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October 21, 2014
Spirituality
Fr. Brendan McGuire is pastor of Holy Spirit Parish in San Jose and a Vicar
General of the Diocese of San Jose. As Vicar General, he is responsible for
special projects such as the recently launched Saint Katharine Drexel Initiative
to revitalize Catholic Schools in the Diocese. Before being ordained in 2000,
Fr. Brendan was an executive in a technology company and still loves to use
technology such as Facebook, podcasts and YouTube to bring people to a deeper
relationship with Christ. Email him at [email protected].
Oct. 26 - The Garden of Our Hearts
I love to walk my dog in the neighborhood and see how neighbors take care of
their gardens. There are not a lot of changes near me and when a house changes
owner usually the new owner does something new with their gardens. One home
was recently purchased and the family that moved in was putting great energy and
commitment into the garden. They tore out the old shrubbery and each weekend
they did a little bit more. First they tilled the soil then built up a small wall dividing the pathways and then they installed a new sprinkler system. Slowly they put
in vegetation: new plants, new trees, and even some new fruit trees. It was really
spectacular when everything came into full maturity.
During that same time another house changed owners as well. But it is a rental
and obviously they don’t care too much. It used to have a beautiful green lawn,
fruit trees and gorgeous flowers that blossomed along the front pathway. But now
it was so sad to see it had deteriorated; the grass is burned, flowers are dead and
even the beautiful fruit tree in the garden is dying.
The difference between these gardens is not so much the beauty of the garden
but the commitment by the owners. On the one hand, the commitments each
weekend to go out and tills the soil, plants and then reap the benefits. On the
other is that of neglect: they do little or nothing, leaving the plants to rot and die.
Consider our souls to be the garden of our lives and a garden not for ourselves
but a garden for others. In the Gospel for October 26, Jesus reminds us that the first
commandment of all is to love God with all our heart, all our soul and with all our
mind and to love our neighbor as ourselves. This biblical love is not as much an
emotion as it is a commitment to serve, the commitment to till the soil of our hearts
and plant a garden through our works of outreach to others.
We are reminded today in the first reading from the book of Exodus; those we
are called to serve and take care of are not only our family and friends which are
considered a natural obligation, but over and above that, as a community, we are
called to reach out to those who are least able to take care of themselves. In today’s
readings those would have been the widows, the orphans and the poor or migrant
or foreigners who have no one to take care of them.
We are always called to serve God by serving others. It is not easy and that is
why we come to this table each Sunday, to receive that strength, and to go at it
again. It is not always easy but it does help to look around the neighborhood, to see
what other people have done with their lives so that we can flourish together and
make our neighborhood beautiful through our commitment to serve the needy.
T
he Valley Catholic
Nov. 2, All Souls Day - Thin Places
In ancient Celtic spirituality, we believe that our ancestors and those who
have gon