(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: https://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Mass-Blog-for-the-25th-Sunday-in-Ordinary-Time-2025.mp3)
On this last day of summer, many of us can look back joyfully on a vacation we took with family and friends. We may even fall back on the peace it left within us when we need some warmth to ward off a worldly chill. One unsung vacation spot on a Lake Erie island offers the opportunity to harvest such a comforting memory.
In a shady nook off Kelley’s Island’s main road is a shrine to Mary. The Island’s P.R. managers didn’t bother putting it on their maps highlighting the many opportunities to eat, drink and buy happiness. This site has been quietly managed since 1948 by a family wishing to model the Marian grotto in Lourdes, France. Those in need of its peace tend to be drawn instinctively to the site as they near it.
As they approach it they’ll see the written prayers of other vacationers strewn on the ground around Mary’s statue. These are the thoughts of fellow travelers burdened by carrying life’s baggage wherever they go. This shrine is an opportunity to offload some of it.
In this Sunday’s reading from Paul’s first letter to Timothy (1 Timothy 2:1-8), the author seems to encourage our finding such places of solace.
I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity. This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth. For there is one God.
This shrine has occasionally been the target of vandals who’ve desecrated it and robbed others of the peace it offers. This is a sin not only of thievery but of devaluation. They fix their scales so that not only do they cheat the poor in spirit of this site’s riches, but they deprive even themselves of the opportunity to enjoy the delicacy of its “end-of-summer fruit.”
In Sunday’s first reading (Amos 8:4-7), the prophet Amos tells us how this kind of sin is weighed on God’s judgment scale:
Hear this, you who trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land! … The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Never will I forget a thing they have done!
Sunday’s gospel reading testifies to the truth of that statement as God’s Son explains the moral of his parable about the dishonest steward who was caught cheating others—including his own boss (Luke 16:1-13). Jesus even gives this character (and many of us) a backhanded compliment.
The children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
Those are words of warning to anyone depriving themselves or others of this world’s true wealth: mutual trust and respect. Once their own cache of dishonest wealth is depleted, such a person may still have time to grow the empathy needed to appreciate Godly values and share those riches with others.
One such empath equipped this shrine with a make-believe communication device to encourage such sharing. This “Wind Phone” was designed to encourage other poor spirits to insert their written prayers into it in payment for some kind of answer. Prayer is the currency God values above all other human possessions. Visitors are free to read them, add their own, and let God respond in some way. Maybe through each visitor.
This site’s beauty and tree-filtered sunshine create a holy light powerful enough to make even nonbelieving visitors feel they’re part of a network empowered to deliver God’s answers to prayers.
–Tom Andel
Great work again Tom! This is a strong reminder of how we are to conduct our affairs and how to aid others who have chosen a different path!
After a week of horrific headlines threatening the strongest faith, we need each other’s help more than ever, Mike. Thanks for the example you set.
In Bavaria, Austria and northern Italy, shrines like this abound and are commonplace. They provide valuable reminders of what matters most, in a world the focuses mostly on what matters least. Sadly, the life of prayer and worship in these areas that once went out of its way (as evidenced by all these roadside shrines) has declined dramatically as seen by Mass attendance.
The world continues to charm people into seeking the gratification of the short term. At its worst it seeks to destroy the voices of faith and reason, and as we’ve seen last week it sometimes succeeds.
Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Heaven help us!
Home is where the heart is, Thomas. The further away our heart is from God at home, the more remote we make ourselves wherever we go. God will always be everywhere but inaccessible while our heart is nowhere.