Saint Matthew's Church A Roman Catholic Community

Saint Matthew's Church
A Roman Catholic Community

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Weekend Mass Schedule
Saturday Vigil at 5:00 PM
Sunday at 8:30 and 10:30 AM
Full Schedule of Services
Weekly Bulletins
Ministry Schedule

Pastor's Weekly Message

I have not yet seen “Pope Francis – A Man of His Word,” the documentary directed by German director Wim Wenders. I did see a “60 Minutes” segment about the documentary in which the director speaks of his admiration for the Pope and the wide ranging questions that the Pope was willing to discuss in the film. No topic was off limits, Wenders said. Wenders also said that he had no idea how to end the documentary but on the last day of filming the Pope gave him his ending. The Pope said: "If you were to ask me who in our world today is the poorest of the poorest of the poorest of the poorest, I would say Madre Tierra (Mother Earth). I was surprised by the Pope's answer. I thought he would talk about some of the horrible human poverty I have seen in Central or South America. Or the even more devastating human poverty in Africa. But no, Pope Francis said that the poorest of the poor is our Mother Earth. Pope Francis knows that the earth and the way we treat it affects us all. As we pollute and degrade our environment the poor will be the first and the most profoundly affected. So the Pope rightly claims that the poorest of all is our planet and the way we are treating her.

So often in the Bible images of nature and the beauty of our natural world is used to teach a divine lesson or speak about an attribute of God. This Sunday is an example of that use of nature to teach lessons. The prophet Ezekiel uses the transplanting of a cedar tree on a mountain top in Israel to teach how God will care for all creatures and will judge aright the good from the bad. Jesus uses images of planting seeds to teach us that God's work of building the Kingdom will happen in spite of what we do because salvation is ultimately God's work and not ours. Then Jesus goes on to use a tiny mustard seed to speak about how God can bring from next to nothing a great bush that will sustain birds of the air and animals and so make the analogy from nature that God will take from our small offerings great things as well. Jesus, like so many great spiritual teachers, see lessons in nature that teach us of the great abundance and love of God. But first we must have a reverence for and a great care of our natural environment, Madre Tierra, as the Pope calls her.

This fall we will be starting a new group in the parish. Riobert and Meghan Breen, Joy Galarneau and Char Logan will be gathering a team of interested parishioners to help us be better educated about what we are doing to and how we are affecting our Mother Earth. They will be teaching, inviting, challenging and urging us all to become better stewards of our Mother Earth. This new team will be called St. Matthew's Care for Creation team. As the Bible and Jesus continue to urge us to learn God's lessons from reflecting on our environment so let us promise to be better stewards of this great gift that God has given us all, this gift of our Mother, Earth.

Fr. Chris

Seasonal Messages

Matt Maher and his "Echoes of Worship Tour" is coming to Voorheesville! Please see our Parish Events Page for information about this exciting event. Tickets may be purchased on-line at iTickets.com