Pastor's Notes

Everyone has regrets. I have one in particular. Some priests record every baptism, Mass, wedding, and funeral in ledger books so they can pray for those to whom they have ministered. Yea…. I’m not that organized… If I ever make it to heaven, I want to know how many confessions I have heard! In a parish like ours, that number is high, thanks be to God! I love helping people reconcile with God! That being said, many of us have pits in our stomachs about not being able to make progress in overcoming a particular sin that we confess over and over. They drag us down. I hear the frustration in people’s voices in confession.

The Church outlines seven deadly sins. They are deadly because they inspire further sin—not good. They are pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. But here’s the good thing: there are virtues that help us overcome these sins. Rather than focusing on sins, we should turn our attention to the virtues which break the bonds of sin. In other words, we can match the deadly sins with their corresponding virtues. 

Chastity overcomes the sin of lust. I heard Mother Teresa say once that every man in the western world should pray three Hail Marys for chastity each morning. Her statement had a two-fold meaning. First, men (and many women) struggle with purity, and secondly, our culture is saturated with sexual impurity. We need the armor of preemptive prayer for chastity, as it calms lust.

Generosity overcomes the sin of greed. We want a lot of stuff, but that stuff can block our path to Christ. I read a book about stewardship called What Do I Own and What Owns Me? The author’s thesis was that we’ve long defined stewardship in terms of 10% of our time, talent, and treasure. But what about the other 90%? Do we glorify God with all our gifts? Do we use them for the good of others? Being intentionally generous combats the sin of greed. 

Temperance overcomes the sin of gluttony. St. Paul says, “‘I have the right to do anything,’ you say—but not everything is beneficial. ‘I have the right to do anything'—but I will not be mastered by anything.” Let’s put this simply. I can have two donuts, but can I not enjoy one just the same? Gluttony produces self-gratification and produces little gods in our lives. Temperance is our quest to control these desires. Temperance also builds temperance. That is, being moderate in one thing allows us to be moderate in others.

Kindness overcomes the sin of envy. I had a friend who prays prayers of thanksgiving whenever she was jealous. God blesses each of us in different ways. Envy will cause rifts in relationships—with God and others. Look at your life with gratitude instead of counting the ways God “hasn’t” blessed you. 

Meekness overcomes the sin of anger. Praying for enemies is a difficult biblical mandate. When Jesus faced angry mobs, he prayed for them. This is hard in our impatient world. How often do we become consumed by trivial matters? Think of Jesus’ example and pray for meekness and patience

Humility overcomes the sin of pride. When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they turned on one another in pride. The devil’s sin was pride, and he works hard to tempt us into thinking of ourselves as gods. A humble heart realizes that one true God has given us everything.

Diligence overcomes the sin of sloth. We all have duties, and we need to pray for diligence to fulfill them. Sloth tempts us to be lazy. I have a friend who gave up the snooze button on his alarm clock. He stands up immediately and recites Psalm 95, also known as the invitatory psalm which starts the day. He says it sets the tone for the rest of the day.

Focus on virtues instead of sins. It can make all the difference. 

-Fr. Richard

This weekend is Divine Mercy Sunday. It is a relatively new but important time of prayer, and I invite you to join us for the praying of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy on Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. in the church in the context of a Eucharistic Holy Hour. 

To review, St. Pope John Paul II declared the Sunday after Easter to be “Divine Mercy Sunday” on the day that he canonized St. Faustina, the first saint of the new millennium. In 1925, St. Faustina Kowalska joined the congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Poland. She lived quietly as she ministered with her fellow sisters in the service of prostitutes and women of questionable moral character.  

St. Faustina was not well-educated and she had her share of health problems, dying of tuberculosis in 1938. But her diary reveals the inner life of a spiritual giant that became a minister and messenger of God’s divine mercy.

Under obedience to God, St. Faustina wrote a spiritual diary that records the message of God’s mercy and love, as well as the silent suffering that she endured and the sacrificial nature of her earthly life. God’s mercy on our fallen world is a wonderful gift on which to meditate during the Easter season, especially in a time of unrest and difficulty in so many places throughout the world. His mercy is obvious in Jesus’ death and resurrection. And like any good gift, God’s mercy must also be shared with others. We must ask ourselves, “Are we merciful and forgiving as our heavenly Father is?”

The diary also reveals a recommended prayer, “The Chaplet of Divine Mercy,” that is to be prayed daily at 3 p.m. when possible. It includes the repetition of a simple prayer, “For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and the whole world.” What a great and relevant prayer for our world today! It only takes about 10 minutes to pray.

