7^th Sunday-Year C

Transformation Through Forgiveness

Beloved in Christ, we thank God for another opportunity to listen to his words, dine with him, worship him, and be transformed by him. Our readings today remind us that life is a journey of transformation. St. Paul in the second reading tells us that we are born human and sinful but through the grace given us in Jesus Christ we are transformed through life experiences to become more like Christ. The gospel tells us that God uses forgiveness as a tool to transform us from our fallen human state into a spiritual one, when we become more like God. Jesus invites us to become agents of God’s transformation by embracing his forgiveness and forgiving those who hurt us, hate us, or even persecute us: “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you…. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

In our first reading today, we have one of the greatest acts of forgiveness recorded in the Bible. It is the story about a man called Saul, who was the first King of Israel and David who became the second king of Israel. To really appreciate the beauty and the power of forgiveness in that story you need to read Chapters 16-24 of I Samuel. David was the son-in-law of Saul. He was also Saul’s army commander when Israel had to fight the Philistines. David was also a spiritual healer for Saul because, when Saul was tormented by an evil spirit, it was David who would play music that helped Saul to get better. So why did Saul want to kill David? It was due to jealousy. Saul was jealous that people were praising David for being successful at war and he felt threatened that David might take the throne from him. So he wanted David dead. This story is like a family feud gone crazy. Saul’s hatred for David was so great that he would kill anybody who helped David to escape. He tried killing his own son, Jonathan because he was a friend of David and defended David. He killed 85 priests and destroyed a whole city including women and children because he was told David was hiding in that city. David knew that Saul would stop at nothing to kill him. Yet in our first reading today, when David had the chance to kill Saul, he refused to do so and forgave him.

Beloved, would you forgive a person like that? It is easy to feel that you have enough proof and a justified reason to kill a person who wants you dead. But look at what David did. He spared his enemy’s life because even though Saul was his enemy, Saul was also anointed by God and made in God’s image and likeness. So David was thinking if I destroy him, I am destroying the image of God. What I have to do is to help restore the image of God in him. And that is exactly what David achieved by forgiving Saul. He called out Saul, spoke directly to him, pointed out the sins that Saul had committed, and prayed for him. When Saul realized that David had all the chance and the power to kill him but he did not, Saul repented: “He lifted up his voice and wept” (I Sam. 24: 16-17). This act of forgiveness transformed Saul and restored the image and likeness of God in him.

Beloved, is there anybody you need to forgive in your life? Do you need to forgive your husband, wife, children, siblings, parents, friends, or priest? This week in Rome, Pope Francis has been meeting with all the Presidents of Bishop Conferences in the world to find a solution to the sex abuse scandal in our church. The Holy Father has called on every Catholic to be part of finding a solution to this problem. You may be wondering how you can help solve this problem. The first step is to do as David did. Forgive us, your priests and bishops for betraying your trust, for hurting you in anyway, especially through this horrific sin of sexual abuse and scandals. Forgive us, pray for us, and help us by speaking up, pointing out our weaknesses in a loving way and challenging us as we continue our life pilgrimage of transformation. We need you. We cannot live our priesthood without you. We cannot become holy priests without your help and friendship. We are all pilgrims on a journey; we are all travellers on the road. We are here to help each other walk the mile and bear the load. So, help me be your servant and pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too.

6^TH Sunday -Year C

Jer. 17: 5-8

Psalm 1

I Cor. 15: 12, 16-20

LK 6: 17, 20-26

True Happiness Comes from Total Dependence on God

Beloved in Christ, we thank God for another opportunity to listen to his Word, dine with him, and worship him. Our Scriptural readings today tell us that God created us to be happy. God desires nothing, but our total happiness. That is why he created everything we will need in life before he created human beings. God wants us to lack nothing but rather to be blessed and enjoy God’s favor and all the good things in our lives. It is therefore not surprising that every human being desires happiness. However, it is not enough to desire happiness; we must know the path in life that leads to true happiness and the paths that do not. This is super important because if we don’t get it right, true happiness can easily elude us, and we will be living a life that God does not intends for us.

