Pastor's Notes

I was away from the parish last week. I went to Maine to visit friends who rented a house there to get out of the Indiana heat. It was great fun. These friends date back to my college years and they are exceedingly important to me. She was Catholic, and he converted after they married. This means that they put up with the number of times I need to stop what we’re doing to pray. Sometimes they join in too! They send me funny memes and share the good, bad, and ugly about life, and they welcome it when I do the same.

When I have had an exceedingly bad day, they say, “We’re meeting you at the Angry Donkey for dinner at 6 p.m. Be there.” (They really don’t give me a choice as they are interested in my sanity!) The Angry Donkey is a restaurant that is halfway from their house to our rectory. When we meet, we spend a few minutes talking about some crisis or another, but mostly, I’m thankful for a hug, a plate of food, and some laughs, as well as someone who has known me since I was Richard and not Fr. Richard. They are an important link to my youth!

There are many saints who were also friends in Christ, such as Sts. Felicity and Perpetua, Sts. Francis and Clare, Sts. Gregory and Martin of Tours, Sts. Basil and Gregory, Sts. John Paul II and Teresa of Calcutta, Sts. Peter and Paul, Sts Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, Sts. Ambrose and Augustine. Their feasts and memorials in the liturgical calendar allow me to honor their sanctity and the model of friendship they continue to provide in a world that sorely needs such a witness to fraternal love.

The Survey Center on American Life reports that “12% of Americans today say they have no close friends, a steep rise from the 3% who said the same 30 years ago. A comparison of the same surveys showed that 33% of Americans in 1990 claimed to have 10 or more close friends, while today that number is just 13%. And in 1990, 75% of Americans claimed to have someone whom they considered to be a “best friend,” while today that applies to just 59% of U.S. adults.”

Not surprisingly, in-person social interactions among teens have primarily been replaced by digital connections like texting and social media. This frustrates me so much. A 2018 Pew Research Center reported that 60% of teens say that they interact with friends online every day or almost every day, while less than a quarter say that they do the same in person. Those statistics are most definitely dated, too. Things have no doubt gotten worse.

But despite the online interaction, teens report that they are increasingly lonely, depressed, left out, and less confident in social situations than the generations of teenagers before them. Are we shocked? Parents, take note! Limit the screens! Make your home and lives a place for wholesome fun for teenagers—dinners, bonfires, road trips, and weekend chats that include food! That was my parent’s model of youth ministry, prompting several people to tell me that my parents played a huge role in forming them as teenagers at my parent’s funerals.

In his 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis wrote about the importance of friendships, saying, “Our relationships, if healthy and authentic, open us to others who expand and enrich us.” What I have learned is that friendship is enriching but it takes time and effort. It requires a healthy give-and-take of sharing one’s good days and bad days. Also, I have found lifetime friendships when in the service of God, his Church and his people. I have priest friends that are like my friends that I mentioned above. It also requires that we turn off the screens and see that there is a whole world of human beings waiting to meet us! We must see and invest in the fact that true friendship is a critical link to happiness, sanctity, and mental health.

-Fr. Richard

We need your help to make the Tools for School program a success. If you have recently registered at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, you may not know what the program is about. So, allow me to take you on a short journey to help you understand.

Every August when I was a grade school student, my mom would take us to Haag Drugstore to buy school supplies for the upcoming school year. My grandfather was the pharmacist manager at the store and my father, also a pharmacist, took a shift there a few times a month to keep up his license. We shopped at Haag Drugstore because we enjoyed an employee family discount. School supplies were as cheap as they would get—paper, pencils and pens, notebooks, and usually a Star Wars binder.

Eva was the clerk at the checkout, and she carefully rang up each stack and placed each of them in separate bags so there was no confusion or arguments. I remember heading to our Suburban in the August heat and humidity feeling like a pack mule. And although it was a good feeling having all my supplies, I would also let out a sigh. School would start in a few days. Where did the summer go?