I pray the chaplet when I exercise. It is simple and easy to pray using rosary beads or your fingers! Please join us on Divine Mercy Sunday to experience this prayer, whether for the first time or the thousandth.  

Incidentally, part of the devotion to Divine Mercy is going to confession. Some have the erroneous understanding that confession must happen on Divine Mercy Sunday. While you may certainly confess on Saturday, you do not have to go to confession on Mercy Sunday itself.  We know from her diary that St. Faustina made her confession in preparation for Mercy Sunday on the day before (Diary 1072). So if you have gone to confession during Lent, you have performed your Easter Duty!

-Fr. Richard

On behalf of our parish staff, I wish you a blessed and happy Easter! In preparation for my Easter column, I scrolled back to my Easter 2020 column to see where we were last Easter. I decided to quote myself from a year ago—probably the first time and the last! I wrote, “I think we can all agree that this is the strangest Easter of our time. To be sequestered in our homes because of the pandemic on Easter Sunday seems nothing short of evil.  It is the most solemn of feasts, and we should be hearing our choir, organ, brass quartet, and robust homilies from our priests. But we must remember that God always has the last word!”

Thanks be to God those days are behind us, hopefully forever! God does have the last word.  Our Music and Liturgy Director, Rex Rund, reported that on Palm Sunday, Mass attendance jumped to 70% of our pre-COVID numbers! It is so good to see so many people returning. I have spoken with so many elderly parishioners that are ecstatic that they are fully vaccinated and are returning to Mass.  

It will be interesting to see how we rebound from this difficult phase in our history. Many Christians, if they come together for Easter celebrations, will be suffering because there are people that will be absent at their Easter table due to COVID-19 and other illnesses. May they rest in peace, and may we have hope that comes from the Resurrection.  

Of course, there have been emotional, financial, and spiritual costs for our people that we continue to address at our parish as best we can. I have an unofficially adopted sister, for example, who is a registered dietician. She works at a university and also part-time at a nursing home. She told me recently that roughly half of the residents in her facility are underweight, and it isn’t because the food is bad or scarce. She believes it is because the facility’s residents are suffering from depression and despair due to grinding isolation, so why eat? And it seems that the weight that they have lost, many of us, myself included, have gained! It’s interesting that the struggles of the last year are now showing on the outside this year.  

All this reminds us that we need one another and we need Jesus Christ! That is why Jesus gathered the Body of Christ—that after his ascension into heaven, we would move forward together, equipped with the great hope that stems from Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.  

Mass on Easter Sunday resounds with the great word alleluia, the triumphant word of praise for God. It is a Hebrew word adopted by Christians. Hallel is the greatest expression of praise in Hebrew. Combined with Jah, the shortened form of the name of God, JHVH (meaning “I AM”), it becomes hallelujah.

What we need to remember in this post-COVID time is that from apostolic times, the Alleluia wasn’t just reserved to the Church’s liturgy. Farmers and tradesmen sang it as they worked, and mothers taught their children to pronounce it before any other word. According to Fr. Francis Weiser, “In the Roman Empire, Alleluia became the favorite prayerful song of oarsmen and navigators. The Roman poet-Bishop Sidonius Apollinaris (480) described how the river banks and shores of Gaul resounded with Alleluia songs of the rowing boatmen.”

More than ever, as we attempt to rebuild our lives, we must have an “alleluia conviction.” And like our spiritual ancestors, Easter reminds us that we must share this Easter news with others. We conclude the octave of Easter with the celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday. It is a celebration that has become increasingly popular and spiritually nourishing. I invite you to join us for the Divine Mercy Holy Hour next Sunday at 3 p.m.!

Happy Easter! 

- Fr. Richard

Ever had a crowd turn on you?  I can’t say that it’s ever happened to me, thank God. It’s one of many reasons why I stay off of social media. We see it almost every day in our woke culture. Someone is in and then suddenly there is a gaff or lapse of judgment, and then they are out. 

This happened to Jesus. The large crowd of people who applauded his entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, shouting “Hosanna” and other words of adoration, would, within a week, turn on him, crying out, “Crucify him!” They will go from acclaiming him as the King of Israel to urging his life to be traded in favor of the convicted criminal Barabbas. Even most of his inner circle and many disciples that entered Jerusalem with Jesus deserted him. And this whole thing didn’t happen over the course of weeks or months. It was just a few days… and then Jesus was canceled. Jesus was a faithful Jew and he went to Jerusalem to join throngs believers to celebrate Passover. Most Bibles have chapter titles like “Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem” to describe the events of Palm Sunday, which was a paradoxical code for his journey to the cross on Calvary. Yes, the week started out well but went downhill from there.