In our first reading, the prophet Jeremiah tells us that it is only those who depend totally on God who will find true happiness in life. St Paul in our second reading tells us that without Christ, life is vain. Without Christ, our hearts will forever be empty. The readings remind me of a conversation I had with an elderly priest few years ago. I had the privilege of visiting this elderly priest who was dying of cancer. I had known him for a long time, and one thing that always struck me about him was the joy he had. He was one of the happiest people I have ever met. Even on his dying bed, he did not lose his joy. He had this joy that was very contagious and I wanted that. So I asked him what made him so happy, why he was so joyful, and his response surprised me at first. He said: “Richmond, if you really want to be happy as a priest, do not allow your priesthood to possess you, let God possess you”. I did not understand what he meant then, but I do now. I have come to realize that when I try to live the priesthood with my own wisdom and strengths, things go wrong, I mess up and I am not happy. But when I try to depend on God and allow him to take control of my mind and my heart, things just get better and I receive some joy and strength to go on no matter what.

Beloved, human as we are, at times we allow the gifts that God has blessed us with to become an obstacle that draws us away from God, the giver of the gift. But in the gospel, Jesus tells us that we can enjoy the blessings of life and be pleasing to God at the same time if we do not forget our need of God because of the gifts he has given us. That is what Jesus means when he talks about the need for us to be poor. Jesus is not telling us not to laugh or work hard to enjoy the blessings that come with hard work. He is not telling us to embrace the kind of poverty we have in our world today, which is the deprivation of the basic necessities of life. No, God does not want any of his children to be deprived of the basic necessities of life. God wants us to do all we can to eradicate that kind of poverty from our world. Jesus is not telling us not to work or make money and acquire property. When Jesus calls on us to be poor, he is talking about detachment and advising us to avoid any approach to life that seeks to enjoy the good things of this life but forgets our need of God. Such an approach just leaves the human heart emptier and deprives us of the happiness that God wants for us. True happiness comes when we are able to enjoy the blessings of life in a way that draws us closer to the God, the giver of all the gifts that we have. It is being able to tell God, thank you for the gift of my husband, I love him so much, but I need more of you. Thank you for the gift of my wife, I love her so much, but I need more of you. Thank you for the gift of my children and grandchildren, I love them so much, but I need more of you. Thank you for the gift of my parents and grandparents, I love them so much, but I need more of you. Thank you for the gift of my friends, I love them so much, but I need more of you. Thank you for the gift of money, property, my job, position etc. I love these so much, but I need more of you. Beloved, it is those who are poor that have the capacity to live the rest of the beatitude. They have the capacity to be sorry for their sins, mourn for offending God, and take measures to reconcile with God. They have the capacity to hunger and thirst for justice and fight for justice for all. They are those who will stand for and live their faith no matter what comes their way because they are not ashamed to show the world that they depend on God.

Beloved in Christ, as we meditate on the readings today, we need to ask ourselves: Are the gifts that I have drawing me closer to God or away from him? I am falling more deeply in love with Jesus because of the gifts he has blessed me with or am I becoming less dependent on him because of the gifts I have. May God lead us by the light of truth to seek and to find the narrow way. May God be our truth, our way, our life, and lead us in the paths of his command!

3^rd Sunday-Year C

Neh. 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10

Psalm 19: 8-15

I Cor. 12: 12-30

Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21

Life Comes from Renewing Our Covenant with God

Beloved in Christ, we thank God for another opportunity to listen to his Word, dine with him, and worship him. In our first reading today, the people of Israel who had come back from exile were looking for a new beginning as seen in the rebuilding of the temple. They were looking for a new and better life. Their spiritual leader, Ezra, and a political leader, Nehemiah, told them that decorating the temple alone will not bring the better life they were looking for. These leaders told the people that it is through a renewal of their covenant with God that they can find new strength, new joy, a better life, and hope for the future. How did they renew that covenant? By spending time to read Holy Scripture because in reading the Scripture, we gain new understanding of God’s will as well as the zeal and passion to live it and find new life in God. This is what our responsorial psalm confirms when it says God’s Words are spirit and life. In our gospel, Jesus is looking for a better life for his people and looks to the Hebrew Scriptures for answers. He goes into the synagogue, reads a Scriptural passage from Isaiah, reflects on it, and comes to the realization that his Father has anointed him to bring the Good News to the poor, set prisoners free, and bring forgiveness of sins. This scriptural passage increases his zeal and passion to fulfill the Father’s plan for his life and nothing would stop him until he died on the Cross to save us.