Here's my point. Never once did it dawn on me that my parents wouldn’t pay for my supplies. Never dawned on me there were kids who couldn’t afford it. Never once did I feel the stress of not having decent shoes, a crisp uniform, and breakfast as I headed off for the first day of school. I did not realize at the time how blessed I actually was.

Each year since 2005, we have helped families by providing their back-to-school needs. We go beyond the basic backpack and school supply bag because children need a lot more than school supplies to have a successful school year! For example, children need to be inspired to get back to reading. We put a page-turner book in front of them to hopefully light up their imaginations and inspire them to get back to reading after taking the summer months off. We give them athletic socks and shoes so they are ready for gym class and inspired to be active outside of class.

Our Catholic faith calls us to uphold the dignity of the families we serve. And in that spirit, each child receives underwear and toiletries, as well as meats, canned goods, and fresh produce. We purchase plastic folders from a local company that recycles plastic water bottles in order to make useful everyday items from them!

Of course, with Jayne Slaton at the helm at the Merciful HELP Center, we are as organized as we can be as we welcome over 3,000 children to our campus in a three-day period! Each family has an appointment to respect their time, and this year especially so we don’t waste gas in a traffic jam out on 146th Street!

This is a parish-wide endeavor. We estimate that we need over 1,000 volunteers. Programs like Tools for School demonstrate our pro-life position from conception to natural death. "Families helping families" was our theme when we banded together on our last building campaign, and it applies here too!

I invite you to look at the schedules and try to find at least one shift that you and your family can volunteer for together. Each station is important! There is no fluff built into the sign-ups for volunteers. We need EACH person, and each position filled! I will be there, working alongside you!

Set-Up: signupgenius.com/go/4090c4eafad2da5f94-presetup

July 21 Distribution: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090c4eafad2da5f94-thursday

July 22 Distribution: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090c4eafad2da5f94-friday

July 23 Distribution: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090c4eafad2da5f94-saturday

July 24 Clean-Up & Inventory: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090c4eafad2da5f94-sunday
 

Thanks in advance on behalf of the poor children who come to Tools for School!

-Fr. Richard

Our Parish Message to All Pre-Born and Born Human Beings:
You matter to God. You matter to us too.

This column is primarily about an upcoming invitation to pray that requires a little background. Last Friday night, I sent an “All Call” message to our parishioners. If you didn’t have time to listen, I said that we would have a two-pronged approach to the Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court Decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. Dobbs sent the regulation of abortion back to the states, acknowledging that the judicial activism in the early 1970s has had the effect of a prolonged division in our country.

First, we prayerfully received this news by saying a Rosary on Saturday night, and secondly, we are recommitting to service of moms in crisis and their children as best we can at the Matthew 25 Center following a Church document called “Walking with Moms in Need.”

I received a few emails last weekend that suggested that the tone of my message did not indicate that I was happy or excited about this Dobbs decision. Let’s be clear: I have been praying for the end of Roe v. Wade since the early 1970s when I was a little boy. Guided by my mother, a devoted Catholic and a social worker by education, I was raised in a family where I learned that there were much better options than abortion. In addition to active opposition to abortion, any opportunity my mom and dad had to steer us into service opportunities, they did - food pantries, participation in the election process, volunteering in the town nursing home, and so on.

On the other hand, I am acutely aware that there are, statistically speaking, post-abortive mothers and fathers in our midst who deserve compassion and understanding. Others may dissent from the Church’s total pro-life ethic. As a pastor, I would much rather have conversations grounded in love and face-to-face than yelling at each other.

Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, put it best, in my mind. He said the decision lifts “a cloud that has hung over our country for a half century. There is no way to undo the tragedy of tens of millions of innocent lives lost or the decades of division sown by the Roe v. Wade decision. But, for the sake of future generations, we can now move forward with a more honest debate and efforts to advance policies and support programs that protect innocent life and promote stability and security for vulnerable mothers.”

