April 26, 2020

In his first homily as pope, Benedict XVI said the same thing. He said: “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.” This is a wonderful truth. Each of us is the result of an act of the creative imagination of God. Again, no other religion makes anywhere near these kind of claims about the meaning of human life — and not just “human life” in general, but each and every human life. God willed each of us to be here. He loves us personally. What does God need or want us to be doing?

The Nicene Creed we profess at Mass not only tells us about the past. It also speaks of the future. We believe Jesus Christ will come again in glory to usher in a kingdom that will have no end. We anticipate that kingdom in every Eucharist, when he comes to us in bread and wine. We live in joyful hope for the coming of the “end” of history — when “time no longer shall be,” as the Book of Revelation says. Until that day, we live in the era of the Church. If the Incarnation represents the past and the second coming represents the future, the Church is always the “present” tense of God’s plan for history and for each of our lives.

Stay Spiritually Strong, Fr. Dan