But what a crowd that went out to greet Jesus on Palm Sunday! The palms are an interesting addition to Jesus’ entry. Author D.D. Emmens wrote that “Palms were symbols of life among the nomadic tribes, who, when crossing the desert, rejoiced at seeing the palm tree as it indicated an oasis with life-giving water was near. Palms have also long been a sign of victory, success, and glory.” 

This adulation was not lost on the Pharisees who circulated in the crowd, probably in disbelief. They were losing control, and with such a large crowd, there was little that they could do. In their desperation, they appealed to Jesus himself to silence the crowd, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” I find this request to be completely odd and speaks of the fact that they are terrified that a revolt of the common people was just around the corner. And Jesus’ response seems similarly odd: “I tell you, if they keep silent, the stones will cry out!” For whenever there was a hint that they might carry Jesus off to make him king, he slipped away. 

Of course, they don’t understand Jesus or his kingship, which was not of this world. His insurrection was not what they expected. Pope Benedict XVI explained Jesus’ kingship, saying, “He is a king who destroys the weapons of war, a king of peace and a king of simplicity, a king of the poor.

The liturgical observances of Holy Week hope to, in some way, emulate the horror and triumph of the first Holy Week. It should be an emotional week. The adulation and praise will quickly dissipate and will be exchanged for somber readings about betrayal, departure, and death. But then the glorious triumph of Easter will follow. 

There is an early monastic tradition called Lectio Divina that sprang up when Bibles weren’t so commonplace and few people could actually read them, anyway. The monks gathered in the chapel to hear a member of the community read from scripture. In this exercise, they were taught and encouraged to listen with their hearts because it was the Word of God that they were hearing. I find it helpful, most especially during Holy Week, to place myself in the crowd on Palm Sunday, both as a Pharisee and as a believer. I also imagine myself at the Last Supper and walking with Jesus to Calvary in the chaos of the streets of Jerusalem. I imagine myself standing at the foot of the cross as Jesus draws his final breath…. Taking this journey, I am reminded each year that nothing about Holy Week is fiction. Jesus is real, and he suffered and died for my sins and those of the whole world.

I encourage you to open your mind and creatively place yourself in ancient Jerusalem and walk with the Lord this week. Easter will never be the same.

- Fr. Richard

We’ve heard the story of the Annunciation so many times. For those who pray the Rosary, it is the first Joyful Mystery. It sometimes fails to astonish us, but it should. Familiarity does breed contempt, doesn’t it?  

An angel appeared to Mary and asked if she would be the Mother of Jesus, the Messiah and Lord. Imagine. God courted a young Nazorean teenager and placed the initial stirrings of our salvation squarely on her shoulders. Would she say yes or no to being the Mother of God? She had a choice. Thank God, she said yes.

The Feast of the Annunciation that honors that incredible “yes” seems misplaced. It’s related to Jesus’ birth, not to his passion, death, and resurrection that we celebrate in a few days. We are caught in a bit of a liturgical log jam, where Christmas and Easter collide. For Christmas is in 9 months, and the Solemnity of the Annunciation is numerically placed (March 25) 9 months before Jesus’ birth. For it was a real pregnancy that was preceded by Mary’s “yes;” the most inspiring yes of human history. In it, she became the model for all Christians.

You might be surprised that Mary only spoke on four occasions in the New Testament. Her 200 spoken words have inspired prayers, liturgies, hymns, and countless works of art.  

The Angelus prayer recounts the Annunciation. Monks have prayed it three times a day (6 a.m., noon, and 6 p.m.) for centuries. As a child in Catholic grade school, we stopped dead in our tracks in the middle of recess to pray the Angelus at high noon as the bells rang. At our parish, our bells ring at noon and 6 p.m., prompting many Catholics to stop and ponder Mary’s “yes” and the incarnation. 

St. Luke introduces us to Mary as a young girl. She is betrothed to Joseph. It is nearly impossible to consider Catholic Marian devotion without thinking of the Annunciation and Gabriel’s greeting to Mary: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.” It even became the beginning of the Hail Mary. 

In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI wrote that “The icon of the Annunciation, more than any other, helps us to see clearly how everything in the Church goes back to that mystery of Mary’s acceptance of the divine Word, by which, through the action of the Holy Spirit, the Covenant between God and humanity was perfectly sealed. Everything in the Church, every institution and ministry, including that of Peter and his Successors, is ‘included’ under the Virgin’s mantle, within the grace-filled horizon of her ‘yes’ to God’s will.”