So here is the prayer part. Governor Holcomb has called the Indiana General Assembly back into session on July 25 to consider the direction Indiana will take about abortion, post-Roe. After talking to our staff members and our Gospel of Life Committee, we decided to have a perpetual Rosary on July 25 from 9 a.m. - 9 p.m. in the church that will include exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. By this, I mean that every hour we will recite a 20-decade Rosary led by an hour captain. One of our seminarians and I have been saying 20 decades each day since the Dobb’s decision, and it takes roughly 50 minutes with 10 minutes left over in case a group happens to pray more slowly.

You are invited to attend any of the 12 hours. Just come to the church at the hour. Be aware that the Rosary between 5 - 6 p.m. will be prayed in three different Indian languages (Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam) by our growing community of parishioners from India. Also, our Hispanic Apostolate will cover 7 - 8 p.m.

I hope to see many of you. Recently, when we prayed for those caught in the middle of the war in Ukraine, our school families and others had their children participate. It is important that they are civically aware!

May God bless our beloved country. I wish you a happy July 4! And if you are in town, be SAFE with the fireworks! Who needs a bad burn? Plus, I am on the emergency call line and can be squeamish!

-Fr. Richard

Like many of you, I take lots of pictures on my cellphone. After a while, I have so many that I start deleting unimportant ones. One of the pictures has made the cut for as long as I have had a cell phone. I can’t part with it. I cut and pasted the picture from an article that has been lost to my memory.

I don’t know who she is or where she lives, but her picture always gives me hope and peace. Her clothes look warm, and her face is simple, some would say plain—no make-up or earrings. Her small notebook suggests a list of intercessory prayers, and perhaps a few of those prayers have been answered. Thus the smile as she checks in with the author of her blessings.

Her smile has always seemed infectious and peaceful to me. The Hebrew word shalom is understood to mean peace, and it comes to mind today. Shalom is used both to greet people and to bid them farewell, but it means much more than peace. It is a complete peace: a feeling of contentment, wholeness, well-being, and harmony with God.

It would be naïve to suggest that this woman has an easy, trouble-free life. She, like the rest of us, could most likely make a detailed list in her little prayer book of the problems she faces—maybe her personal finances, the effects of aging, or maybe trouble with her kids. Perhaps she’s a widow. I will never know.

But there she is kneeling in the presence of God waiting for Mass to begin. All those problems are shelved. She is filled with shalom. Despite her life’s difficulties, she seems content, complete, whole, and in harmony with God.

Interestingly, the closest term that expresses the opposite of shalom is chaos. Fewer and fewer people in our world have shalom. Some wonder why our many worldly blessings are failing us. Why so much chaos?

I read about two Gallup studies that shed light on our modern chaos. The first study chronicled a continuing decline in the belief in God in our time. A study revealed that fewer Americans today than five years ago believe in God, and the percentage is down even more from the 1950s and 1960s when almost all Americans did. Those who do believe in God but avoid organized religion are less likely to believe that God will intervene in their lives, which begs the question of why any thoughtful person would pray.

I am not a social scientist, but I wonder if this loss of faith and awareness of God plays a role in the second study. That is, Americans believe that the state of moral values in the U.S. are dismal. 78% of us feel like the future is grim. This has generally been the case over the course of a 20-year trend, but negative ratings of the current state of moral values are the worst they have ever been. A lack of consideration for others is cited as the top problem.

It seems quite plausible that as we abandon our faith in God, we are less inclined to care for and consider the needs of others. I think another good way to say it is that we have lost respect for the human person, a fundamental truth of our Catholic faith.

Far from feeling despair over these troubling trends, I get more and more excited about the anecdote that we possess as disciples of Jesus Christ. While we point the finger at those who tear down, we must look to those who lack shalom and build up by preaching the Good News of our Savior. It is quickly becoming our most vital task. We are a sleeping giant in this regard. Our collective effort will assure a world worth living in.

Shalom.

- Fr Richard

Dutifully, men, women, and children make their way to our Adoration Chapel every day and every hour of the day. From my room in the rectory, I see you coming and going. I thank God for you!