Is our world looking for a better life today? Are you looking for a better life or do you know anyone looking for a better life? Where do we find that? It is unfortunate that in our world today sharing the Word of God with people is considered disrespecting them or violating their rights. But our Scriptural readings today remind us that sharing the Word of God is not disrespecting them but brining them life.

The readings today remind me of a phone call I recently received from one of my very good friends. She called and said, “Okay, I have done some crazy thing!” So I asked what is it and she went on with a question: “So you know there are some good stuff in the Bible right? You know it can bring people peace, right? I laughed and told her “ I have been a priest for 15 years, come on, tell me something I don’t know. I was very surprised at what she was saying because she is not a Christian and I don’t expect her to be reading the Bible. In fact, ten years ago, I bought her a Bible as a birthday gift but she became very angry when she opened the gift so I apologized to her and told her to give it back if she did not want it. She did not give it back, but she was so angry with me about this gift that for the past ten years we never talked about it and I always wondered what had happened to the Bible. In her phone call, she said her uncle was dying so she decided to visit him and some “strange voice” told her to take her Bible along. I couldn’t control my joy when I heard her mention the Bible so I interrupted her right way and said “wait, wait, wait, did you just say that you still have that Bible? She told me she has kept the Bible and has been reading it from time to time and it has changed her perspectives on life. So she decided to listen to this “strange voice” that was asking her to bring her Bible as she was going to visit her dying uncle. When she got there, she decided to read the bible to her uncle and bring him hope that God will save him. To her surprise, her uncle started crying and told all present that he became a Christian when he was a student in England in the 1960s and had promised God to bring the faith to his country but decided to hide his faith when he returned because of the persecution of Christians. As he was dying, he was very sorry he had disappointed God and was asking God to forgive him before he dies so he understood her niece, who is not a Christian, brining a Bible to come and pray for him as God answering his prayers. He passed away peacefully with a smile on his face right after sharing this faith story with his family.

Beloved, this confirms what St. Paul is saying in our second reading today that we need one another to help us renew our covenant with God and find a better life. We should not be ashamed or afraid to share the Word of God with people no matter how awkward, weird, scary, or crazy it might look. You can never tell how God is going to use the Word you share to bring life to somebody. It will make your own life and the life of others better. May God deepen our love for the Scriptures and give us the courage to live it and share it with others.

34^th Sunday-Year B

Solemnity of Christ the King

Daniel 7:13-14

Ps. 93

Revelation 1:5-8

 John 18: 33-37

Surrendering to the Love of Christ

Beloved, today we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King and by this celebration we bring our Liturgical Year to an end. Next week, we shall begin the Season of Advent. The Feast of Christ the King was established, as a universal feast, by Pope Pius XI in 1925. This was a time when the whole world was suffering because of the impact of the First World War, Communism, and the rise of the Nazis in Germany. It was at this time that the Church established this feast to remind the whole world that true PEACE, SECURITY, JUSTICE, and THE JOY OF LIFE come only when we accept Jesus as our King and allow Him to reign in our hearts.

Our first reading from Daniel is a prophecy that was meant to bring hope to the People of Israel when they were suffering in exile in Babylon and were crying for a savior.  In this prophecy God told them that the solution to all their problems lies in accepting the “Son of Man”, as their King. What is shocking about this prophecy is that the kingship of the Son of Man will be radically different from what the Israelites were expecting because the “Son of Man” will be a king not only for Israel but also for all peoples and nations. This means he will unite Israel and her enemies and indeed all the nations of the world as one people with one King. That is not what the people of God wanted at that time. They wanted a king who would make Israel superior to other nations not a king who would make other nations equal to Israel. So, you see, their understanding of the solution to their problems was different from what God saw as the solution.

This is the same Son of Man we celebrate today as our King. Our second reading from the Book of Revelation tells us Jesus is the King who loved us so much that he washed away our sin with His blood and made all of us, people from all nations one kingdom for God. Today, we celebrate that same King who is the solution to all our problems; but the King whose approach to solving our problems is radically different from what we see as the best approach, or what the world teaches us as the best approach.  In our Gospel, Jesus makes this point very clear to Pilate:  My Kingdom does not come from this world; I am not a King the way you will expect me to be. I am the King of Truth, I do things according to the Will of My Father; and I am a King for those who love the Truth.  

