Bishop Kevin Farrell

The Chief Shepherd of the Catholic Diocese of Dallas

Connect

Christians are people of hope

By

As we begin a new year, it is important to remember that as Christians we are people of hope. Our hope is based on confidence in God and His faithfulness and faith in His promises. “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” (Heb. 11:1)

In his homily on the Solemnity of Mary this week, Pope Benedict XVI reminded us that “the Christian is a person of hope, even and especially in the face of the darkness that often exits in the world, not as a consequence of God’s plans but because of the wrong choices of man.”

It is tempting to ask why God permits tragedies like the mass killings experienced during the past year or the natural disasters that result in loss of life and leave many homeless. Tragedies like Newtown and the New York subway killings are the result of the incomprehensible actions of deranged individuals abusing the free will that can be both a blessing and curse. Hurricanes, tornadoes and the like are natural disasters, not acts of God.

Yet God’s love is manifested in the actions of the first responders and the thousands who reach out to the victims of such events. In the words of the Holy Father, “the Christian knows that the power of faith can move mountains, the Lord can brighten even the deepest darkness.”

It is indeed the love of Jesus that sustains us in faith, hope and love (1 Col 3:12,14). It is that love that in the words of Pope Benedict, “allows a constant renewal of goodness and of the ability to rise from the quicksand of sin and to begin anew.”

In this Year of Faith, let us remember that true hope is not found in the things of the world which are transitory, but only in our encounter with Jesus.

Blessed are the Peacemakers

By

In his January 1 message on World Day of Peace Pope Benedict notes that “Jesus’ beatitude tells us that peace is both a messianic gift and the fruit of human effort.” He reminds us that each year brings the expectation of a better world and that “Peace is not a dream or something utopian; it is possible.”

We must pray for peace, but as the Holy Father suggests, it is not enough to simply pray. The Beatitude tells us that peacemaking is a human effort. It is a positive endeavor that requires commitment, perseverance and an awareness of the forces that foment the evils that frustrate the desire for peace in every person.

In his message, the Pope names those forces when he writes: “It is alarming to see hotbeds of tension and conflict caused by growing instances of inequality between rich and poor, by the prevalence of a selfish and individualistic mindset which also finds expression in an unregulated financial capitalism. In addition to the varied forms of terrorism and international crime, peace is also endangered by those forms of fundamentalism and fanaticism which distort the true nature of religion, which is called to foster fellowship and reconciliation among people.”

Who are the peacemakers? In his message? Pope Benedict describes the peacemaker as the one who seeks the good of the other, who loves, defends and promotes life in its fullness, adding that, “in every person the desire for peace is an essential aspiration which coincides in a certain way with the desire for a full, happy and successful human life.”

We must create a culture of peace to live with good will rather than mere tolerance, as the Holy Father says, “it is a peace with God through a life lived according to His will. It is interior peace with oneself and exterior peace with our neighbors and all creation.”

I join Pope Benedict in asking God, the Father of humanity, to grant us concord and peace, so that the aspirations of all for a happy and prosperous life may be achieved.
I pray that you and your loved ones will have a blessed New Year.

Footprints

By

“Lives of great men all remind us;
we can make our lives sublime,
and, departing, leave behind us,
footprints on the sands of time.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

These words from Longfellow’s Psalm of Life remind us that as we approach the New Year it is a time to think about our footprints…the ones we have left behind us and the one’s we will be making in the future.

What do our footprints say? What do we want them to say?

Emerson wrote that as a person chooses, so they are. Our choices define us. They are our footprints on the sands of time. We need to reflect upon the footprints we have left behind in 2010. What do they say about us as a Catholic Christian, as a wife or a husband, as a priest, as a parent, as a son or a daughter, as a member of our community?

Our footprints are much more public today than they used to be. We find them all over the Internet on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. If we Google our own name, we may be surprised at the footprints we find there. Today our footprints are almost impossible to hide.

We can’t change those footprints that we have left behind, but we can decide on what our footprints will be in the future. What footprints do we want to make in 2011? Of course there are grandiose things we hope to accomplish, but it is important that the footprints we decide we want to leave behind next year should be simple and achievable.

Let us challenge ourselves. It won’t be easy for as St. Paul reminds us in Romans 7, we often know what we want to do but end up doing something else. Longfellow also tells us of how our footprints affect others.

“Footprints, that perhaps another,
sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
a forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
seeing, shall take heart again.”

My prayer for you and your families is that you will have a blessed and happy 2011 and make lots of wonderful footprints.

New Year’s World Day of Peace

By

As the nations of the world struggled to find agreement and a solution to global warming and the devastation that it is wreaking, I couldn’t help but recall the words of St. Paul in his Letter to the Romans “We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now.” Rom:8:22.

Paul sees creation as struggling for redemption and sharing in the fallen state of humanity and that, with us, “creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God.”

Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI directly addressed the issue in his New Year’s World Day of Peace message when he called for “a cosmic vision of peace,” explaining “respect for creation is of immense consequence,” not least because “creation is the beginning and the foundation of all God’s works”,[1] and its preservation has now become essential for the pacific coexistence of mankind.”

In his message Pope Benedict linked the need for reconciliation among nations to reconciliation with creation and ultimately reconciliation with God, a connection first made in the Genesis creation account. (Gen 3:17-19)

Clearly we are called to stewardship of creation not domination and demolition