During winter storms, I often peer out my window to see if the maintenance crew cleared a path in the parking lot and sidewalks so that people can make it in to pray. I understood again the value that we place on adoration during the pandemic when we moved the tabernacle to the narthex window so that people could adore from their cars. It was rare that Jesus was left unattended, which most definitely warmed my heart and most definitely pleased God.

Eucharistic Adoration is adoring the True Presence of our Lord Jesus Christ – his Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity – in the Holy Eucharist. Because we believe that Christ is truly made present in the consecration at the Eucharist, we give the Blessed Sacrament the same honor and reverence accorded to Christ if he appeared to us. What a privilege that we enjoy!

As we recall from Jesus’ words in the garden before his crucifixion, “Could you not wait one hour with me?” It was a question that haunted me when I was a child. When we consider that God gives us 24 hours each day and 168 hours each week, surely we can afford an hour to sit in the Lord’s presence. As one of my seminary spiritual directors said, “Richard, if you are too busy for God, you are too darn busy!”

St. Alphonsus Liguori wrote: “Of all devotions, that of adoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the greatest after the Sacraments, the one dearest to God and the one most helpful to us. The Eucharist is a priceless treasure: By not only celebrating the Eucharist, but also praying before It outside of Mass, we are enabled to make contact with the very wellsprings of Grace."

From time to time, parishioners will ask me if they are allowed to visit the chapel, like adoration is some exclusive club. “What?” I say. “Of course!” The transformative power of setting time aside just to be with Jesus is amazing. You are always invited!

Some also ask me what exactly they are supposed to do in the chapel. Imagine yourself on a road trip with a close friend. Sometimes you talk to your friend, but other times you just spend time in silence. In both cases, the time spent promotes intimate friendship as you share new horizons and inner thoughts and feelings as you drive.

It is the same in Eucharistic Adoration. Your friend Jesus wants the love between you to grow and flourish. He wants to calm your nerves. He wants to hear about your day. He wants to help carry your crosses as Simon of Cyrene carried his.

Intimacy with our Eucharistic King grows through devotional prayers like the Rosary or the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Spiritual reading can also help us learn about Jesus and his Church. But the key to all of these practices is the gift of time — your time — with God.

This week we celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi. On this Feast of the Body of Christ, consider signing up for an hour of adoration. I guarantee you, it will change your life!
-Fr. Richard

This weekend, over 150 of our high school students (largely sophomores) are on retreat in preparation for their confirmation held on Monday at 4:30 p.m. or 6:45 p.m. Please pray for these young men and women--that the Hoy Spirit will inspire them for a lifetime of service to God.

Please also give a prayer of thanksgiving for all those who have guided these young people through this most important time in their lives as young Catholics. That includes our youth ministers, small group leaders, chaperones, people who gave talks this weekend, and several people who are in charge of logistics.

As many of us know, the Sacrament of Confirmation builds on the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion (the Sacraments of Initiation), completing the process of initiation into the Catholic community. This sacrament is called confirmation because the faith given in baptism is now confirmed and strengthened. If a Catholic was baptized as a baby, parents and godparents make promises to renounce Satan and believe in God and the Church on his or her behalf. At confirmation on Monday night, the candidates will renew those same promises, this time speaking for themselves.

During confirmation, the gifts of the Holy Spirit are specially given to the candidate: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude (courage), knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. These gifts are supernatural graces given to the soul. There are also 12 fruits of the Holy Spirit: charity, joy, peace, patience, benevolence, goodness, long-suffering (tolerance), mildness, faith, modesty, continency (self-restraint), and chastity. These fruits are human qualities that can be activated by the Holy Spirit.

I am very pleased with our confirmation retreat. It is a lot of work, most especially for our youth ministers, Louis and Rebecca Paiz, and a sacrifice for parents. On the other hand, it is not just “a class.” It is an opportunity for conversion of heart and authentic conversion overall. Many young people from our parish cite our confirmation retreat and the sacrament as a turning point in their faith lives. I have also received feedback from parents who inquire about what we did with their kids because they’re so much nicer and, frankly, holier. If you know any of our confirmandi, make sure that you ask them about their experience!