Pope Benedict, in other words, views Mary’s acceptance of God’s will as the springboard for the Church’s mission. While speaking on the Fourth Sunday of Advent in 2017, Pope Francis also noted that “We admire our Mother for her response to God’s call and mission.” He has also referred to the Annunciation as the feast of the “yes” and that Mary’s response is the lynchpin to this crucial moment in salvation history.

We live in a sound-bite world, replete with snappy posts and quickly drafted tweets that encapsulate the briefest of human responses. Here’s the response that most certainly includes an economy of words:  Mary said yes. After contemplating what Jesus is asking us to do as his disciples, we would all do well to imitate Mary’s thoughtfulness and acceptance of God’s will in our own challenging times.  

- Fr. Richard

I begin my column this weekend by thanking Tom Ponchak, our Adult Faith Formation Director, for his years of service to our parish family. As the diocesan restructuring continues, Tom has taken a new position in a different parish in the diocese. I would love to share details, but his new parish is announcing his ministry this weekend. I look forward to seeing how God works through him in the years to come and congratulate him on his new ministry! 

Thankfully, Thomas Gallagher, our new director of evangelization, will assume many of Tom’s duties. You will be hearing more from Thomas this weekend as he introduces himself at all of our Masses. Please pray for Tom and Thomas as they make these ministerial transitions.

During the year of St. Joseph, I am excited to celebrate the Solemnity of St. Joseph this Friday, March 19! Of course, we will celebrate the feast at the 6:30 and 8 a.m. Masses. We will also celebrate a special evening Mass for the solemnity at 6 p.m. 

My middle name is Joseph, and throughout my life, I have always considered St. Joseph to be my patron. Many Catholics forget about St. Joseph after they pack up their Christmas crèches, which is why we kept St. Joseph’s statue out for the year! I ask for his intercession often. I pray to him for those who need jobs, for the dying (he is the patron of a happy death), for fathers, and for purity.

Of course, St. Joseph played a unique role in Jesus’ life. There are several moments involving St. Joseph that shed light on his simple, yet profound, holiness. It also might provide some much-needed insight and guidance for us as we navigate our crazy world.

St. Luke describes Joseph as a “righteous” man, devoted to the Mosaic Law. As a faithful Jew, St. Joseph was a man who “knew the rules.” When Joseph found Mary in a “family way,” he had the right (or some say even obligation) to expose Mary’s seemingly adulterous activity. The penalty for adultery was death by stoning.

Yet bigger than the rules, St. Joseph shows loving compassion to Mary. He decides to divorce her secretly refusing to expose her shame. In other words, he was a man of mercy. He also was a prayerful man, making mercy possible. In a dream, he discovers that he should not shy away from taking Mary as his wife. He welcomes her immediately.

I believe St. Joseph’s example teaches us that we should preserve the dignity of every human being, regardless of his or her mistakes or shortcomings. We should always speak and live the truth but extend the mercy of God when others fall short. 

St. Joseph also protected the Holy Family. In Matthew’s gospel, after the birth of the Christ child, an angel appears to him in a dream saying, “Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.” What a jarring message. Yes St. Joseph, a simple carpenter, obediently follows the message of the Angel, sacrificing everything to protect the Christ child.

St. Joseph was a loving, merciful, prayerful, and obedient mentor. For these qualities, he was chosen as the patron of the Universal Church. I am praying to him as our parish staff continues planning for our full reopening, post-COVID. Far from just “going back to normal,” our plan is to leverage what we have suffered to make us the greatest representation of the Universal Church that we can be. And we will need his intercession as we seek to guide more than a few sheep back into the fold. 

St. Joseph, pray for us!

-Fr. Richard

The word scrutiny is a powerful, uncomfortable word. Judges and lawyers scrutinize people in a court of law. Investigators scrutinize the evidence in their attempt to convict the guilty. We don’t like it when people scrutinize our motives. The word scrutiny makes me put up my defenses. 

Then along comes Lent, and for three straight weeks, the Rite of Christian Initiation (RCIA) includes three rites that are called Scrutinies. If you come to the 11 a.m. Mass, you can pray along with our brothers and sisters who long for the Easter Sacraments. If you choose a different Mass, follow along at home. The Scrutinies are not restricted to those seeking entry into the Church. Although they are mainly for the “elect” (catechumens become “elect” after the Rite of Election at the beginning of Lent), the faithful are encouraged to share in this process. 

In the Scrutinies, the elect are making known their need for conversion. But we all need to grow closer to Jesus, starting with the pastor writing this column, down to the newest among us. Our new brothers and sisters are a public witness of what we are all called to do. 

