Reflections

I am currently in the fourth year of my assignment to Wrangell/Petersburg. By now I suppose many people know that prior to becoming a Roman Catholic priest, I worked for 30-years as a police officer in Washington state. My grandfather was an officer and his son, my uncle, was a deputy and was killed by a gunman – ambushed on Easter Sunday, 1949, three years before I was born. I have a brother who recently retired after 32 years in law enforcement and I have a few cousins in L.E. For the most part, other than my uncle, we all got through it with only some minor scrapes and bruises. We are all Catholics and service to others has always been our calling.

Have you ever considered the role of God and the spiritual life in our American police? Did you know that our police officers “work for God?” St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans speaks to this: “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God . . . For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good . . .” (Romans 13:1-6 – NIV).

This, for some, is kind of hard to swallow, isn’t it? But let us consider the human condition and the call all of us have to servanthood or, loving thy neighbor. Mother Teresa, probably the modern world’s most well-known saint said, “I am but a pencil in the hand of God.” St. Francis starts his famous prayer for peace, “Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace.”

This, and who we are called to be, is something the modern mind does not seem to reflect on much anymore. So many of us are long past due in our obligation to renew our minds. Maybe it’s time we really stop, think, and ask ourselves; “Who am I? Why did God make me? Am I being the servant God has called me to be?” Or am I just one of the many, lukewarm, spiritual zombies walking aimlessly through our God-given life trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do?

Paul’s letter to the Romans speaks to this: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12:2 – NIV). Don’t take Paul’s reproval lightly.

I wonder what would have happened to my Uncle Gilbert if the person who shot and killed him on Resurrection Day, had taken the time to stop, think, and renew his mind in Christ long before going berserk and killing so many police officers on that holiest of days.

It is time for all of us, every single one of us, to quit conforming our thinking process to the pattern of today’s world and start the God-ordained process of renewing our minds in Jesus Christ. Playing Russian roulette with our souls and the souls God has entrusted to us must stop.

Proverbs 3:5 states it very clearly: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and rely not on your own thinking.” Please, consider consecrating your life and your will to God through Jesus Christ and let us pray as he taught us: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy WILL be done.

Pray for our law enforcement – They are here to serve.

Fr. Steve Gallagher

St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church