Last week, we began the year-long celebration of our 75th Anniversary. You will have noticed the large banners announcing our jubilee year and perhaps have even seen the ‘Word of the Month’ in a classroom or meeting room at the parish. Some of you might have begun a journal or begun some type of service to meet our 75,000 hour goal. Our Anniversary Committee is working very hard on planning events to mark this anniversary; a volunteer appreciation dinner, a parish picnic, steak dinner, wine tasting and gala dinner dance along with our other parish celebrations and parties. All of these events are being planned in order to highlight, honor and celebrate the 75 years of ministry, faith formation, education and service that continues in our present community of faith.

The real focus of our anniversary celebration and these many activities and events is a renewal of the spirit that makes St. Margaret Mary so special. Since our founding, the parish has been a place of welcome, solace, inspiration and enthusiasm. The first Promise of the Sacred Heart is “I will give them all the Graces necessary for their state of life.” “Grace” is not just the prayer that we say before meals. Grace is both the experience of God’s presence and the response to that presence. Grace is not something that can be quantified but only experienced. Some people have an erroneous image of grace as being something like fairy dust, sprinkled by God on deserving individuals. In reality, grace is accessible to everyone and is the ever-present reality of God’s love for us. The powerful witness of Margaret Mary Alacoque to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is an invitation to open ourselves up to that grace so that all that we do reflects God’s love. Jesus says that the whole law and prophets depend on the commandments to love God and to love our neighbor. May we have the graces necessary to respond to God’s love by reflecting it back to Him and our on our neighbors.

Many of you will remember this slogan from the Nike advertising campaign. The message from the campaign was for people to take action, run, walk, dance, jump, move, work out, play, get out and get going. Just Do It! I am sure many parents, coaches, directors and teachers have used the same words at various decibels, hoping to inspire/cajole/threaten action, commitment and performance.

No matter how many slogans, inspirational speeches, even threats are hurled at us, any action made or taken can only come from a person's conscious decision to move. A slogan is just a bunch of words unless someone listens and takes action. That first step and whatever follows begins with a decision to go on. Our response to the Gospel is like that; we make a conscious decision to put the Gospel into action or not. In today's Gospel, Jesus tells the story of two sons responding to their father. One says he will do what the father wishes and then does nothing, the other says he will not do it but changes his mind and does. Our actions, much more than our words, define who we are, especially who we are as sons and daughters of our gracious God.

Beginning this October 16, the Feast of St. Margaret Mary, our parish enters a year of celebration for our 75th anniversary. It is truly a landmark in the life of our community in which we will be looking back at the history of the parish. Our "outreach committee" has been working on publishing stories of our history both in the bulletin and in a parish calendar for our jubilee year. You will see some "St. Margaret Mary trivia" in the bulletin over the year that some of you will remember and others will find interesting to know. This history of our parish is a result of the decisions of many people, our founding families, to bring together the community that is now St. Margaret Mary. This history is a living history… it did not end with Fr. Hegarty or any of our other pastors but continues with us and our decisions that we make today to move forward as a pilgrim community of faith. As part of our celebration, a challenge is being made to all of us to make or renew our decision to service in our Church and Community. An old saying states that we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us. Truly, we stand on the decisions on which our founders acted and, looking to the future act on our own decisions today. May our decisions be ones for service, hospitality and acts of love. Just do it!