From the pastor’s desk—Sept. 19, 2021

Dear Sacred Heart Family,

As we prepare for our Festival of Nations celebration at Sacred Heart, it is worth considering how do we share our culture with others? One’s culture is like one’s faith, it is not something that can simply be looked at, it can only be experienced, it is something that is a living reality. And as hard as it might be to capture all that makes up our individual culture, as with our faith, we have a deep desire to share it with others, and when we do, we are more connected.

From the outside, the easiest aspects of culture are the foods, the music, the dress, and dances, all of which we hope to have. The deeper gems of our cultures are the ways they help us to see the world, to make sense of it, and the ways it holds us up in trying times. This part of culture can only happen with communication, which may be harder when languages differ.

This deeper level of sharing one’s culture takes courage to talk to others who may not speak your language so well. In our faith language, we say it takes humility. To be humble enough to forgive others for not speaking our language perfectly and humble enough to honor that we probably know less of their language than they know of ours. For this reason, the sharing of cultures is a very spiritual activity if it helps us to grow in humility.

The sharing of our cultures is also deeply spiritual in that it reminds us that our one God has blessed every people in every culture. We will understand God better when we understand how He has spoken through other peoples. If we insist that God speaks only through our culture, we will never grasp God as fully as we should. To think God only speaks through us is a type of spiritual imperialism that has unfortunately crept into many cultures over the centuries.

These coming weeks will be a time for us to celebrate the great diversity of our community, to have a taste of what is means to be “catholic” (universal) and to be more connected to our God and one another. Please make sure to join us every week and share with others the good things He is doing here at Sacred Heart where we are many peoples but one heart.

All for Jesus with Mary,
Fr. Ray