Reflection for the 22 Sunday of Ordinary time, week beginning 29 August 2021.
On this Sunday, we stand on the threshold of the ending of the principal holiday month of August.
September’s beginning is this Wednesday – the month when so much starts up again, with the dawn of the new school year.
School closures have been an ongoing, predominant feature of the 18 months of the pandemic. (Even now, before the school year opens, there has been a hint of it opening a week later, so that Covid-testing etc. can be put in place).
We may even be able to justifiably claim that if a school year was allowed to return to genuine normality, so much else in our day-to-day lives would “normalize” with it.
On an altogether different point, surely we can expect to witness soon the restoration of the Sunday obligation to attend Mass!
“Crowds” have been permitted to attend sporting events and music festivals. These have led to a measure of new Covid cases.
Where, we might well ask, is the evidence for similar such cases having resulted from practising Catholics’ regular attendance at Sunday Mass?
In all our parishes, there will be people absenting themselves from Sunday Mass, but turning up in “the market place” only too regularly.
We are at our very safest in the House of God. Moreover, have we not noticed how various lines, in the prayers of the Mass, point straight to the present pandemic predicament and offer heavenly support?
Good Shepherd Catholic Church 