Beloved, because Jesus’s Kingship is so different and his approach to solving the problems of our lives is so different form our own approach, we often find it very difficult to agree with Him and surrender our lives totally to Him.  So as I celebrate this feast the question I ask myself is: “Is Jesus really the King of my life? As I reflect on this question, I see that there are areas in my life where Jesus is the King; but there are other areas where I am the King. These are the areas where I struggle to do His will; and they are also the areas where I struggle with sin. I do not know about you; maybe you are not like me; you’ve got it all figured out. But I struggle when my approach to solving a problem is different from what Jesus tells me to do.

But Beloved, if you are like me, do not lose hope. We can start all over again. All is not lost because we serve a King who is merciful, a King who knows our weaknesses, a King who is always ready to give us a new start. Advent is a new beginning. Indeed, we can rise again! Let us renew our allegiance to Christ and resolve to surrender all aspects of our lives to Him. If we do, we will have life; and have it to the full.

Beloved, our readings today teach us how to offer our lives as a sacrifice in a way that is pleasing to God. The first reading tells us that God will call on us to offer sacrifices at some time in our lives that might not make sense to us, according to human reasoning. The widow of Zarephath was not a Jew; she had many problems of her own. She had lost her husband and did not have enough food to take care of herself and her only son. In fact, she told Elijah that she and her family would die after eating the little food she had. Yet, it is at this point in her life that God calls on her to feed the prophet, and she is actually asked to feed the prophet first before she thinks about herself and her son. If you look at this request from the human perspective, you will say this does not make sense. But when she obeyed, three things happened:

Yes, that is what God can do. That is what happens when we dare to obey God even when it is difficult to do so. He always knows what he is about. We might not understand Him, but He knows how to make a way in the desert, divide the Red Sea, and bring water out of a rock. These are things that are above the human mind but they are things that happen when people obey God in difficult times. So, if we dare to obey God even when our minds tell us it does not make sense, we shall experience the miracle of God.

In the gospel, Jesus warns us against developing the attitude of the Pharisees and the Scribes who loved to offer sacrifices in the Temple but were not ready to offer their hearts to God. They cared more about people’s opinions than what God thought of them. Rather, Jesus invites us to learn from the poor widow who was concerned more about what God thought of her offering and so offered her very self to God. Like the widow of Zarephath, God might be calling you to offer some sacrifice, through which he will reveal his glory? Will God find a YES in you against all might make you want to say NO? I pray nothing will stop us from giving our all to God so that through him we can find all.

31^st Sunday-Year B

Dt. 6:2-6
Psalm 18

Heb. 7: 23-28

MK 12:28B-34

Love For God Comes Through Reverential Fear, Not, Servile Fear

Beloved, I had lunch with a couple, who just celebrated their 60th anniversary of marriage and we had a great conversation. I asked them how they were able to come this far and the man said: Oh she has always been my best friend so it’s easy to love her” and the woman said: “ I do not ever want to lose his friendship so I try to make him happy, and I guess it has worked”J. Beloved, the friendship within their love as a couple is what caught my attention in this conversation. Their friendship created some good “fear”, the fear of losing each other, and that helped them to make choices that have sustained their relationship and avoid choices that would have destroyed that relationship. In Christian teaching, we call that kind of fear “reverential fear”. It is different from servile fear or the kind of fear a slave has for a master. Reverential fear is the type that comes out of the respect you have for somebody you love so much because you don’t want to take that love for granted and lose that relationship.

Beloved, this is the kind of fear that Moses is talking about in our first reading. Moses tells the people to “Fear God” so that they will prosper, have peace and joy, and be a blessing for the generation that will come after them. When God saved his people from Egypt, he did not save them to make them slaves. He actually saved them from slavery to make them his friends. He wanted a love relationship with them, and Moses is reminding the people that they can only love God if they have reverential fear for God, that is if they value him as they would value their best friend, somebody who will die for them. That is the type of fear that makes a soul truly burst into a song like we have in the responsorial psalm: I love you love!

