This is a homily from our pastor, Fr. Wesley Schawe that I meant to post awhile ago! It is just as relevant now as it was then, so I would like to share it now... Please pray for my family and I as we feel we have been hit with many, many things at once! When it rains it pours! God bless you and thank you for your prayers for our family and ministry! 

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Wednesday, July 15, is quickly approaching. It will be the day after watching the KC Royals play in a bonus game—also known as the All Star Game—and is traditionally known as the slowest sports day of the year: the one day that there are no major sporting events in the United States. So what do you do on a day when there’s nothing to talk about? Apparently, you just talk about nothing—because that’s what they do.

But not the case in the world of faith right now. Instead, we find ourselves this weekend with more to digest than one can take in at a single time. In particular, 2 events that have shifted the ground under our feet have arrived barely one week apart. First, Pope Francis released his 2^nd encyclical—but really the first that is his primary thought—called Laudato Si, on the Care for Our Common Home. Then yesterday, as expected, the United States Supreme Court ruled that there is a constitutional right for someone to marry someone else of the same sex. The impact of both appear to be far-reaching and long-lasting.

Is it possible that God would give us readings this weekend that could help us find our footing on both major events? When you consider that He chose the readings—not me—then it’s very likely that there is something timely that He wants to tell us. Keep in mind that all things will develop over time. Full disclosure: I’ve not ever read the new encyclical. But on a weekend that is anything but the slowest news day of the year: why not let the Lord speak first?

God fashioned all things that they might have being, and the creatures of the world are wholesome. Those simple words from the Book of Wisdom adknowledge that all things come from God, and were created for the good. That means that the earth—our common home—is a gift from God that has been entrusted to us. Yes, human beings are the crown of God’s creation, but that doesn’t mean that we are to use everything below us—animals, plants, water, minerals—like a disposable camera, to use it for my purposes then move on. And that is particularly problematic when it leaves others—especially the poor—without those same resources or, worse yet, to deal with the waste that remains from our own use. 

Some would say that we should leave a conversation about the environment to a scientist—which, ironically Pope Francis is a scientist. But even if He were not, the claim that Scripture and Tradition have nothing to say about the environment is a claim that God has nothing to say about the environment, which I don’t believe. If God fashioned all things that they might have being, then that means that all things—including the environment—have a spiritual dimension. 

And that very same realization: that God fashioned all things that they might have being, and the creatures of the world are wholesome, is the same realization that everything is created for a specific purpose. Even marriage, which existed long before Christianity, has as its natural purpose the one-flesh union of man and woman. That one-flesh union may or may not bear fruit in children, based on age, illness, or infertility. Producing children is not the basis of a valid marriage, the marital union is. Does that exclude certain people from the possibility of marriage? Yes. Does that make them any less wholesome? Absolutely not. But by creating a right to something, we imply that wanting it is the only prerequisite. In doing so, we forget that God fashioned all things. I’m not called to a one-flesh union of marriage either, even though I recognize what a good thing that is.

From this earth, to the people who inhabit it, to the things we do on it, all are ordered to the good. We are all guilty at times of introducing disorder—but in this particular time, the Book of Wisdom is appropriately names—asking God to lead us to the Truth.