Tomorrow?

I, as many people do, have a “Signature” on my emails.

It is a quote, from Scripture. One that I enjoy very, very much. It speaks tons to me. It is a great reminder for me.

It is from Matthew. 6:34 to be exact:

Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I worry. A lot. About everything and about nothing. About that which I have control over and that which I have absolutely no control whatsoever.

It is part of my charm 😉

Well, at my Parish, St. Joseph the Worker, we are very Blessed to have an Amazing Bible Study Class facilitated by, an individual that I call a walking encyclopaedia; for those of you that do not know what an Encyclopaedia is, way back in the day, before Google, we used to have to go to libraries and do research in BOOKS! Some of these reference books included encyclopaedias. THink of it as Wikipedia but in a whole set of books, A – Z, with all the information on countries, inventions, people, wars, and all the things that you can imagine, it was all there, in a set of books! Crazy, huh.

So, this facilitator, like I said is like a walking Encyclopaedia. He knows so much about scripture, that our Pastor, Fr. Mario, even asks him for his opinion and take on things!

This past year, we “made” our own Bibles.

I realize that the above sentence may have caused your jaws to drop to the floor or for a gasp to emit from your mouths…but trust me, it is not what you think.

What we did was take the NRSV Bible, add a Companion at the end, and have our Parish’s Logo printed on the front.

Not our Bible, this is just to provide you with a visual.

Why?

Because at our Parish, we are going back to Scripture.

Father has removed all the Missals and replaced them with the Bible and the Companion. Thus, Parishioners are forced to read from their Bibles! What a Thought!

And, as I said, there is a Companion. It is composed of different sections. You will find a How to Use the Bible. Though completely unnecessary, I know, because ALL Catholic Christians know their Bibles inside and out, but this was done for those that, you know, may need a way of explaining it to others. 😉

One can also find different Examinations of Conscience. Based on the Commandments and the Beatitudes for Adults, Youth and Children.

One can find a section just on the Parables.

One can find a section on Devotionals and Prayers.

One can even find a Quick, Self-Help Section. This consists of big general topics like Self-Esteem, Lust, Sex, Divorce, Homosexuality and many, many other big topics. Underneath these topics you will find Scripture passages that will Nourish, Help and Guide you.

One can find a rich array of resources for the Mass, for Bible Study, and Bible Facts.

One can find many, many more riches in this Companion. But do not fret, you do not have to be a Parishioner to be able to see these valuable objects. Father had some Leather-bound ones made that people can buy for a mere $ 40.00!

They have gold trim, leather-bound, large 13 pt. font, and the companion at the end.

Now, believe it or not, this post is not to sell you a Bible, though if you want one, there are still a few left…

No, this post’s intention is to share with you what occurred when I sent an email to the Walking Encyclopaedia.

I emailed him and of course my Scriptural Passage was at the bottom of my message.

Well, our Walking Encyclopaedia did not address why I was emailing, but, he instead sent me the following:

If we look closely to Jesus’ message, given through Matthew, there is no tomorrow. We are in the presence of our Lord all the time.

We have learned to think about tomorrow because of our imperfection of being humans. Our body has to rest, the night comes, the light of our sun disappears and we think about tomorrow. (Your birthday is every day and that includes your Valentine, anniversaries etc.)

God never rests and the sun will work for a few billion years.

If we are in union with Jesus, our Spirit breathes the eternal oxygen, receives that bread and water that does not make it thirst or hungry forever.

Why do we have to worry if we know that our Lord is with us always?

1/3 of the Canadian population is depressed (according to Stat Canada) and I am surprised that it is only a third. They have a distorted view of Jesus, do not know His teachings and have never read the Bible.

Knowing our Lord intimately makes us cope with any situation because we focus on the final destination of our earthly life; that is the eternal one where we will be facing other more important tasks that do not include our body.

Yet we, on earth, do all for the body and almost nothing for our spirit. We have to ask before we put the body to rest at night what is that which we have done to enrich our spirit in the human day of existence.