Beloved, in our gospel, Jesus reminds us that the greatest commandment is to love God and love our neighbor. To do this, we need to look at how Jesus loves the Father. He had reverential fear for his father and his disciples. He loved the Father so much that he would not do anything to lose that friendship. He loves us so much that he will not do anything to lose our friendship. To love God, we can also learn from the saints. We just celebrated the Feast of All saints on November 1. These saints had two things in common: They all obeyed God’s commandments and each of them had some friendship with God expressed through the special love they showed God hear on earth.

My Dear People of God, we cannot love God if we don’t have friendship with him. True friendship always comes with do’s and don’t because true love creates order and beauty, and produces joy and peace. Love is a relationship; and for any relationship to work and survive, there is need for mutual love and respect, which are the hallmarks of true friendship. Today, I am reflecting on my fear of God. Is it a servile fear or reverential fear? Do I have friendship with Christ? If I do, how deep is that friendship?

30^th Sunday-Year B

Jer 31: 7-9

Psalm 126

Heb. 5:1-6

MK: 46-52

Developing a Christian Attitude towards Suffering

Every Christian has the desire to get closer to Jesus. What is most challenging is how Jesus draws us closer, at times, especially when he does so through suffering and pain. As human as we are, our first reaction might be to reject the suffering. Has this ever happened to you?

Beloved, we have God who has promised to be with us ALWAYS, in joy and in pain. In our first reading, God tells his people who had been suffering in exile for 70 years not to allow their suffering to turn them away from God but that they should look for God even in their suffering because God would turn their tears into joy. Our responsorial psalm tells us this is true that God actually kept his promises and when it happened the people thought they were dreaming because it was such a huge surprise how God turned things around when they thought all hope was gone. Our second reading tells us that we have a High priest who is always with us to accompany us on our pilgrimage so we are not alone.

In our gospel reading today, we encounter Bartimaeus, a man who was blind, poor, and marginalized in his society. Can you imagine how painful life might have been for him? If you want to understand how he felt, just put your self in his shoes and imagine yourself being sick for a long time, trying everything and every doctor to no avail, and finally, hearing about the one doctor who has the cure to your sickness and as you try to get to him, the secretary and people around him tell you to shut up and go away! How would you feel? Such and even worse might have been the pain that Bartimaeus felt. But rather than letting the pain of blindness, poverty, discrimination, and the maltreatment from the crowd put him off, Bartimaeus embraced the pain and kept on crying out to Jesus. What was very striking was the kind of request he made: “Son of David! Have mercy of me!” And “I want to see”. Instead of focusing on the sins of the people who had looked down on him because he was blind and poor, Bartimaeus focuses on how he might have been wrong in responding to the pain people have caused him. Instead asking Jesus to point out the sins of those following him, “Let them see”, Bartimaeus askes Jesus to let him see the face of Jesus even in the pain so that his heart will have peace.

Beloved, if we seek to understand pain from human perspective, it will never make sense to us, but when we look at Christ, we can tell that God has the power to turn our suffering into something good for our supreme good and for his glory. So, I don’t know what you are going through right now, but I encourage you to let your prayer be: Lord Jesus, let me see your face even in this pain! God will surely do something good even with the storms in your life. He has a way of making all things beautiful, and he will do just that for those who place their trust in him.

29^th Sunday-Year B

Isaiah 53:10-11

Psalm

Hebrews 4:14-16

Mark 10:35-45

Beloved, during Mass each day, the priest invites you to pray that your sacrifice and his will be acceptable to God the Almighty Father. What kind of sacrifice is the priest talking about? In order to understand this invitation well, we need to go back to what happened in our baptism. Each of us was made a priest in our baptism. That is what we call our “common priesthood” or the “Priesthood of the Faithful”. So all of us gathered here today are priests celebrating this Mass together with our High Priest, Jesus Christ, whom I represent in your midst. So our priesthood is like that of Christ. The fundamental duty of a priest is to offer sacrifice but, at times, we forget the essential nature of the kind of sacrifice we are called to offer. So, what kind of sacrifice are you called to offer? When you respond “May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your had…” What sacrifice do you have in mind in terms of the your offering? Is it the money you put in the collection bowl? That is important and we need the money to build the church, but unfortunately it is not the essential part of the sacrifice that God demands of us. What God is asking for is your heart, your very self in addition to the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Beloved, our readings today remind us that the Christian life is a call to imitate Christ by offering ourselves to God in friendship-love, love that is freely given and freely received. The sacrifice we gather here to offer is the very life of Christ, all the joys and the pains of his life as he offers them to his Father everyday so that we might have life. It is Christ being broken and poured out so that you and I can walk in the light of the Lord and have life. Our first reading tells us that we are called to offer ourselves and all the pains and joys of our lives, in a way that helps others walk in the light of the Lord.

