What is Your Dash?

One mass, two perspectives...

HERS:

We attended the Sunday 8:00 am mass this week at St. Francis of Assisi in Derwood, MD. St. Francis parish was started in 1972 and the church building was dedicated in 1975. The church is rather simple with the crucifix above the altar as its most striking feature.

I was out of town Friday and Saturday attending the funeral of a high school friend in Erie, PA. She was my age - only 51 years old. It really hasn't "sunk in" that she is gone. She is the first of "our group" to pass away and it just seems unreal. I bring all of this up because I was thinking about how young my friend was and the impact she had on so many people, as a sister, aunt, friend, doctor... 

Her obituary read, 1966 - 2018... we often hear about the "dash" between the year of birth and death  representing a person's life and the impact that life had on others.

Today's homily was very timely in that it referred to Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. Fr. Jack recalled the many times that Jesus said "Peace be with you" when he met people after his resurrection. He said this greeting was necessary because people would need that peace to truly accept that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. He noted that we think of resurrection as a concept that is off in the distance because we did not experience it like the people of Jesus' time who had an up close and personal knowledge of Jesus rising from the dead. If this had happened in our lives, would we believe? Jesus' dash was about teaching, healing, performing miracles, and suffering.

Sometimes I can relate to the resurrection as just being a term within the Catholic faith . I hear the word, and in theory, I have a vision of what "rising from the dead" means, but I don't truly understand it. How is it even possible? The same is true of our loved ones who die. We know in theory that they are "in a better place", that their body is resurrected into Heaven, but as humans, the concept is difficult to grasp. Fr. Jack said that just like Jesus, we die and then we live on in the promise of an afterlife. I think this is the pinnacle of our Catholic faith. Without this belief, what is life about? That is why faith is so important. If we look at life in terms of an afterlife, it is almost like my friend (and all that have gone before her) need one more dash... the dash of promise, of hope, and of a resurrection into the afterlife.

Sharon Bruno

1966 - 2018 - 

Peace be with you.

After mass we headed to a casual breakfast joint called Hershey's Restaurant and Bar in Gaithersburg, MD. Like me, this place has been around for more than a half a century. This place was quiet and casual and the food was delicious. I had the french toast and Lou had an egg skillet.

HIS:

After traveling for the last couple of weeks (and before we travel again next week) this week brought us back to our home Archdiocese.  Mass this week was at St. Francis of Assisi in Derwood, Maryland.  

Saint Francis lived during the late 12^th and early 13^th centuries.  He was raised in a wealthy family, the son of a cloth merchant in Assisi, Italy.  He was very popular among his friends and generally lived a life of leisure.  Not wanting to be called a-sissy, Francis felt the call to arms when an armed conflict broke out between his town (Assisi) and a neighboring hamlet.  Captured in just his first fight in the conflict, Francis spent a year in captivity.  This is what shaped him and made him St. Francis of Assisi.  His captivity seemingly provided him with a greater calling in life.  He began a lifelong passion to care for society’s castoffs, sick, and poor.  Seeing Pope Francis’ approach to his papacy, this could be why Cardinal Bergoglio chose the name Francis.  Finally, Saint Francis is best known for his love of animals.  The feast of St. Francis is in October and many parishes will bless the animals and offer up prayers to Francis during that time.

St. Francis of Assisi in Derwood, MD is a fairly new parish in the grand scheme of the Catholic church, having been established in 1972 with the first mass in the current building being held in 1975.  Its interesting the connections made as you research a church’s history.  St. Francis’ webpage listed the pastors who have led the parish over the years and Father Lee Fangmeyer was listed.  Father Lee is the pastor of our home parish, Mother Seton.

Father Jack (a Parochial Vicar) had today’s mass and I must say I was very pleasantly surprised by his homily.  When he first processed on to the altar, I didn’t feel a lot of energy in the church as a whole and Father Jack seemed almost vexed.  As mass went on, I felt things change and truly heard the message of God during the homily.  Father Jack continued the message of the risen Christ.  He emphasized that when Christ appeared with/to his disciples, he wasn’t an apparition or a ghost.  He was a man in the flesh.  His followers could see his wounds, could touch his scars.  Father Jack likened it to Pinocchio, I am a boy, I am real.  We are told this week that the reason Jesus said Peace be with you when he made himself present to his followers is for much the same reason that we might react the way we might react if we saw Jesus today.  As Mary and I reflected on the message from today’s gospel, we both agreed that if someone presented themselves to us today and said I am Jesus, see what they have done to me, we would probably call the cops.  See my write-up from last week 😉.  This is the whole premise of faith.  We believe even though we haven’t seen.  Which is contrary to what I do in my professional life, believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see…. 

Breakfast this morning was at a Gaithersburg stalwart, Hershey’s Restaurant.  Their website says they’ve been around for 50 years.  While we’ve never been, I remember seeing this place from the train on my commute home always wondering, what’s that place like?  Well wonder no more.  Hershey’s has a warm, inviting, friendly atmosphere.  I don’t know for sure, but based on the staff, it seems like the Hershey family were still running things.  Breakfast was delicious!  I was ready for a nap even before I got up from the booth were sitting in.  

Mary had French toast, made with French bread – ooh la la and I had a breakfast skillet which had peppers, onions, hash browns, eggs (of course), and sausage gravy.  I had them hold the gravy.  I didn’t want to commit too much gluttony, just the right amount of gluttony.  Oy, back to confession!  Another experience in the books.

As always, we end with our Soulfie...