How do we determine who gets the credit for impressive results or accomplishments? When an athlete performs at an extraordinary level, commentators talk about the long hours of practice that went into honing their skills. When an employee produces superior results, hopefully it is recognized and praised in their organization, and it is credited to their dedication and talent. When children behave notably well, their parents are praised for raising them right and teaching them discipline and other important habits.   Click on title for full column.

I spend a fair bit of my time talking with engaged couples about their hopes and dreams for their life together. These wonderful couples range from folks who were widowed after forty-plus years of marriage and are now remarrying, all the way down to couples where one or both spouses were born after the turn of the new millennium. It’s quite the spectrum of experience, and the conversations are always illuminating. But one of the things that these couples universally have to do is negotiate on how they will blend their habits and expectations together in marriage. What type of toothpaste, chunky vs. smooth peanut butter, and which side of the bed each party claims all have to be settled. Life and death matters, these. Similarly, we are at the beginning of an ongoing conversation in our family of parishes about how best to unify some of our practices and traditions to be more visibly one in Christ. And while none of you will ever convince me to switch back to smooth peanut butter, I’d like to use this column to introduce a liturgical music practice that we will be introducing across the board come Lent.  Click on title for full column.

I have no idea if it’s true or not, as I am not a doctor, but I have heard it said before that when broken bones heal, they grow back stronger in the place where they broke. Even if it’s not true (and I’m sure the medical professionals in the parish will educate me on this), it can certainly provide helpful inspiration for the moments when we face adversity and are overwhelmed by life’s challenges. We fall, we pick ourselves up, and we take another run at it; it’s the American way. It also emphasizes an important point that comes up throughout the scriptures, and that is that God’s power is made perfect in weakness.   Click on title for full column.

Today the Church celebrates the Second Sunday in ordinary time, which, confusingly, is actually the first Sunday we celebrate while wearing green vestments because of the Epiphany and Baptism of the Lord, but what can you do? Numerical oddities aside, this Sunday still provides us a great opportunity to set our hearts and minds on the mission of the Church and recommit to intentionally growing in our Faith this year. Click on title for full column.

The presence of Jesus Christ is being announced to the world—the Messiah is here! This is the core of the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord—encountering and announcing Jesus as the beloved Son of the Father: all for the salvation of souls and God’s glory. This is one of the reasons why I love prison ministry—I am blessed to see the announcement of Jesus’s mercy and love unfold before me. Being a witness to God working in and through souls, and, now I have been able to share it with all of you through two Pilgrimages of Mercy to Warren Correctional and the upcoming Serenelli Project visits (serenelliproject.org).  Click on title for full column.

Every great story revolves around change happening within a person or a group of people, or at least a revelation of who that person was all along. Without transformation and deep change a story might be amusing, entertaining, or many other things, but it will not impact us deeply, because it does not touch the deepest part of ourselves, that is, our identity. As we gather to celebrate Christmas as a parish family, we do so fundamentally because Christmas tells us, along with the story of Easter, who we are. Much of the world celebrates Christmas because of custom, and many of these customs are built on consumerist ideals. Others may celebrate Christmas out of a sense of obligation, either to their families or to their traditions. These things are fine in as far as they go, but they are but a sad shadow of what Christmas is meant to be.   Click on title for full column.

“Joseph, because he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly.” The often unquestioned assumption about this passage, because we live in the broken world of paternity tests on reality television, is that Joseph was suspicious of the Blessed Mother and wanted to get out of the situation entirely. That said, such is not the view of a great many of the Church Fathers, who look upon this “suspicion theory” with a skeptical eye, mostly because it seems unlikely that someone who knew Mary would immediately assume the worst about her. Every year I take up this crusade anew, trying to convince the 21st century Christian world that there is more to the story than Joseph being concerned about infidelity.  Click on title for full column.

When I was a Junior in college, I had the incredible opportunity to study in Rome for a semester, and it changed my perception of the universal church in many important ways. Click on title for full column.  

Every year on the Second Sunday of Advent the Church calls our attention to John the Baptist, the great forerunner of the Lord. I always find it to be a fruitful opportunity for meditation, as it pulls us away from some of the more commercialized scriptures which we traditionally associate with Christmas. We’ll get to the manger and the birth of the Prince of Peace soon enough, but reflecting on a man going out into the desert to wear a loincloth, eat bugs, and yell at people to repent always comes first. That’s the real Advent spirit for you. Click on title for full column.

One of my close friends from seminary, Fr. Peter Langenkamp, would routinely take umbrage at the pejorative usage of his name,specifically the phrase “to peter out.” I suspect he would also object to what is commonly called “the peter principle,” which is a work hierarchy theory that states that people rise to the level of their own incompetence in organizations. In short, employees are promoted for being good at their job without consideration of whether their skills translate to the next rung up the ladder. If that employee does happen to succeed in a new role, the process starts over again, until eventually they find themselves doing a job to which they’re not particularly suited.   Click on title for full column.

Happy Solemnity of Christ the King. This final Sunday helps us to reorient ourselves to Him, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord, enthroned on the Cross, is giving us the example of Christian discipleship. Everything we do is for Him, with Him, and in Him, all for the salvation of souls. He is our King, and for that we rejoice!   Click on title for full column.

