Our Lady of the Valley Parish, Hornell

09/04/2026

09/04/2026

Friday, September 4, 2026

Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

Luke 5:33–39
Friends, in today’s Gospel, people ask Jesus why he doesn’t encourage fasting among his followers. Jesus’s answer is wonderful: “Can you make the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?” (That’s a typically Jewish style, by the way, answering a question with another question.)

This great image of the wedding feast comes up frequently in the New Testament, most obviously in the wedding feast at Cana narrative. And it is echoed in the tradition. Jesus is the wedding of heaven and earth, the marriage of divinity and humanity; he is the bridegroom and the Church is the bride. In him, the most intimate union is achieved between God and the world.

Could you imagine people fasting at a wedding banquet? Could you imagine going into an elegant room with your fellow guests and being served bread and water? It would be ridiculous! The mark of the Christian dispensation is joy. Exuberance. Delight. God and the world have come together. What could be better news?

Word on Fire Catholic Ministries

09/03/2026

09/03/2026

Thursday, September 3, 2026

Memorial of Saint Gregory the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church

Luke 5:1–11

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus climbs into Peter’s boat without asking permission. He simply commandeers this vessel that is central to the fisherman’s life and commences to give orders. This represents something of enormous moment: the invasion of grace.

Though God respects our relative independence, he is not the least bit content to leave us in a “natural” state. Instead, he wants to live in us, to become the Lord of our lives, moving into our minds, wills, bodies, imaginations, nerves, and bones.

This commandeering of nature by grace does not involve the compromising of nature but rather its perfection and elevation. When Jesus moves into the house of the soul, the powers of the soul are heightened and properly directed; when Jesus commands the boat of the natural human life, that life is preserved, strengthened, and given a new orientation.

This is signaled symbolically by the Lord’s directive to put out into the deep water. On our own, we can know and will within a very narrow range, seeking those goods and truths that appear within the horizon of our natural consciousness, but when grace invades us, we are enticed into far deeper waters.

Word on Fire Catholic Ministries

09/02/2026

Wednesday, September 2, 2026

Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

Luke 4:38–44
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus declares his mission: “I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God, because for this purpose I have been sent.” And he continues to pursue his mission among us in our efforts to do the work of evangelization.

Do we need evangelization? The statistics couldn’t be clearer. Did you know that the fastest-growing category in polls of religious affiliation is “none”? And did you know that there are far more nones than Catholics in this country?

So, Catholics cannot avoid the demand of evangelization, proclaiming the faith. Vatican II couldn’t be clearer on this score, seeing the Church itself as nothing but a vehicle for evangelization: It’s not so much the case that the Church has a mission, but rather that a mission has the Church.

St. Paul VI and St. John Paul II made this idea central to their teaching. In fact, John Paul famously called for a new evangelization. Bringing people to Christ is not one work among many; rather, it is the central work of the Church, that around which everything else that we do revolves.

Word on Fire Catholic Ministries

09/01/2026

Tuesday, September 1, 2026

Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

Luke 4:31–37
Friends, today’s Gospel reports that Jesus came to Capernaum, entered the synagogue on a sabbath, and began to teach. So far, so ordinary. Any bar-mitzvahed adult had the privilege of speaking in synagogue and commenting on the Scripture.

But then it says that the people “were astonished at his teaching because he spoke with authority.” Once again, we’d probably pass over this rather quickly, but it meant the world to a first-century Jew. The ordinary teachers would have appealed to their own teachers and authorities, and finally to Moses and the Torah, which were unassailable.

The Sermon on the Mount gives a wonderful example of Jesus’s authoritative teaching. He appears as the new Moses. Like Moses, he goes up on a mountain, and like Moses, he brings down a kind of new law. But here the comparisons get strained, for Jesus does something that even Moses could never do: He claims authority over the Torah itself. “You have heard it said . . . but I say.”

What he means is that they have heard it said in the Torah! And this was the authority beyond which there was no appeal. That’s why the people “were astonished at his teaching.”

Word on Fire Catholic Ministries

08/31/2026

While we know that our parish just recently sponsored a food collection drive to benefit CCSL Food Pantry in Hornell, we are sharing this post in the hopes that area businesses, merchants, organizations, and groups will see it and consider sponsoring a Bag of Hope to help the less fortunate in the Hornell and surrounding areas. 🙏

🎒 Have You Heard About BAGS OF HOPE? 💙

As the need for assistance continues to grow across our communities, Catholic Charities Steuben/Livingston launched Bags of Hope in both Livingston and Steuben Counties to help support local families and individuals facing hardship.

We’re looking for businesses, churches, schools, community groups, organizations, and individuals to partner with us by hosting a Bags of Hope donation drive!

How does it work?
✔️ We provide a specific, itemized list of needed items for clients.
✔️ At any given time, there may be 2–4 different bag options to choose from.
✔️ Your group chooses a list and collects items over a 2–4 week period.
✔️ Fill as many Bags of Hope as you’d like!
✔️ Once complete, arrangements can be made to drop off donations at one of our offices or have them picked up.

How do you learn more? Please contact Mary Jo Strong at [email protected] for more information!