24th Sunday - God desires Safety


One of those simplest of pleasures...after a long trip, sleeping in one’s own bed. With our own pillows and sheets….ahhhhhhhh
It’s Coming home...coming back to where we feel safe.
Not always a specific place, for at times safety is only found in our hearts and in our minds.


I think Safety is a basic human drive. We want to feel safe and create a safe place.
It is what helps us to build homes. And for some, it is why we also move. And for others, forced to move… to feel safe, and truly be safe.

Safety means we do not feel a threat to ourselves and to what we honor.
Whether it be our family or our integrity.
This is more than being comfortable but this is much deeper. I have been comfortable sitting on the edge of a cliff, but I did not feel safe!


When we experience safety then we have freedom to do what is truly good.
Safety allows us to use the energy we have to do what is good and just, and NOT have to defend ourselves, or prove ourselves.
This drive or need for safety forms our relationships.
Husbands and wives for a marriage to thrive, must feel safe with each other.
Children develop better when they feel safe with the parents.
Friendships blossom with safety happens.

Even within the parish life, when there is safety between priest and people, a parish can flourish.


A challenge for our Church, our parish, this family...safety.
Will people find Our Lady of the Snows Parish, the Diocese of Reno, the Catholic Church a safe place?


Clearly Jesus calls us to create a safe place for people to know they are accepted and loved.
Jesus created a safe place for people to grow, to experience God’s love and to be transformed.
He goes to those who would be rejected by the so called “righteous” and announce to them “You are loved. You are a child of God”
He went to the sick, who were often branded as sinners, and healed them.
He also challenged the community to think and act differently towards others.

His parables reveal God just doesn’t wait for those who are lost or do not feel safe to wait to come to them, but goes in search of the lost, goes in search of those who feel rejected, those feel insecure.

When I first came to this diocese I attended a parish. It was a large one, with a dark interior, nobody greeted me, nobody welcomed me. The next time I went to Our Lady of Wisdom, light inside, small and people welcomed me, asked me to participate...that made all the difference.


Ministry and Mission calls us to help people find a safe place.
Ministry helps people to know they are accepted, they are loved, they have value.

Parish becomes a home for people in which they can grow in faith, grow in their understanding of God’s love for them. With this understanding that God’s love never ever is lost, they can allow themselves to grow in this love. Maybe shirk off this misconception that God punishes, that God is like us in our smallness of justice and compassion.
Parish needs to becomes a safe haven for people to be fed in word and in Sacrament.

This roots itself in our belief that all people are children of God, and no matter what they may or may have not done; no matter the circumstances of their lives, not matter...all deserve a chance for safety.

People who do not feel safe in turn do not welcome others.

It kills me when I hear of people treated coldly, who received no welcome.

And to be honest there have been times when I am not the most welcoming person, and it comes from a fear or my own selfishness. Something within me is out of harmony. See it is not the fault of the other, it is within me.

I think of the older son in the parable. His interior discord, his ego, his immaturity, his coldness or whatever it was, held him back from receiving his brother.
Whereas the Father, having nothing to fear, having only wholeness of peace, Shalom, he welcomed both.
Part of each of our journey as individuals and our collective journey as Catholics is to clean our houses, clean our interiors, so as to be ready to find those who are lost, so as to be ready to welcome those who are searching for a safe place.

Part of our journey is to know that darkness within, bring light to it, so as to welcome those who have been lost.

Each of us has been welcomed at some point, and have been made to feel safe.
And I suspect most of us have been rejected and turned away at some point too.


Which would we rather have others experience from us?
Which does the Father express through his Son?

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