Dear friends,

I originally wrote this column for Holy Family Sunday, 2007.  I think it still applies.

Today is Holy Family Sunday, the day on which the Church asks us to reflect on the family, the basic unit of society – the family, in which we are nurtured and nourished and which, throughout our lives, offers the support that allows us to continue to grow and, at the same time, to be secure in the knowledge that there is a place where we are loved.  It is in the family that we experience the ties that bind, bringing us together into the most intimate of all human relationships.  We all know that our families are under a great deal of stress right now.  Not only because of the economy and the need for so many households to have two “breadwinners,” but also because of the number of marriage relationships that have failed and, I perceive that this will be a year of even greater stress as some try to re-define what that relationship is really all about. 

As our reflection, I once again offer this prayer, composed by the poet Robert Louis Stevenson, for all our families and for the parish family of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

Lord, behold our family here assembled.  We thank you for this place in which we dwell; For the love that unites us; for the peace accorded us this day; for the hope with which we Wait for tomorrow; for the health, the work, the food and the bright skies that make our lives Delightful; for our friends in all parts of the earth.

Let peace abound in our small community.  Purge out of every heart the lurking grudge. Give us grace and strength to forbear and persevere.  Give us the grace to accept and forgive Offenses.  Forgetful ourselves, help us to bear cheerfully the forgetfulness of others.

Give us courage and gaiety and a quiet mind.  Spare us to our friends, soften us to our Enemies.  Bless us in all our endeavors.  Give us the strength to encounter that which is to Come that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath and in all  Changes in fortune, and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving, one to another.

As the clay to the potter, as the windmill to the wind, as children to their father, we ask of You this help and mercy for Christ’s sake.  Amen.

God bless all our families and this parish family of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and a very large and warm thank you for all of you who make this parish a real family. 

All peace and joy in the New Year,
Fr. Ron