Blog & Pastor Letters

It’s all out of control. Inflation, the economy, violence, oppression, greed, morality, and tensions are all escalating as people scurry about for a sense of stability and well-being. Power seems to win the game and self-aggrandizement appears to be the order of the day. Love gets watered down to tolerance and accepting whomever and whatever is presented. The axis around which meaning and truth are found is twisted. Human beings appear to be engaged in an identity crisis of vast proportion, not certain whether standard, acceptable, and appropriate protocols exist any longer. We are lost. When one nation feels entitled to the goods of another and feels justified using any means possible to obtain them, we are in trouble.

Before becoming a brother in the Society of the Divine Savior (the Salvatorians), I was a Benedictine monk for more than a decade. And, as a Benedictine, I was immersed in the very practical wisdom of St. Benedict and the Rule he wrote for his monks more than 1400 years ago. One of the defining characteristics of this great saint was his balanced understanding of the human person and of community dynamics. We see this at work in the third chapter of his Rule and his insistence that the abbot of the monastery call the community together whenever there was important business to discuss: “Let the Abbot call together the whole community and state the matter to be acted upon… The reason we have said that all should be called for counsel is that the Lord often reveals to the younger what is best.”

We are called to love as Jesus loved, even when it hurts.

One of the untold stories about our country’s armed forces is of the priests who serve the spiritual needs of those who defend us. One priest who served bravely and faithfully was Fr. Emil Joseph Kapaun.

A few years after he was ordained, he decided to serve as an army chaplain and was eventually sent to minister to the troops fighting in Korea in 1950. During one especially fierce battle, he was given the opportunity to fall back to a safer location in the field.

When a friend describes a beautiful sunset, a picture is created in your mind. The words enable you to make meaning. When a parent reacts to a child’s artwork, meaning is created between child and parent, which can affect the child’s self-concept for a lifetime. Likewise, when a lie is spoken, a false reality is constructed that, once discovered, can rupture relationships.

For the first time since 2014, Arizona is currently preparing to resume executions in the very near future. Unfortunately, once these executions begin it is likely many more will come in relatively quick succession.

Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you just caught.” So Simon Peter went over and dragged the net ashore, full of one hundred fifty-three large fish. – John 21:10-11

One of the stories that has earned the place of legend in my family lore is “The Time Colleen Made the Johnnycakes.”