News - July 2016 RSS Feed

In the gospel, Jesus has been speaking to his disciples about some weighty matters. He has been telling them that they are not to be afraid of those who kill the body, that they are to have courage in times of persecution.

Happy Wednesday! I hope everyone is enjoying this return to beautiful summer weather. This week's blog update is all about planning ahead. As you can well imagine, the outreach committee has spent their summer preparing for the busy-ness of fall.

Greetings! As the traditional work week winds down, it seemed a good time to send out a quick update on some outreach news. 1. First of all, some really happy, celebratory news...Congratulations to Outreach Committee members, Crystal Lin and Obinna Amobi as they celebrate their marriage tomorrow in California.

How easy it is for us to get it all wrong. And how hard it is to get it right. There is a continuum in human experience, a long, intricate and often tangled chain that unites two poles that seem infinitely far away from each other. The poles are contemplation and action.

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why you come to Mass on Sunday? Why do we leave our mundane world and come into a heavenly world each week? I’ve been reviewing the results of the Disciples Maker Index which 4,542 parishioners from the 18 parishes in the South Seattle Deanery took last spring.

I hope everyone had a safe, fun-filled and restful holiday.  I had the opportunity to spend a couple of hours volunteering on the Fourth of July at one of our wonderful partner agencies, Operation Nightwatch. 

Many of us will celebrate Independence Day with barbecues this afternoon and fireworks tonight. But there’s another side of the holiday John F. Kennedy would have wanted us to honor, too.

What is unique about today’s gospel from Luke is the number seventy-two. The other evangelists speak of Jesus sending out his twelve apostles to preach. It’s only Luke who has this story of Jesus sending out seventy-two disciples. The number is significant.