[By Fr. Jim Muscatella, Parochial Vicar, Blessed Trinity and St. Patrick’s Parishes]<\/p>\n
On Friday, July 5, 2024, my Nissan Altima rolled into the parking lot at St. Patrick’s for the first time. I was reporting to our pastor, Fr. Galens, to begin my assignment as his assistant priest. On the night of Friday, Dec. 6, five months later, I called up Fr. Galens, reporting that my old Altima had just rolled over its last mile \u2013 a rather large doe running through the fields north of Owego and into Route 38 proved to be my car\u2019s end.<\/p>\n
Like many Western New Yorkers, I have complicated feelings about our ever-present neighbor, the white-tailed deer. Growing up, I would be caught up in silent wonder watching the visiting deer move through our backyard. During the brief time we had a garden, however, my father saw our hungry, four-legged visitors more like trespassers<\/i> – coming with the malicious intent to commit the offense of tomato theft.<\/p>\n
Last week, as I was on retreat with our priestly neighbors, the good Friars of Mount St. Francis Hermitage, I was restored to my youthful vision. In the evenings, white-tailed deer grazed gracefully a mere stone\u2019s throw from the doors and windows of the cabins \u2013 in herds of seven and nine. They linger long and return regularly. On that holy hill between Union and Maine, they are not treated as offenders or trespassers. If anything, the Friars tend the land and post signs, forbidding hunting, as an offer<\/i> to those deer: a place is made for them, so that coming to that hill in peace with their gracefulness, those deer might offer us a fuller vision of God\u2019s greatness in His creation.<\/p>\n
God, according to St. Bernard of Clairvaux, is \u201cneither offended by our sins nor placated by our penance, but simply desiring our repentance.\u201d* If God is indeed perfect (He is<\/i>), there is nothing that can cause Him to become either strictly angry <\/i>or hurt \u2013 <\/i>He is not like me or my dad; He does not mourn the loss of a car or get frustrated at the theft of tomatoes.<\/p>\n
The stories in our Bibles do tell us something very true when they speak of God the Father\u2019s wrath<\/i> and regret. However, <\/i>if we realize what they mean in truth: that God, who doesn\u2019t change, can use every changing circumstance to extend His call and reach us – even when we are in the midst of chaos and loss; even when all we can humanly imagine of God is anger or disappointment, He exceeds our every imagining. He is like Fr. Galens, driving out into the snowy cold with a mysterious good cheer, to meet His stranded assistant, and bring him home from the wreck.<\/p>\n
Our offenses \u2013 our fallen-ness<\/i>, our sins – don’t get in the way of His generosity or His goodness. Our offenses<\/i> get in our way<\/i>: they make us deaf to His call, insensitive to His presence, unwilling to meet Him in His goodness \u2013 and that ugliness leaves a terrible mark on the creation and relations that have been entrusted to us men.<\/p>\n
In His perfect goodness, however, God never stops calling us – in His great generosity, He turns our offenses and the pains they bring into opportunities for us to be healed, to repent, and to return to Him. So the condemnation of the cross became the sign of our salvation \u2013 in the midst of that greatest human offence against Our God, the Crucifixion, Our God offers Himself. That offering in the face of our offence has forever changed us – and continues to call us.<\/p>\n
The base of my chalice, lifted high during Holy Mass when Christ\u2019s one sacrifice is once again made present in the Eucharist, artistically depicts two deer bowing their heads and drinking from the stream running at the foot of the cross \u2013 \u201cAs the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God<\/i>.\u201d (Psalm 42:2)<\/p>\n
By repentance, we turn from our offenses to God\u2019s offer \u2013 by penance, we learn to walk in His peace. Walking in His peace, we learn to share Christ\u2019s vision \u2013 and how God might offer others peace through us.<\/p>\n
*Bernard, Sent 3.124 (SBOp 6\/2:238; Bernard of Clairvaux, The Parables and The Sentences<\/i>, trans. Michael Casey and Francis R. Swietek, CF 55 [Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2000], 436).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[By Fr. Jim Muscatella, Parochial Vicar, Blessed Trinity and St. Patrick’s Parishes] On Friday, July 5, 2024, my Nissan Altima rolled into the parking lot…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":108241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\n