Our Families & Our Faith

A few months ago, I was looking through the online archives of our diocesan newspaper The Arkansas Catholic – actually, The Guardian, as it used to be called. I can’t remember exactly what I was looking for, but I stumbled upon the obituary of Fr. Joseph Schlatterer. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, he was the pastor of this parish in the early part of the twentieth century. His grave is in the middle of our parish cemetery, under the big cross; next year will be the 100th anniversary of his death. Reading through his obituary, I got a little bit of a sense of this man who served our parish a century ago. He was born in Germany and ordained a priest there, eventually coming to Arkansas to serve the German immigrants who worked along the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Eventually, he made his way to the Grand Prairie and became pastor here at Holy Rosary. For brevity's sake, I'll leave it there, but suffice to say I was impressed and moved really by what I learned in Fr. Schlatterer’s obituary. I came away not only with a greater understanding of our parish’s history, but also with a deeper love for our community now and a deeper sense of commitment as your pastor. 

Remembering the origins of something can help us better understand our realities today. That’s an important thing to keep in mind, especially as we celebrate our parish feast day today. As the Catholic community in Stuttgart, we very much share in and build upon those who came before us, including Fr. Schlatterer and the community he served. What we do and who we are is rooted in what they began; and for those who will come after us, our children and grandchildren, and future generations, they will be shaped by what we do and how well we live out our faith now. Every year, as we celebrate the community of faith that we are, we also have an eye toward history – an eye toward the past, grateful for the witness of those who came before us, and an eye to the future, aware of the responsibility we have to provide them a good foundation and example.

Fr. Joseph Schlatterer, b. 1853, Baden, Germany; d. 1922, Stuttgart, Arkansas

All of this resonates well with what we hear in today’s Gospel. The Pharisees ask Jesus a question about divorce, a complicated issue both then and now. They ask the question intending to put Jesus in a tight spot, but instead of answering them directly, Jesus reminds them about the more fundamental reality of marriage and what God’s plan for it is. We hear about this more in the reading from Genesis. Among all of God’s creation – the earth and the heavens, all the creatures in them – God declares all of them to be “good.” The only thing that is “not good” is that the man is alone. And so God creates woman, not as a secondary human being but as man’s complement and equal. Together, they complete the picture of what human beings are, and in their union as husband and wife, and their love bearing fruit in their children, we see the plan of God realized: the fullness of life and love in this world, and a reflection of his own life and love for the world to come.

It goes without saying how important all of these realities remain for us today: marriage, family, human life and love. With the exception of our love for God, they are what we care most about, and for that reason they can be the source of both great joy but also at times difficulty and sorrow. But it’s important to remember these are not just merely human realities; they are also given to us by God, and so because they are rooted in our faith, it must be our faith that shapes how we live them out. The foundation of our parish – past, present, and future – is the family and family life: the married love of spouses, the relationships between parents and children, and grandparents and children, and also the relationships of family to family, especially here when we come together as the Body of Christ. In all of these relationships, the choices we make in how we live affect the larger whole – the way that we as a community proclaim the Gospel to the world around us.

If our Catholic faith shapes the parameters for how we live family life, then it also certainly helps us to do that as well. By living out our faith, by practicing it in the way that God calls us to, we also receive his grace – the gift of his love to strengthen us in our relationships. We receive that grace especially here at Mass; how important it is that we adults make sure to always bring our families to Mass every week, making sure that no other activity takes priority over the responsibility we have to bring our children to to Jesus, as he exhorts us in the Gospel today. We receive his grace in all of the sacraments, and indeed every time that we pray, as a parish community and as individual families. We also receive it via the help and intercession of others. Today we invoke the help of our patroness, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and also her spouse St. Joseph, whom we celebrate with the universal Church in this Year of St. Joseph. Mary and Joseph knew the realities of family life, its joys and its sorrows, including the difficulties of marriage and parenthood. Yet they also lived out those realities according to God’s plan and via God’s grace. They can help us to do the same.

The Baptism (c. 1940) by Carlos Reis

We also can look to the example of those who came before us who specifically provided us with the witness of faith: previous pastors, like Msgr. Janesko whom many of you remember, or Fr. Schlatterer whom I mentioned earlier; perhaps catechists and teachers who taught and formed us; and maybe especially our parents and our grandparents and other family members who valued their faith above all else, who gave us an example of how to live it out, and in doing so laid the spiritual foundation for our parish that we continue to build upon. We remember these people, and by looking to their example for strength and inspiration, God helps us to continue what they started so that we can hand on to future generations what they handed on to us.

Friends, on this our parish feast day, let us together pray for God’s blessings: for our parish, for our marriages and our families, for all of our relationships. In all of these earthly realities, may God come to aid us, helping us by his grace to live out his plan for our lives and our loves, so that through them we might fulfill his purpose in this life and be prepared for the life to come. It is ultimately there, in that heavenly family, that we will find the happiness of which the joys of this life are only a glimpse. May our Blessed Mother and St. Joseph guide us safely there. Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, pray for us!