Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
This week I continue to reflect with you on our Commitment Guide and Workbook and the four pillars or dimensions of our life at Divine Savior Church and as followers of Jesus Christ. The four pillars, as you will recall, are: we believe, we pray, we serve, and we support. I have already written and spoken about the need to make deliberate commitments about believing (how will we grow in our knowledge of faith, be more attached to it, develop our love of it), about praying (how will we pray this coming year, what time will we devote to it, what is our daily commitment to prayer) and about serving (how will we serve others in the pattern of Jesus, where will this service take place in our families, our workplace, community, in our parish). In this article, I will offer some considerations of the fourth pillar or dimension: supporting.
A while back (actually, a good while back when I was more connected to popular music), there was a song that still gets played—Lean on Me. It is a song about love and friendship. The song’s core image is someone leaning on or finding support in a loving friend. In fact, that image describes so much of what real and deep friendship is about—the reliability of a friend in good times and in bad. We support each other because we love each other. Similarly, the poet John Ciardi once described a good marriage as an arch—two weaknesses leaning into each other and forming a strong support. Ask couples who have been married for a long time, and they will tell you that long after the romance of a honeymoon what lasts is mutual, loving support.
Our life of discipleship and our life together in the parish offer many possibilities to give and receive support. I marvel at the ways that I have seen people support each other through the hard times of illness and death and the grieving process that follows. I am delighted when I see adults—and not just family members—support our young people as they prepare to celebrate the sacraments. This past year I have been especially edified to see the outreach of support extend beyond the confines of the parish—for pro-life causes, such as our baby bottle campaign, for our troops overseas with the collection of toiletries and other items, for our sharing parish of Saint Eulalia’s.
In addition to the examples of personal support that I have mentioned, parish life and discipleship involve financial support. We can and ought to use wisely the financial resources that we have earned and that have been entrusted to us to support our families, our community, those in need, and our church.
Continued
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