The Scrutinies of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Sundays of Lent are largely a process of personal introspection. It is the antithesis of the autopilot. It is becoming aware of sinful patterns that lead us away from God and rooting them out! 

For example, I have already discovered something this Lent that needs to be rooted out of my life: morning news. I discovered as early as Ash Wednesday that morning news programs are agitating to me. After 30 seconds of news, I find myself angry about the brokenness of our world instead of being prayerful about it. I’ve also discovered that behaviors that I find objectionable are often celebrated and “in my face” at 7 a.m.—not a great way to start the day. I have discovered that before I engage a culture that is antagonistic to my faith, I need to be focused on Christ, not the news.  

The Scrutinies are meant to uncover and then heal all that is weak, defective, or sinful in our hearts while strengthening all that is upright, strong, and good. In engaging the Scrutinies, we acknowledge the cunning nature of the devil, that he is real and needs to be exorcised from our lives.  The Scrutinies are celebrated in order to deliver the elect from the power of Satan and his lies, to protect the elect from temptation through God’s grace, and to give them strength in Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life. 

Frequently, people come to confession reporting that they have been away from Jesus for many years. Their lives are in spiritual shambles, and they come to start anew.  Many are full of shame after succumbing to sinful patterns in their lives because they never stopped and asked simple questions like, “How am I doing as a human being?  By how I am living my life today, who will I become tomorrow?  

Don’t be that person! These are precisely the questions that we need to ponder during the Scrutinies of Lent.

-Fr. Richard

When I discerned that I was being called by God to be a priest, I packed my bags and headed out after my Purdue Graduation, a school with 30,000 noisy college students, in order to attend St. Meinrad Seminary with a student body of 225 that was run by Benedictine monks. It was, for sure, a culture shock. Benedictine monks follow an ancient rule, the Rule of St. Benedict. The Rule of St. Benedict is a series of precepts written in the year 516 AD by St. Benedict of Nursia. It details how monks should live together under the authority of a superior, in their case, an abbot. It is amazing that 1500 years later, the rule is still followed and is pertinent, not only for monks but for many lay people who follow its wisdom.  

The rule and life of the monks always come to mind during Lent. For example, in the Rule, St. Benedict places a high value on silence. He devotes a whole chapter in the Rule to the subject. St. Benedict believed that every aspect of monastic life should show great reverence and preference for silence. Lent reminds me to quiet down and shut up, frankly.

But knowing how weak human beings are, St. Benedict designated that certain times of the day and certain places in the monastery should be held in silence. As Benedictine Mother Delores Hart wrote about monastic silence, “Benedict wanted his monks to have the best possible environment in which to hear the voice of God—with the ear of the heart.” He succeeded, and that was in silence.

I don’t know why I forget about silence. I also don’t know why I don’t designate more times for quiet. But then my friend Lent comes along and I make a concerted effort to diminish noise in my life. And I welcome what it does for me and my blood pressure and my peace of mind. I stop watching the news in the morning every so often, and I don’t allow myself to break the silence with music or mindless TV. God can then take up residence in my life more comfortably once again. And he asks me where I’ve been. I sheepishly admit that I’ve allowed myself to become too busy and noisy. He quickly and liberally spreads seeds in the garden of my best life before I lose attention.  

When I was a child, I grew impatient with silence, feeling as if it was a sign that life was passing me by. Not so. It is probably the place where life is the most authentically lived.  But the world deludes us into thinking that we should always be connected and tuned in, chugging insatiably from the fire hydrant of social media feeds. We are taught so often that we need to stand out and find our voice. I was disgusted recently reading about a “tweet war” between two legislators. It seemed that they had no interest in the truth but rather about noisily being right, like children covering their ears and endlessly talking to get their way.

During the 40 days of Lent, I withdraw and be quiet for periods of time each day with the hopes that new patterns will develop and stay. I remember that my parents always made us be quiet on Good Friday from noon - 3 p.m., the hours during which Jesus hung on the cross for the salvation of souls. It was taxing for young children. But it was amazing, even exhilarating, how different my perspective would be on an early spring Good Friday. You notice things that you never had before in nature. You hear God in the wind. You are more connected, even without all the words. You are more settled, and then God comes. For silence is our attempt to prepare for and welcome God by just listening…

I encourage you to give yourselves 15 minutes of silence each day as an experiment. Calm yourself and sit still. Invite Jesus into the quiet with you and encounter him. 15 minutes. At first, it seems so long. But by the end, it’s golden.

- Fr. Richard