This weekend we begin our Catholic Services Appeal (CSA) — the annual appeal that sustains our Diocese in Northern Wisconsin.

• St. Joseph Parish Goal: $65,127

• St. Ann Parish Goal: $15,973
  (We met our goals last year, and with your help, we can do it again!)

But this isn’t just about meeting a financial goal. The true call is to grow in Prayerful Generosity:

• Prayerful — Jesus prayed for us and intercedes for us.

• Generous — Jesus gave his life for us.

Why Support the CSA?

• Funds the education and formation of seminarians (7 this year, most in 16 years, at $50,000 per seminarian annually).

• Brings international priests to serve our parishes (currently 26 of our 42 active priests are international).

• Supports youth faith experiences (Extreme Faith Camp, Totus Tuus, March for Life, retreats).

• Offers adult retreats and formation.

• Provides essential administrative and legal guidance for parishes.

• Strengthens Catholic schools, including St. Francis Solanus in our cluster.

How to Give

• Use CSA envelopes mailed to you or found at church entrances/bulletins. Return in the collection, bring to the parish office, or mail directly.

• Give online at haywardcatholic.org under the Give tab, designating the 2025–2026 CSA for St. Joseph or St. Ann.

Any amount above our goal comes back to our parishes!

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Challenge: Grow in Prayerful Generosity. Give more this year than last — and pray for the causes you support. In doing so, we become more like Jesus.

Retirement: For Me or For God? 

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 08/03/25

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells of a wealthy man who stored up riches for himself, only to be called a fool by God—not for working hard, but for forgetting eternity. He lived as though his future belonged to him, not to God.

This challenges us in a culture that views retirement as finally doing what we want. The Christian question is different: Is retirement about me, or is it about God and others?

• Ecclesiastes reminds us that work without God is vanity.

• St. Paul urges us to “seek what is above” and put on Christ.

Retirement, then, isn’t the reward for decades of labor. It’s a new vocation—a fresh opportunity to serve, love, and live for God more freely. The Christian mission never retires.

Key Questions:

• Am I investing my time, resources, and energy in what matters to God?

• Am I growing as His disciple and helping others come to Him?

True retirement is not self-indulgence, but self-gift. Not vanity, but eternal value. Every day, even in small hidden moments, we are called to glorify God and bring souls to Him.

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (07/13/25) Wanting to Want “All”

In this episode, we reflect on Jesus’ call to love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind—a total, undivided love. We ask the honest question: Do I really love God with all, or just a lot, a majority, or maybe only some? This homily challenges us to move from partial devotion to wholehearted surrender, inviting us to desire a deeper, fuller love for God that shapes every part of our lives.

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time | 07/06/25

This week, we reflect on the meaning of freedom—not just as Americans celebrating Independence Day, but as Christians sent into the world. True freedom isn’t about doing whatever we want; it’s the gift of choosing love, sacrifice, and God’s will. In the Gospel, Jesus sends out seventy-two disciples two by two—not alone, but united in mission and reliant on God’s grace. Their joy comes not from their own accomplishments but from seeing what God did through them. As we cherish our country’s liberty, we’re reminded that freedom without virtue can lead us astray. Christian freedom is always “freedom for”—for holiness, justice, and love of neighbor. This episode challenges us to step out of comfort zones and use our freedom to transform the world for Christ.

7th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jesus calls us to be transformed, to be renewed in mind and action, to look and act differently than others normally do: this theme runs through all of our readings.  Yes, we are called to be disciples of Jesus, but our mission is more than just following Jesus as a disciple.  Jesus’ last words on this earth before He ascended into heaven give us our mission: “Go and make disciples”.  So we are called to not only be disciples, but missionary disciples, reaching out genuinely and in faith to others that the Lord puts in our path so that we can fulfill the mission Jesus entrusted to us: to make disciples!  The movement from a disciple to a missionary disciple is slight, but it’s also powerful…and it makes all the difference!

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

What does our world need?  Whom does God seek?  Not the “perfect” or the “sinless”, but the willing!   No matter how unworthy we are, He calls us, and when we willingly say “yes,” He cleanses us, and He strengthens us to go on whatever mission He has planned for us.

This week, let’s be the ones whom God seeks and whom our world needs: the willing ones.  “Here I am, Lord. Send me.”

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jesus asks Bartimaeus today, “What do you want me to do for you?”  Bartimaeus’s request is granted, he receives his sight, and he follows Jesus on the way.  Being a disciple of Jesus is being in a relationship with Jesus, and a relationship is a two-way street.  When Jesus asks us that question, we are called to respond from the depths of our heart with what we really, really want Jesus to do for us.  But as now-country artist Jelly Roll sings: do we only talk to God when we need a favor?  Are we sometimes one sided or overly self-focused in our interactions with God?  As disciples of Jesus, in a relationship with Him that is a two-way street, do we also ask the question often and frequently, “God, what do You want me to do for You?”

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Life in a fallen world brings us all plenty of suffering, and our readings today take up that theme of suffering.  Our sufferings – wether mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, or some combination thereof – have varying levels, but the key to all of it is that I have a choice in the midst of my suffering, I can choose to respond in one of two ways: one way is the common response to suffering, the other way was modeled by Jesus in His suffering. Which one will we choose to confront our sufferings today?

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

The famous architect Antoni Gaudi designed the incredible basilica of Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain, which has been under construction for 128 years.  A genius of architecture, he built a model of the church with strings…UPSIDE DOWN…to find and test balance and proportion, because each change in balance would immediately change all of the arches and balance throughout the entire upside down structure.  He turned it UPSIDE DOWN to learn how to do it in the best possible way RIGHT SIDE UP.  Jesus turns so many of our human perceptions, assumptions, and ways of thought UPSIDE DOWN in order to teach us how to live RIGHT SIDE UP…which is especially helpful (and a challenge to us all, I believe) in this time of the election cycle.  Are you willing to see and live things seemingly UPSIDE DOWN from what the world and the media tells you in order to actually live RIGHT SIDE UP?!