I look forward to the confirmation retreat every year. I will be with our confirmation candidates for the close of their retreat and will offer Sunday Mass for them. Then I will dart back to the parish for 5:30 p.m. Sunday Mass.

Finally, please know that our office staff will move to the summer schedule starting a week from Monday. Our staff works so very hard during the school year. I am determined that they rest up a bit during July in particular. Summer hours (9 a.m. - 3 p.m.) will start June 20 and go through July.

-Fr. Richard

So the Easter Season is coming to a close today. Thanks to our priests and liturgical team, it has been a beautiful season here at the parish. I am grateful!

When we come to Pentecost each year, my mind turns to the Pantheon in Rome. I have preached about this church that was formerly a Roman temple to all the gods. Over the centuries, it has been ornamented with Christian symbols and is a beautiful respite from the chaos of our world. The church is round, and since the beginning, there has been a substantially round opening at the top.

Following the morning Pantheon Pentecost Mass, local firefighters - armed with seven bags of red rose petals representing the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit - climb the steps to the roofline and then walk up to the opening at the top of this ancient structure. They liberally drop those rose petals as a visual reminder of the way in which God the Father sends the Holy Spirit to us as we live out the mission of the Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. They belong in their fullness to Christ, Son of David. They complete and perfect the virtues of those who receive them. They make the faithful docile in readily obeying divine inspirations.”

These gifts are rooted in Isaiah 11:1-3: “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear.” Christians understand these verses as describing the Messiah, and the gifts of the Spirit are perfectly present in him. These gifts are offered to every Christian by the action of the Spirit that is begun in baptism, affirmed in confirmation, and renewed especially on the feast of Pentecost.

I read an article about the gifts of the Holy Spirit by the Patriarch of Jerusalem that gives a brief description of each gift for us to ponder on this solemnity. I also encourage you to pray for our confirmation candidates who are preparing to receive the gifts of the Spirit during their confirmation next Monday night. If you have already received these gifts in the Sacrament, this is a great day to ponder your receptivity for the gifts that the Holy Spirit eagerly wants to give you.

Wisdom: The capacity to perceive the creation as the work of God who is at work in our lives and in the world. This is particularly important in finding God in all things, particularly in all that happens to us and in all whom we meet.

Understanding: The capacity to analyze and reason, resolve problems and decide to follow Christ in our day-to-day lives.

Counsel: The capacity to discern between right and wrong and thus to choose right over wrong and act accordingly.

Fortitude: The capacity to overcome fear and be willing to walk with Christ and thus actively resist the temptation to give in to pressure and follow the masses when they do wrong. The primitive Christian community is described as being full of courage to live according to Christ’s teaching and proclaim it even if threatened with death.

Knowledge: The capacity to know God and love Him.

Piety: The capacity to live humbly and walk with God in total respect of all God’s children. Piety draws us to pray and worship.

Fear of God: The capacity to be aware that we are always in God’s presence. According to the Book of Proverbs: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 1:7). He or she who fears the Lord knows his or her place as a beloved child of a loving Father.

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of our faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth.

-Fr. Richard

I have been out of town for a few days on vacation with my best priest friend in the Diocese of Phoenix, Arizona. I will return to the parish on June 1. This gives me plenty of time to rest and pray for you and your intentions. Pray for me as well!

I always love this time of year in Indiana, so I am sad that I will miss it this year. Although we never went to the race on Memorial Day weekend as a family, we always did a pool - chose drivers and rooted for them. Winners received a $10 prize, which I only won once in a rain cloud of controversy. The only time I won was in 1975. I was 9 years old and my victory was tainted by a rain delay finish. I had the winner Bobby Unser while my brother had Johnny Rutherford in second place and called foul! Let’s hope and pray for a clean, rain-free, and safe race this year!

As the son of a Viet Nam veteran, I have tremendous respect and pastoral concern for those who have stepped forward to defend our country. Some carry the wounds of war for the rest of their lives, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. They deserve our prayers, respect, and service.

