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October 6th, 2024 | The 23rd Times

By October 3, 2024No Comments

A Message from Fr. Jay

Dear Friends,

October is a month of many blessings. Autumn begins, the Snowbirds fly to Florida, Fort Myers gets ready for receiving a huge population from the north, the businesses pick up, we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, observe a vibrant 40 days of promoting Life and our parish celebrates the feast of our Patron Saint, John XXIII, who initiated the Vatican Council II on October 11, 1968.

In the beginning of such an important, festive and busy season, all the readings of this weekend portray the importance of the family and its relationships among husband and wife and children.

In the first reading, God created different species, found everything good, and brought them to Adam to give them names and thus Adam got power and authority over them. Then God finds out the first vulnerability of a human saying, “it is not good for the man to be alone”. It is God who wanted to create a partner for him, and He created Eve from Adam’s body and flesh itself, meaning they are equally important and respectful to each other. It was not Adam who created, but it is God who created Eve (God’s Choice). In the Gospel, Jesus reiterates and reminds us that they are equals and deserve dignity and respect equally and therefore discards divorce. He also speaks about the importance of children. How beautiful it is to see Jesus talking about the three together at the same time. God loves relationship. That’s why He reveals himself to us through the Holy Trinity (three persons but one God)

In our society today, we find an increasing agenda-driven phenomenon of breaking up the institution of family by pushing gender ideologies, legalizing evils and evil practices (like drug use and abortions- through Amendment 3 and 4), shun out the values of God by cajoling or pushing individuals to adapt to a pleasure seeking, self-righteous, individualistic and complacent society with the help of media and social media. The science and technology we have already, like computers, internet, social media and lately Artificial Intelligence (AI) shun the people away from each other against God’s word in the first reading, “it is not good for the man to be alone”.

The need of the hour is to build up family based on Jesus’ words. Practically speaking, divorce has been a fact in our society including Catholic families, but it needs a deeper reflection in the background of Jesus words. If we are sincere and serious to buildup family, then we would adapt to Jesus words and gain the strength of fighting all the evils that try to spoil the family at individual levels, as well as at society levels. I am happy to share that our diocese and our parish promote and provide a few platforms like “Together in Holiness” and “Teams of our Lady” to all married couples both younger and older. Please consider them to find how you can make your family strong and joyful. For those who suffer spiritually from divorce, please know that annulment may be a possibility. You are always welcome to seek guidance on this with me or any parish priest.

God bless,
Fr. Jay Raju

I Reading: Genesis 2:18-24
II Reading: Hebrew 2:9-11
Gospel: Mark 10:2-16