From the Pastor's Desk - July 26, 2026

Dear St. Martin’s Parishioners,

The opening prayer of the Mass, which follows the Gloria on Sundays, is called the Collect, because the priest collects or gathers the prayers of the congregation as he addresses God the Father. If you pay close attention, the priest pauses before he starts the prayer, because the brief silence allows him to gather into his own prayer the prayers of the congregation. This Sunday’s Collect reads in part, “grant that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may use the good things that pass in such a way as to hold fast even now to those that ever endure”.

This prayer expresses an important part of the spiritual life. First, everything that God created is good, and that is why the prayer explicitly states as much. We are immediately reminded, though, that these good things will pass. Jesus says in the gospels, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven” (Mt. 6:19-20). How do we use the good things in creation appropriately? We must receive them in a spirit of gratitude, realizing that they are gifts from God. That is the first part of the answer, but after our response of gratitude we must offer them back to God in sacrifice and blessing. In that way these gifts of God—“the good things that pass”—become means of communion with God. This summarizes the whole action of the Mass, where we make an offering to God of the bread and wine, which are then transformed into our means of communion with God in the Eucharist.

St. Augustine wrote about the good things that pass and the eternal goods that endure many centuries ago. He said that we should “use” created goods as instruments to lead us to God, but that God alone we should “enjoy.” When he says we should enjoy God as opposed to using him like we do the things of creation, he means that we should love God for no other reason than that he is God. God alone we should love for his own sake but realize that everything and everyone else we should love for the sake of God.

In Christ,

Fr. Dave