll…..!): breast cancer, chili, women in A.I., menopause, Filipino American heritage, physical therapy, fire prevention, dwarfism, CBD for pets (!), and workplace politics… among other causes of greater or less merit. So be aware!
Within the Church there is only slightly less wrangling over the meaning of this moon (did you know that’s where the word mo[o]nth comes from?). In the first place, it is the Month of the Rosary, in virtue of the feast commemorating the miraculous victory obtained through prayer of the Rosary over the Turkish hordes at the Battle of Lepanto on October 7, 1571. Now the entire month has become an opportunity to preach and practice this powerful spiritual weapon, and to recommit to making our Mother smile by prayerfully remembering the mysteries of her life with Jesus.
October has also been World Mission Month since 1926. That’s when Pope Pius XI instituted World Mission Sunday on the last Lord’s Day of the antepenultimate page of the calendar. Ever since, Catholics have been encouraged to give attention to the work of those laboring in the harvest of the Church’s mission fields during the weeks preceding the annual collection in their favor.
In the U.S.A., October is also Respect Life Month (noticeably lacking mention on NationalDay.com!). The USCCB has designated the first Sunday as “Respect Life Sunday” and “calls on Catholics to renew their commitment to the legal protection of human life, to support policies and service ministries that assist mothers, and to extend compassion to those suffering from participation in abortion.” Why October? This is when the Supreme Court comes back in session after its summer recess.
Finally, here at St. Mark’s October is traditionally also the Month of Stewardship, as it contains the annual Talent and Treasure pledge opportunities and provides the occasion to reflect both on God’s generous gifts and the response we are called to make with them as disciples.
With so many causes vying for control of the month, the real question is: what’s a pastor’s bulletin article to be about?
None of the above? As I write this, I have just arrived from a house blessing for a woman named Kim. She came to Mass at St. Mark’s often until about April of this year, when she moved to Falcon Heights. Many would recognize her: a short Vietnamese woman, often brought flowers to Our Lady’s statue in the Rectory garden and sometimes tried to communicate through Google translate. She finally saved enough to buy a home, where she sleeps a little easier now that it's been thoroughly blessed.
House blessings are always a delight, but this one especially. Kim doesn’t drive and has been suffering from a leg ailment. As a result she hasn’t made it to Mass since the move. Her twenty one year-old daughter does attend at St. Aadelbert’s, but has yet to receive confirmation and her first communion, and seems to never have imagined she ever could. After the blessing, and another blessing of Rosaries, and after they had showered us with gifts (more than repaying for the generous application of Holy Water!), Brother Jose and I gave some pastoral encouragement and extra prayer to them both in these regards. Hopefully something was understood. In any case, it was a touching reminder of the universality of our Faith, and also of the fact that there are so many who live so close who lack so many blessings in which we abound. Sometimes for causes we can do nothing about, and sometimes for causes that can be remedied quite easily!
Awareness months can be helpful. But there is nothing like human encounters. One October day mission to a short (but not dwarfish), Rosary-praying, perhaps post-menopausal Vietnamese (and not Filipino) woman and candidate for physical therapy who used A.I. to translate a house blessing that will hopefully further the cause of fire prevention (among other things) made me aware of much.
Now I just need to give a bowl of CBD chili to a coworker’s pet for political reasons.
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