May 16th ,2010 • The Season of Easter • Alleluia!
Things we don't want to hear...
In Sunday’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles we see Stephen, the deacon, standing in the midst of the crowd proclaiming his faith in Jesus. The crowd however does not want to listen so, “they cried out in a loud voice, covered their ears, and rushed upon him together. They threw him out of the city, and began to stone him.”
It reminds me of how families sometimes fight and one person sticks his/her fingers in her ears and says “la la la la la!” as the other person is talking. In other words: “I’m ignoring you.”
It’s true that sometimes we’d rather not hear things, so we shut others out. It’s hard to hear correction -- we like to think that everything always goes well, and when we’re challenged, we sometimes close our ears.
So with the risk of some folks closing their ears, I have a few things to mention -- and these things won’t apply to most people. But since I don’t know to whom they apply, I thought I’d use this space to mention a couple of issues that have come up.
• Things are being borrowed or moved without letting anyone know. For example -- church ladders disappear for a while. Our staff doesn’t know what happen to them. Were they stolen? Were they borrowed? Were they moved somewhere else? Microphones from the church go missing. The movie screen in the school is now missing. Does anyone know what happened to that? (I’m sure many families have the frustration of family members borrowing things and not returning them-- so you know what this feels like.) I’m glad people feel comfortable around here but it is not right to take things without asking.
• Last Sunday we planned on giving one plant to each mother who was at church as a sign of appreciation. Yet people were leaving church with two, three and four plants (some people even took the altar flowers) and left some mothers who were at church with no flowers at all. By the end of the day we did not have enough flowers to offer the mothers who went to the later masses. (If I behaved that way, my mother would have scolded me!)
So if you’re “guilty” of any of the above behaviors, consider yourself scolded and don’t do it again. (And I hope you don’t rush at me with stones in your hands!)
