Dear Parishioners and Visitors,
He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body.
~St. Paul to the Philippians
Parable of a Water Beetle is a short reflection of transformation written by Norman Vincent Peale about the famous motion-picture producer Cecil B. DeMille.
When faced with problems, Cecil B. DeMille often went off by himself to have time to think. One such time, he took his canoe out on a lake in Maine. As he came back to the shoreline he noticed the shallow water was loaded with water beetles. One of the beetles came to the surface and crawled slowly up the side of the canoe. Reaching the top, it grasped the side of the boat and died. Hours went by as DeMille concentrated on his own issues. He happened to look at the lifeless, dry, brittle shell of the beetle. It slowly split open and there emerged from it a new form – – a dragonfly which took to the air flashing with remarkable color in the sunlight. Later when DeMille related the story to others, he concluded with a very penetrating question. “Would the great Creator of the universe do that for a water beetle and not for a human being?”
Next weekend we celebrate our Memorial Mass on Sunday, November 1 at the 10:30 a.m. Mass. We share a Mass of Remembrance for 27 families who have lost a loved one this year. There is no doubt that we experience grief in many different ways, and this grief ebbs and flows like all things in life do. This is the perfect time of year for this celebration of life. Consider the life cycle of a tree. Most lose their leaves in this season and have bare branches in winter’s death. But then they blossom into glorious shades of green each spring and burst to full out blazing beauty in the fall only to drop to the ground again to winter’s death. The falling and dying leaves nourish the soil which remarkably brings “new life” again in the spring. I believe it is one of God’s ways of offering us a visible sign of how we too will be transformed into new life with Christ one day.
May God bless you all with His peace,
Gloria Nolan,
Pastoral Minister