It has been a very good week. The best thing about this week was our being able to celebrate the Holy Mass inside our wonderful and beautiful church building for the first time since January 2nd and the second thing of course is that the universe has assumed its proper order as the Los Angeles Dodgers have once more, after 32 long years, been crowned World Series Champions. (Thank you Giant fans for booing at this proper moment) I talked about the sleepless nights as we prepared to come back into the church and I still wake up at times early in the morning with continued worries…just not as bad. But the Tuesday night tension got so bad that during the second inning I poured myself a beer, sat down and was so nervous I didn’t take a drink until almost the 7th inning. In addition, I think I scared my brother priest with the loud whoooooohooooo that came out of my mouth as the 3rd out was recorded and the celebrations began….I had a nice glass of scotch to commemorate the occasion.

So I will talk about faith, reading the signs of the time and learning to trust. When we talk about faith we look to something greater that we are, something often undefinable and difficult to get are minds around and yet faith is something that brings comfort, peace and joy into our lives. When we are able to give ourselves freely, in faith, then there is a movement of love where we are able to let go of our limitations and see the good and greater in our life and the life that surrounds us. “Living the Christian life provides for a growth of faith. There have been many saints who have gone before to guide us, but I like the ones who are simple, like St. Therese of Lisieux. I have chosen her as my namesake because she did ordinary things with extraordinary love.” (St. Mother Teresa from “Do Something Beautiful” September 29) This weekend especially, as we celebrate, All Saints Day, we remind ourselves that faith is a practice of choosing to look forward into the seemingly darkest hour and see the flicker of love shine out to call us forward.

And not to trivialize faith, but with the Tampa Bay starting pitcher mowing down one Dodger batter after another that flicker of light became the hopefulness of change as the manager rushed to the mound with one out in the sixth inning. Reading the signs of the times is important in faith as it is in baseball. We can often get caught up in what we think should be happening and miss the greater movements around us. Recently (in baseball time) the fad of “sabermetrics” has rushed in as the statistical analysis of each player, at bat and fielding position has been graphed out to where at times it looks like the game has become a paint-by-numbers activity rather than the beautiful work of passion baseball truly should be. I am not denying that some of the sabermetrics can be useful but in the sixth inning of the 2020 World Series not reading the sign of the time, the Tampa Bay pitcher was destroying the Dodger lineup and did not need to be changed was the feeling for the game needed. This is our faith life too. Jesus reminds us, “You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?”(Lk 12:56) When we begin to track our relationship with God by how many times acts, how many prayers, how many…..you name it, we begin to make our faith robotic where we mission the passion, the forces of grace and love that surround us and pull out of the works of mercy and blessing to punch in the next thing we think we should be doing…we miss God’s whisper to focus rather on the noise of sin and destruction.

Learning to trust is learning to know the other: God, neighbor, friend or enemy. Trust is knowing who we are and how we are called to respond in graciousness. Back to baseball managers; a managers job is to know his players, to read them and understand the ups and downs, when they are on a hot-streak or suffering through a slump. God knows us in this way and He wants us to know him and others in the same way…to read the signs of the time, to have faith and to trust in the talents, the goodness and the blessings of others. “Imagine a soul so closely united to God that it has no need of outward acts to remain attentive to the inward prayer.” (Jean-Nicholas Grou) This is our act of trust.
God Bless
Fr. Mark