Letter to Daily Record Editor, 10/2/2011

(Published in the Daily Record, November 7, 2011.  The parts in brackets were omitted or changed slightly.)

Editor, Daily Record
Dear Sir or Madam:

I read with interest your article of September 28[, 2011,] regarding the financial problems of St. Therese Roman Catholic Church in Roxbury[, New Jersey]. 

Several thoughts come to mind, possibly you’ve heard them before.  One idea is that the church which Jesus Christ founded on this His Father’s good earth is one, holy, catholic and apostolic and run by human beings.  We may recall that Jesus, God the Father’s Son, was a human being. 

The thing is that the church is a functioning legal entity, which must abide by the laws of man, including tax laws, corporate laws, real estate laws, etc.  And so to insure fiscal responsibility, and to comply with human being[s] laws, a budget is prepared and submitted each year to the Diocese. 

Even in your church, you may be experiencing fiscal problems because of economic hardships, major expenses being incurred (new roof, new church building to replace old, outdated, non-repairable building), lack of new parishioners, and sometimes even finding church members − human beings − who are wrongfully taking money from the church collection and using it for themselves. 

The thing is no man answers to any other man, only to God.  And how do human beings answer to God?  All human beings have souls, which give life to the human beings’ body.  When the human being’s body dies, the soul goes home to Jesus in God’s Heaven.  Jesus judges the soul, which has understanding and free will.  But how does Jesus judge the soul?  He uses the Ten Commandments, [which He affirmed,] and tightened up a bit, e.g., adultery, while He was living on the earth.

The pastor of a church, regardless of religious affiliation (and souls are not born with religious affiliations, proclivities or aberrations), is a human being who tries in his or her own way to become a part of the lives of those human beings who make up that parish.  Let us not judge any wrongdoings we may observe as a result of their stewardship, and push those human beings away from us.  We may recall Judas Iscariot, when he realized the enormity of his act of betrayal of Jesus, ran from all human beings, for there was no one who might have shown him compassion.

The Church of St. Therese really needs peaceful closure, for Father Davis is a human being, and was [a] steward of the parish for many years.  [And we may recall, that only]  [Only] Jesus may judge human beings [and only on an individual basis].  Jesus does not broadcast an individual human being’s sins.  What is sin?  Sin is an offense against God.  How do we offend God?  By breaking His Ten Commandments.  And so a sinner is one who has broken God’s Commandments.

What I’m trying to say is that the past is done, and it cannot be changed or undone, so we must leave it to His mercy and ask that He use all for His good; and the future we may not know, so we must leave it to His Divine Providence; which leaves us in the present time, which is where Jesus is, for He is Yahweh, I Am, for He and His Father are as one.

[All Souls Home To Heaven!!!  (See also http://prayerclothes.blogspot.com)]

Sincerely yours,