Observing Memorial Day is not the glorification of war. What we remember and honor on Memorial Day is heroic sacrifice, much like we honor martyrs in the Church. We acknowledge those who nobly gave of themselves, even unto death, for a purpose that was greater than themselves.

Since the days just following the end of the Civil War, Americans have gathered in late May to honor those who died in military service for their country. In the spirit of the day, I also recall, honor, and pray for all those we know who have lived lives of service and sacrifice for the good of others—policemen, firemen, border patrol officers, medical caregivers, priests, sisters, and so on. Notice that many of those on that list are often maligned, largely because of the indiscretions of a few bad apples. I see through the media tendency to doubt altruism and self-sacrifice and honor the majority of those who serve for the good of humanity.

The United State Conference of Catholic Bishops had provided a beautiful Memorial Day prayer. Perhaps if you’re having a cookout, you can include it with your meal prayer. It certainly serves to focus on Memorial Day as more than just a three-day weekend to start the summer.

God of power and mercy,
you destroy war and put down earthly pride.
Banish violence from our midst and wipe away our tears,
that we may all deserve to be called your sons and daughters.
Keep in your mercy those men and women
who have died in the cause of freedom
and bring them safely
into your kingdom of justice and peace.
We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen

If you are a veteran, thank you most especially for your service.

-Fr. Richard

Years ago, I had a tough conversation with someone about personal appearance at Mass. It seems that the Sunday prior, someone next to her in the pew called her out because of her choice of clothing. Validation was what she was seeking regarding the correction she obviously resented. However, a glance at her wardrobe choice at that moment left me with a clear understanding of the reason for the unpleasant interaction. Without getting into the specifics, let’s just say nothing was left to the imagination in her attire that day. Her choices left me hurting a bit for her, as they spoke loudly to me about the fact that she was convinced that she had little to share with others outside of her sexuality and her body. It was so untrue.

The modesty police, I am not. As a priest, the last thing I want to be doing is make judgments about what is appropriate to wear to Mass and what is not. Instinctively, it seems, when we consider the topic of modesty in the Church, people exclusively think about what women wear and not men. This is patently unfair and not at all true. Excessively tight, revealing outfits and clothing containing vulgar or suggestive language are seen with frequency on both men and women in our worship space.

Put simply, when we dress for Holy Mass this summer, we owe it to the person who sits to the right and left of us to not be a distraction by how we dress, particularly as the temperature climbs in the summer months. This year will be even more challenging for us as we may face air conditioning issues during the renovation. The good news is we will have something to offer up!

There is a sense today that how a person reacts to our clothing choices is their problem, not ours. But as Christians, what do we owe others? Is it fair to be a near occasion of sin by our fashion choices? When we worship the Lord together as a community, should we instead be authentic witnesses of respect and virtue?

The Catechism includes two profound paragraphs about modesty. Lacking specifics about short shorts or crop tops, it takes a step back to reflect on modesty and its purpose. It might be worth discussing these paragraphs as a family. I have discovered in marriage preparation that parents shy away from these types of discussions to the detriment of their children. Despite our freedom from puritan conventions, we simply do not want to or are afraid to talk about all things sexual.

“Modesty protects the intimate center of the person. It means refusing to unveil what should remain hidden. It is ordered to chastity to whose sensitivity it bears witness. It guides how one looks at others and behaves toward them in conformity with the dignity of persons and their solidarity." (2521)

"Modesty protects the mystery of persons and their love. It encourages patience and moderation in loving relationships; it requires that the conditions for the definitive giving and commitment of man and woman to one another be fulfilled. Modesty is decency. It inspires one's choice of clothing. It keeps silence or reserve where there is evident risk of unhealthy curiosity. It is discreet.” (2522).

As a rule of thumb, tight and revealing clothes are not appropriate for Mass. It does not show charity for others. And it does not express the dignity that is to be shown to Jesus in his Eucharistic presence. God is calling us to something better!

-Fr. Richard