16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

This week, no matter where you’re at, I am challenging you to take one real step in prayer.  I don’t care where you think you’re at now – whether you only come to church when you’re visiting Grandma and Grandpa, or whether you have a daily hours long prayer regimen that you have followed for years – no matter where you are I want all of us to intentionally take one step in prayer this week.  Disciples are Quick to Pray.  Disciples are Committed to Growth.  Let’s get a two for one this week and take one step toward growth in prayer!

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Rabbi” means “teacher”.  “Disciple” means “student”.  In Israel, 2,000 years ago, there were a couple formulaic statements that a rabbi would use to call a disciple and then invite that disciple to take on the rabbi’s worldview and become like him (one statement we find in today’s Gospel!).  Then at the end of this period of formation, the disciple is sent out to teach others what he learned from his rabbi.  We are disciples of the Great Rabbi, and Jesus has sent us to witness to what we have seen, heard, learned and experienced!

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

I recently went on an 8-day silent retreat.  Many have been asking, “Father, how was the retreat?!”  So I’d like to share with you a bit about silent retreats in general as well as some of what happened and what God was up to on my retreat!

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Listen to a real, down-to-earth story of barstool evangelization!  When we are sharing with others, what we’re meant to share is not primarily information, but our own experience of God, faith, prayer, and why it’s important to us.  People don’t primarily want to hear theological reasons or arguments (even though they might say they do, or start the conversation that way), what people really need is to be inspired by the real example and experiences that others have of God – and that’s something that any person of faith can share, no matter how much or little they think they know about the faith!

31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

In our familiar Gospel story of Zacchaeus, Jesus does something that might entirely change how you see Jesus’ life, and what that means about how you are called here and now to live as disciples of Jesus!  In our Gospel today, we hear that Jesus came to Jericho and “intended to pass through the town”…Jesus intended to pass through the town, but when he sees Zacchaeus he changes his mind and decides to stay.  For Jesus, following his Father’s will didn’t look like having a checklist in his head of every single pre-planned-from-all-eternity thing that had to happen on that particular day to achieve our salvation…Jesus changed his mind and his plans during his days with the nudges of the Holy Spirit (and in this case the Holy Spirit moved him to change his plans and have dinner with Zacchaeus – and this interaction changed Zacchaeus’ life).

God’s plan to change the world is not primarily through heady knowledge of theology, nor is it primarily through large-scale events that normal folk like us are unable to bring about.  God’s plan to change the world is to change it primarily through normal, personal interactions, when we as individuals (as the hands and feet of Christ here and now), inspired by the Spirit, reach out and touch the lives of particular people that God has us come in contact with.  Personal interaction, personal invitation – that’s how Jesus lived and that’s how we are called to live, too!

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Why is it that so many people (including many of your children whom you raised in the Church and brought to the sacraments and taught to be generous and to care for others) have fallen and continue to fall away from our incredible Catholic Faith and belief in Jesus Christ?  The Church has three jobs: to evangelize, to celebrate the sacraments, and to care for the poor.  These are three legs of a stool; if any one of them is missing or lacking, the stool will tip and fall.  I would propose that we as a Church, in the midst of a total culture change from a Christendom time/culture to an Apostolic time/culture, have unintentionally lost the “evangelization” footing of our identity as a Church.  What we see now is people naturally falling away from the faith because they (even unconsciously) sense that something is lacking in the current lived practice of the Catholic faith in America…and something would be lacking: our essential call as followers of Jesus Christ to personally witness to Him – to evangelize, to speak about the good news.  How did that happen and what are we called to do about it now? Listen to hear my thoughts and to be invited on board for where our parishes will be focusing our efforts into the future!

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

In today’s Gospel we hear of the rich man and Lazarus both before then after their deaths;  after death, Lazarus find himself in the bosom of Abraham (i.e. heaven) while the rich man is in the netherworld (i.e. hell).  What sin did the rich man commit?  There are two kinds of sin in Scripture, and in our culture we tend to consider one kind of sin much more than the other: sins of commission and sins of omission.  Sins are choices that we make – in our thoughts, words and/or actions – where we put distance between us and God.  Those can be choices of commission (where we actively do something that puts distance between us and God), or choices of omission (where we choose NOT to do things that will maintain our relationship with God and draw us closer to Him).  God is alive and at work in this world! God is on the move!  If we put our relationship with God on hold, standing statically in one place, we don’t pick up right where we left off; since God is on the move, when we pick up again it means that we’ve allowed distance to grow between us and the God who is always moving and yet always beckoning to us, “Come, follow me!”  The rich man is not cited for sins of commission, today, but sins of omission – complacency – all those choices that he made NOT to make God the priority in his life.  As disciples of Jesus Christ, where are areas that we have become complacent?  How can we recommit to continual growth in a life lived with the Lord?

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

This weekend I officially took over the sacramental and administrative duties for three more parishes in our area after the retirement of Fr. Greg Hopefl, a long-time and honored priest of our diocese.  This was my first weekend preaching at St. Philip in Stone Lake, St. Francis Solanus on the Lac Courte Oreilles Reserve, and St. Ignatius in New Post.  These three parishes, along with St. Joseph in Hayward and St. Ann in Cable make up the new five parish Hayward cluster, of which I am the pastor and Fr. Karun from India is my associate.  Please pray for all of us during this time of transition.  I am excited to see what God has in store for us in the future!

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

This weekend is the kickoff for our annual diocesan Catholic Services Appeal (CSA).  The CSA provides incredible opportunities to spread the faith of Jesus Christ in northwestern Wisconsin – for our seminarians, for our youth, for our schools, for our parishes – opportunities that I witness and see the fruits of firsthand!  I’m challenging you this year to stretch yourself in prayerful generosity to all of your favorite organizations and non-profits.   I challenge you particularly this week to think what you might be able to sacrifice monetarily to support the CSA for your parish this coming year.  Jesus Christ practiced prayer and generosity to the point of death; let’s act more like Christ in this life, so as to become more of who we are called to be in the next!

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

As disciples, we are called to be salt of the earth people.  Not too salty (we’ve all had bad experiences of that), but also not non-salty…because that’s just not being true to who we are as Christians.  We’re called to be healthily salty, normally salty.  Disciples of Jesus Christ ought to be ordinary, fun, prayerful, genuine, striving, faithful, real people – normal human people.  That is what I envision when I imagine a disciple of Jesus Christ: someone that others are slightly intrigued by, for whatever the reasons, someone that others want to spend a little time with!