St. Joseph Church

Published in the Devils Lake Journal, Friday, July 3rd, 2020

     Dear friends of the Lake Region, HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!  This day in our country demands that we have celebration with family and fireworks.  “Happy Birthday” to our beloved Country the good ol’ USA!  Nevertheless, with pandemic and civil unrest, it seems to me our celebration will not be as festive as in years past!
     We have all been sickened by the brutal death of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.  For anyone watching the news channels it seemed that the footage was being shown every two minutes.   However, the response that followed a meeting of the Minneapolis City Council to disband the Police department was equally disconcerting!
     This sparked public demonstrations reaching every city, even in our own City of Devils Lake!  It was not large….but it was a worry throughout the Lake Region.
     It would be an oversimplification to assume that all police are racist….they ARE NOT! (I serve as a chaplain to our police.)  We should also not ignore the strides that have been made to overcome racism and the real progress in overcoming prejudice and bias by every human person.  However, the sin of racism has plagued all peoples in one way or another throughout time.  Nevertheless, we need to keep striving with all our souls, to curve this part of fallen nature, and bring the healing of God’s grace to every person.  Dear friends, we need to recognize the inherent dignity of every human person from the “womb to natural death!”  
     As I like to say, recognizing and greeting people does not spread the Coroniavirus….as Kindness never leaves a wound in the heart!  Here we stand at the cusps of Independence Day to celebrate our freedom from a tyrannical English King.  Moreover, we need to recognize that “EVERY LIFE MATTERS:” that the child in the womb has a right to live; to every Native American, African American, or European settlers and people of every race to be respected and honored. 
     I love the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, when he gave us his peace prayer, and it bears repeating with our lips in prayer:   

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

     So, great people of our Lake Region, endowed with great dignity of reason, let us utilize the fruits of the Holy Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self –control.  Against such there is no law!” Galatians 5:22-23 Have a blessed Fourth of July….and know “YOUR LIFE MATTERS!”