It is easy to offer the joys of life to God but it is extremely difficult to offer the pains of life to him, especially if people you love and are close to cause you that pain. Our second reading tells us that we need sympathy to be able to offer our pain to God and respond to suffering and in a way that draws others to God. The writer to the Letter of Hebrews reminds us that even though Jesus never sinned, he has sympathy for us sinners and that is why he is able to offer the pains we cause him to the Father and still love us. If the one who never sinned could do this for us, sinners, then we who struggle with sin every day should be even more sympathetic to people who cause us pain and truly offer that pain to God and ask him to turn it into something more beautiful and a blessing for those people.

In our gospel, Jesus reminds us that if we focus too much on what we will gain from making such offerings, we will never be able to offer a sacrifice pleasing to the Father. A true offering, always involves letting go with confident hope that what you are offering will produce something good and beautiful! This calls for adopting a servant attitude, asking not what is in this for me but what is in this for them, and giving your life as a ransom.

So, as we continue this Mass today, let’s ask ourselves: What offerings do I bring to the altar today? What are the joys and the pains that I need to join to the offering of Christ today for the good of my family, friends, and community, especially those who have hurt me? I pray that your sacrifice and mine, indeed, will be acceptable to God the Almighty Father!

From a Great Guy to A Good Christian

Beloved in Christ, as human beings, we love to hear people say good things about us; and it feels so good when that happens. This past month, I received 3 phone calls and 12 emails from people thanking me for something good I did for them in the past. I really enjoyed those phone calls and emails but as I kept reflecting on them in prayer, something struck me. I realized that in all these phone calls and emails, the people would repeat over and over again that I am a great guy and not even one of them used the phrase “ a good Christian”. That kept me thinking about whether all the good things I did pointed to Christ in anyway. Why is it that not even one of these people said: “you are a good Christian?” The question I am asking myself is how do I move people from saying “you are a good guy” to “you are a good Christian”? This is important because as Jesus says even the pagans do good to those who are good to them (Mt. 5: 46-48), but their good deeds point to themselves and not to God. So, being a great guy doe not necessarily mean one is a good Christian.

St. James tells us in our second reading today that our good works must reveal our faith in Christ just as our faith in him must lead us to do good works. In our first reading, Isaiah prophesying about Jesus teaches us that a true servant of God is one who responds to life in a way that points people’s attention to God. Isaiah says Jesus as a servant of God would respond to all things in good and bad times in a way that will teach the world that God the Father is his helper. That is very true! If you look at Jesus, he always makes it very clear that all his help comes from the Father and so all the glory must be given to the Father. This is what we want to do if we really want to imitate Christ.

In the gospel, Jesus tells us that the only way we can move from being just great guys to being good Christians is when people see that we identify with the Cross and that we are actually carrying our crosses in imitation of Christ. If people see that we identify with and embrace the Cross, in all things, they will attribute our good deeds to Christ. There is a married couple here in our pastoral region whom we, the clergy, have nicknamed All for Jesus for two reasons: 1. Everything they do, they will let you know it is all for Jesus. 2. We have come to confirm that they just don't say that but they actually mean it. When you look at their lives, all they do, they do for Jesus. Their good works reveal their faith. You cannot miss it.

Beloved, as we reflect on the gospel today, let us ask ourselves. Does your husband see you just as a great woman or a good Christian? Does your wife see you just as a great man or also as a good Christian? Do your grandchildren see you just as great grandpa/grandma or as a good Christian? Do your children see you just as great parents or also as good Christians? Do your parents see you just as great children or good Christians. Do your siblings see you just as a great guy or a good Christian? Do your friends, co-workers etc. see you just as a great guy or also as a good Christian? Our mission is to lift high the Cross and proclaim the love of Christ in a way that will bring the whole world to adore his Sacred Name. May the Lord give us the grace to do so! Amen!