Of all the minor inconveniences and little pains in life, I submit to you that losing an argument is the absolute worst. I imagine that some of you, being far more well-adjusted and less competitive than I am, do not agree with me on this. I imagine you are much happier for it. But it absolutely gets under my skin every time I am proven wrong about anything, big or small. Therefore, Jesus’ admonition to “not prepare your defense beforehand” and simply trust that Our Lord will give us the words we need in our moments of trial are both very convicting and nearly impossible to follow through on. If I no longer plan out what I am going to say in a disagreement or discussion, what am I supposed to think about on long drives or while brushing my teeth if not vanquishing my enemies in the glorious field of verbal sparring? Am I just supposed to live in the quiet presence of the Lord, like some kind of maniac?   Click on title for full column.

I have noticed a disconnect, in recent years, in the way I tend to talk about death and the way many others approach the same subject. I’ll get to the end of a story that I think is funny or charming, and notice that people are looking at me, not with smiles or laughter, but with grave concern, just because it involved me seeing someone die or dealing with the immediate aftermath of death. To them, it seems traumatic, but to me, it’s just another day in the life. So, as we begin the month of November, which we have traditionally set aside to pray for the repose of the souls of the dead, it’s a great opportunity to reflect on the tension that exists for us as a people who recognize the natural evil and pain that is death, and yet simultaneously place our hope in Jesus Christ and His victory over sin and death. Click on title for full column.

If you’re looking to have a bummer of a day, go look up statistics regarding religious observance in the United States, specifically in the Catholic Church. You can see a steep decline pretty much across the board, and some of the demographics staring us in the face are alarming. Much has been made of it in the lead up to Beacons of Light and ensuring that we are prepared to minister to the Church we actually live in, and not simply carry on as though nothing has changed. But to my mind, I am not as surprised that we have so few people compared to fifty years ago as I am that we still have as many people coming to Church as we do. That might sound harsh, but sometimes I look at the state of the Church in America and I see a shaky foundation that is built on a great many things but rarely focused on Christ. Click on title for full column.

I am a sucker for many things. I love videos of soldiers coming home and surprising their kids; I’ll always stop for a lemonade stand that kids are running; and military honors at the end of funerals always get me. Another phenomenon that has begun to pull on my heartstrings in recent years is the star athlete/performer/musician finally getting the long sought-after feather in their cap. Seeing a ballplayer perform incredibly well for years on a terrible team, and then finally get to ride off into the sunset with a World Series ring is one of the things that makes me believe in goodness in the world. It speaks to the communitarian nature of teamwork; one man does not a team make, and they won’t go very far without everyone working together towards the same goal.  Click on title for full column.

Saturday, October 15 is the feast day of St. Teresa of Jesus (or often referred to as Teresa of Avila). Through a roundabout manner, Our Lady of Guadalupe led me to Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Carmelite Spirituality. Carmel has been answering many questions of my soul. It has helped me to see how to walk the narrow path with our Lord. I still have a lot to learn, and I am thankful to follow wherever our Blessed Mother leads me.  In thanksgiving for all that Carmel has done for me and in honor of St. Teresa of Jesus’ feast day, I’d like to share some books that I am currently reading or have found fruitful (the list is in no particular order). Most of these are Carmel related, but not all. Any primary source Carmelite text, I recommend ICS Publications.   Click on title for full column.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I am a rule follower, but I would say that my motives in following rules is usually less than completely honorable. A significant chunk of why I try to follow practices and procedures is because I hope it will protect me in the long term if someone takes issue with what I did; it’s always helpful to be able to point at the rulebook and say that I did what I was supposed to do. So I wonder what the mental process was for the lepers who were cleansed in the Gospel today when they realized that they had been healed on their way to show the priests. On the one hand, how could they not go back and give thanks to Jesus for healing them miraculously? But then again, He was the one who told them to go and show themselves to the priests,so shouldn’t they follow His orders?   Click on title for full column.

Thank you!   The priests of the S-4 Family of Parishes would like to say thank you to all of you, our parishioners Click on title for full column

Fyodor Dostoevsky once wrote, “Man adapts to anything, the scoundrel,” and I have found that to be true on numerous levels. In terms of the difficulties we can overcome and the struggles we adapt to, the human spirit is remarkable in its ability to quickly go from a task or situation being unbearable to it being just part of the job. The first time I looked at a finance report after I became pastor, I almost had a panic attack and crumpled into a pile of indecision. Now, I skim them for three minutes before finance meetings start and feel more than prepared to discuss the minutia of where money in the parish is going. That speaks to the indomitability of the human spirit. Less savory is the way we quickly become accustomed to incredible blessings that we should never stop thanking God for, and soon enough take them completely for granted. I do my best to offer prayers of thanksgiving after Mass and after receiving Holy Communion, but I still often find myself rushing off after Mass to the next thing/meeting/crisis. To allow the sacred to seem mundane in our hearts is a true tragedy and one that we must constantly be on guard against.  Click on title for full column.

As some of you may know, the Catholic Church in the United States has recently entered into a multi-year Eucharistic revival aimed at reinvigorating our Faith in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. It is a great example of a core belief of the Church that we should reflect on every day but that can also use a tune-up every so often. Just as we should seek to enter more deeply into a life of prayer each day, it does us good to go on a retreat in order to get an additional boost.   Click on title for full column.