Pastor's Spiritual Reflections

By Fr. Leo Schneider (07/29/2007)

Dear People of Holy Name,

“What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish?” (Lk 11:11)

Jesus often relies on our sense of common sense to teach us the ways of the Christian heart. What father would hand the son a snake? None in his right mind! What person wouldn’t help a persistent neighbor with a legitimate need for a scrap of bread? We don’t have to dig to deep to know what is the right and good thing to do in most situations.

What can be difficult for some people is when emotions enter in and override a common sense of ethics. I recently heard the story of a woman who owned a flower shop and was providing flowers for a friends wedding. After keeping the flowers in her van too long they wilted and she had to replace them with fresh ones. Though the bride and groom only received one set of flowers, she charged them an extra thousand dollars to cover both and said she wasn’t going to leave until she got her money.

Needless to say an unpleasant situation arose, where the groom paid half the extra charge to simply get her on her way. The transaction also left the flower girl with one less friendship.

As I heard that story I asked myself, how can emotions over-rule a common sense of what is fair? Perhaps she was desperate and her business couldn’t sustain her error, but even so, shouldn’t she take responsibility for her own mistake?

So perhaps common sense isn’t so common. The gospel always brings us back, as we consider what it must be like for the other person knowing that, like Jesus, the world isn’t all about me, but us. Jesus died for what common sense should have been able to teach us. If we look honestly at our hearts we know what is truly good and not good. Unfortunately we can let denials of truth build up in us because of our own fears and pain, and we can come to rationalize and justify a justice that isn’t real, like the woman with the flower shop.

I believe it is here that prayer will keep us on course. In our Gospel today the teaching of the Our Father comes first. When we take time to acknowledge a higher power in our lives that we are to serve, we see ourselves as part of something bigger, and can be open to the grace that allows us to make good decisions that reflect our faith in God’s truth and justice.

Praying and living in a way that will desire that the Father’s will be done, will make us critique our own will, in a way that will allow for common sense to enter our everyday decisions. It is the common sense that will in turn inform us if our religious thinking is on track and will help us stay on the right course.

Let us pray for the gift of God’s spirit in our lives that we may know God’s will and have a “common sense” in all things of what God’s will would be. May the Lord bless us in his Spirit!

In Christ Peace, Fr. Leo