Diocese of Toledo, Ohio

Browsing From the Pastor

Faithfully Supporting Our Two Families

Two groups that will hopefully always be vital for us are those of our family and the parish to which we belong. The Lord is the Source of both of these basic groups.

   In regard to our family, the love of husband and wife for each other is at the heart of family life. It is the Lord Who leads two persons of the opposite sex to find favor in the eyes of each other and to want to make the commitment to live together as husband and wife for as long as both are alive. God’s love for each of us becomes personalized as we experience this in and through our families.

   As communal persons, we experience God’s love in personal ways as these are offered to us in our respective parishes. Hopefully, our family and our parish community serve as anchors, enabling us to relate in a wholesome way to the many pressures and demands that come our way each day. 

   Two blessings that hopefully we all experience from our family and from our parish are those of sensing that we are unconditionally loved for all that we are and also that we are needed. In both communities, we are valued for Whose we are, namely because we belong to the Lord and to one another in Him. Hopefully, all that we do is in loving response to this growing awareness of ourselves and of others.  

   As was the case with the Lord Himself while He was with us in this world, our family and our parish are incarnational. Both exist in the world and thus need goods and services that can be obtained through money. While love is at the heart of both family and parish life, neither group can survive without money and that which we can purchase with it.

   God’s love for us in Jesus will always be there for us. As persons who are needed in both our family and in our parish, will we always be there for the Lord and for one another in Him?

   In our families, we are well aware that our needs as well as those of persons with whom we live and/or for whom we are responsible are on-going. Wouldn’t it be neat if we could take a vacation from family expenses? This is also the case with the parish to which we belong. Wouldn’t it be great if there were no parish expenses during July and August?

   As adults, necessity compels us to realize that we have to work to provide the goods and services needed by our family twelve months of the year. Hopefully, we will take this insight to heart as members of our respective parish communities.

   Even as we are faithful in working to meet the needs of our families at all times, I hope that we will feel and act this way in regard to the needs of our parish community. Online giving can serve as a tool enabling us to be faithful to the continuing challenge to support the Lord’s work as this is carried out in our respective parishes.

   In short, there are two main reasons for giving, both to support our families as well as to support our parishes. One is that of necessity. Without the needed financial resources, both groups will be significantly crippled.

   Hopefully, a growing awareness of all that the Lord offers us in our family and in our parish provides the on-going motivation to make financial and other sacrifices for the well-being of the persons in both of these groups.

   How we spend the money entrusted to us expresses where our hearts really are. As we continue to allow ourselves to experience that we are unconditionally loved and needed both in our homes and in our parish communities, we will gratefully and cheerfully respond with our financial resources to the best of our ability to enable these groups to remain faithful to the Lord’s purpose for both of them.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Fr. Nelson Beaver – Pastor

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