Green Mass (Care for Creation) Wis 13:1-9 ; Psalm 104; Matthew 6:24-34 Seeing Christ in Creation Nine years ago, I led a group of Bellarmine University students on a study abroad trip to Peru. One night, we took a bus ride that wound through the Andes Mountains. The driver made an unscheduled stop in the middle of nowhere and let us all off to into a field. There was no moon that night. The inky darkness was broken only by the light of the stars. We gazed upon them and were unexpectedly disoriented. Instead of the familiar constellations that had accompanied us our whole lives in the northern hemisphere, there was an alien, antipodal sky with a strange configuration of unknown stars. Floating on the horizon just above the mountain peaks appeared the constellation known as the Crux, or the Southern Cross, composed of four of the brightest stars in the sky that form a distinct cross-shape. Long before being introduced to Christianity, Peruvians held the cross as sacred...
St. Agnes Catholic Church September 21, 2025 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Short form of the Gospel) In the classic musical Fiddler on the Roof, the main character, a poor milkman named Tevye has a disagreement with his future son-in-law, Perchik. Perchik, who is a Marxist, exclaims, “Money is the world’s curse!” To which Tevye replies, “Money a curse? Might I be afflicted and never recover." Later in the musical, Tevye sings the song, “If I Were a Rich Man” in which he fantasizes about how different his life would be if he were wealthy. Most of us have indulged in this same fantasy, playing the parlor game of “what would I do if won the lottery?” Whether rich or poor, most people think their lives would be better with more money. We do not live in a poor Ukrainian village of Jews in 1905, in constant danger of a pogrom, like the characters of Fiddler. No, we live in the richest country in the world. In fact, the United States is the richest c...