Dear Friends in Christ,
Last Friday I had the privilege of celebrating and preaching at the Red Mass, hosted this year by Mtr. Catherine Thompson and the good folks at Trinity, Natchitoches. As you may know, in the Red Mass we seek God’s wisdom and guidance for our jurists.
Mtr. Catherine and the rest of the worship planners and leaders did us proud with a reverent and uplifting service, and I am very grateful for their hard work and liturgical excellence. It was especially exciting that the Louisiana Supreme Court attended the service.
Last Friday I had the privilege of celebrating and preaching at the Red Mass, hosted this year by Mtr. Catherine Thompson and the good folks at Trinity, Natchitoches. As you may know, in the Red Mass we seek God’s wisdom and guidance for our jurists.
Mtr. Catherine and the rest of the worship planners and leaders did us proud with a reverent and uplifting service, and I am very grateful for their hard work and liturgical excellence. It was especially exciting that the Louisiana Supreme Court attended the service.
For this week’s Wednesday message, I’m offering this excerpt
from my sermon at the Red Mass:
Life is not fair.
Life is not fair.
Sometimes the good among us meet with calamity and the evil prosper. Stinkers get off the hook and good guys have been known to finish last.
No one chooses the family or the social class or the town or the historical period into which they are born. And the circumstances of our birth can make all the difference to the shape and direction our life takes.
Some social and economic conditions give a decided advantage to the lucky stiffs born into them, while some socioeconomic settings present obstacles so great that even the most industrious and clever will never completely overcome them.
The inherent unfairness of this life leads some to cynicism, bitter resentment, and even despair. The reason for their spiritual disintegration is clear. They have correctly observed that life is unfair and yet have erroneously concluded that this is all that there is. The dream of justice is just that for them, a dream. A pipe dream. And so for them it would be better to have no dream at all than to have one that leaves us feeling cheated and shortchanged.
By contrast, that same dream--the dream of perfect justice--inspires some among us to devote our entire lives to raising up what has been cast down, to rectifying wrongs committed by self-serving hearts, to protecting the weak, to guarding the dignity of every human being, and to promoting the common good even for those who have precious little regard for it.
If you would like to read the rest of the sermon, you can find it at “Justice and Hope” at Pelican Anglican. Or, you can listen to the audio version here.
Blessings in the coming week.
The Rt. Rev. Jacob W. Owensby, Ph.D.
The Diocese of Western Louisiana
P. O. Box 2031, Alexandria, LA 71309-2031
bishopjake@diocesewla.org
http://pelicananglican.blogspot.com
http://sermon.net/bishopjake
