This weekend the readings are great news for us! Paul and Barnabas are traveling around the gentile world preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. At the end of the reading, they proclaim “how [God] had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles,” which is good news for the majority of us. We are gentiles, at least most of us. We don’t have Jewish heritage. We gentiles are grafted onto the family tree of Jesus. We too then can follow Christ and rise with Him.
There is an old quip that Judas was the first to leave Mass early, as he left the Last Supper to go and betray Jesus. Maybe not a good idea to follow that lead and stick around a few minutes longer. Today in the scriptures after Judas leaves, Jesus exhorts His apostles about the glory of God. “How the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him,” and how we witness the glory of God in His death and resurrection. This glory is how we are called to love. We are called to serve and follow His example of laying down our lives. He exhorts us, “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” How are we called to love? To serve and lay down our lives for Christ and one another? We will be known as His disciples by our love. May we then love as Jesus loved.
I surely felt that love these last few months from you all. As I said last Sunday, I do not think I would still be here if it wasn’t for the immensity of prayer from so many. Prayer is not always answered in the way we want. Sometimes the answer is no, and we need to learn for that to be ok. Sometimes the answer doesn’t look the way we want, but we need to learn for that to be ok. Surely, I did not want to need open heart surgery and was hoping for a miracle that all these blockages would just go away and be healed, but that wasn’t the answer, which is ok. I received the miracle of open-heart surgery and quadruple bypass. I was able to offer my suffering and pain as prayers for many. I was able to rely on the goodness of so many caring for me both in the medical field, as well as my family and friends, including you, my parishioners. Your cards, letters, gifts, generosity, prayers, and love were all felt. It is what got me through and kept me moving in recovery.
I thank you all. I thank Bishop Paprocki for his immense care and for visiting me so much. I thank my brother priests for caring for me. I thank my family and friends for nurturing me back to health. I thank the medical teams at Blessing and St. John’s for their wonderful healing care. I thank specifically Dr. Stephen Hazelrigg, my cardiothoracic surgeon, Dr. Steven Krause, for doing my heart catheterization, Dr. Mark Baker who was the Blessing Emergency Room physician who diagnosed my heart attacks, and Dr. Isidoros Vardaros the hospitalist who oversaw my care here at Blessing. I also want to thank Fr. Scott, Fr. Ken, Deacon Wayne, and Deacon Dennis for keeping the ship running. Thank you to Fr. Barko and Fr. Zehnle who filled in some while I was gone. Thank you to all the staff and anyone else I am missing. Thank you so much to all of you reading this for your prayers and love!
Fr. Arisman