From the Pastor - 4th Sunday in Lent

March 25, 2022

For too many of us, Lent is a season of doom and gloom, a time to feel bad about all the ways we are not “measuring up” in our spiritual lives. But this view could not be further from the truth. Lent is a season of refreshment and love, of awakening and rebirth. The Gospel Reading, the parable of the Prodigal Son, is filled with this theme of awakening and the extravagant, life-changing love that the Father has for each one of us.


We are all familiar with this amazing story — the bratty younger son who has the audacity to ask his dad for his inheritance early, only to squander it sinfully away. It makes us bristle instinctively at his nerve when we read it. But isn’t that exactly what we do when we selfishly turn away from God (in big or small ways) in our own lives? We squander away the inheritance of grace He has given us.


In desperation from the mess he had made of his life, the son finally “comes to his senses” — awakening to the truth that he is a beloved son of a loving and merciful father — and decides to return home. His contrition is faltering and imperfect and seems motivated in large part by his growling stomach. But it is enough for the loving father.


In fact, as soon as the father catches sight of his son he is “filled with compassion for him” and immediately sets about preparing a feast and fine clothes for this son. What an extravagance of love! What a beautiful picture Jesus gives us of our Father’s love and mercy. Oh, how this should fill us with gratitude for such a Father!


And how it should inspire us — with just the tiniest bit of spiritual “spring cleaning” we can be sure we will be swept up in our Father’s loving embrace and find ourselves feasting in His presence. That is what lent is all about. © Catholic Stewardship Consultants, 2022

 

Pastoral Pondering

This week we conclude our consideration of Eucharistic renewal. The third task of this renewal is service or Diakonia. In the context of the history of the liturgical movement in the Church, there was a clear connection made between the Eucharistic sacrifice of the altar and taking that experience of Christ out into the world via social action. In Deus caritas est, Pope Benedict states: “a Eucharist that does not lead to charitable actions towards one’s neighbor is intrinsically fragmented.” Love, both the love that we receive at the altar, and the love that we return to Him, must overflow into the world in which we live; otherwise, what we believe (lex credendi) and how we pray (lex orandi) fails to truly express the way we are called to live (lex vivendi).


Jesus tells the apostles to go into the world and make disciples. While that call has special import for those entrusted with the proclamation of the Gospel, it is a call that is shared by all the faithful. When the Lord offered Himself on Calvary, He did so as an act of self-giving love. Our experience of that Sacrifice at Holy Mass and our reception of Him who died for our sake out of love, is to transform us from the inside out and spur us into our own act of self-offering in the way we give of ourselves, our substance, to a world in need. Each communicant then is called to be a living example of the life and love of God.


Roland Millard in his article in the Adoremus Bulletin notes that: “The ultimate fruit of a Eucharistic renewal is a Eucharistic life, which is marked by a selfless and loving diakonia.” We see this transformation in the lives of countless saints throughout the ages. Love for the Most Holy Eucharist drew them to love others with abundant generosity. In Jesus of Nazareth, Ratzinger indicates that this charity (caritas) it is not something that is added on to our worship. Rather it is part and parcel of it. He states: “Caritas, care for their other, is not an additional sector of Christianity alongside worship; rather, it is rooted in it and forms part of it. The horizontal and the vertical are inseparably lined in the Eucharist, in ‘the breaking of the bread.’” As Christians we are not simply called to assist at Mass on Sundays and Holy Days. We certainly are expected to fulfill this Precept, but the reason this is the case is because participating in the living sacrifice of Christ is essential to helping us live a truly Christian life. If we separate what we do at the altar from the way we live, then we become what St. Paul calls, noisy gongs and clashing symbols or what the Lord describes more severely as white-washed tombs with filth and decay inside.



The goal of any Eucharistic renewal is to clearly connect Sunday worship and daily life. Each member of the mystical body is called to be a living witness of Christ in the world. We are nourished by the Sacrifice of the Altar which in turn invites us to make our own living sacrifice in the way we live our lives for others. We can only do this when we learn to connect what we believe (kerygma), how we worship (leitourgia) and how we are called to live (diakonia).


From the Pastor

From the Pastor - 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

By John Putnam • October 9, 2026
This reflection pertains to the regular readings for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time. We have been given so many gifts and blessings by our Heavenly Father. Yet, in our fallen state it is all too easy to take them for granted. Our readings today teach us that we must live with an intentional awareness of our many blessings and use them gratefully to glorify God. In our Gospel passage from Matthew, Jesus uses the image of a vineyard to teach the importance of using our blessings well. He tells the story of a landowner who plants a vineyard and leases it to tenants before he goes on a journey. Instead of tending the vineyard, the tenants mistreat the servants in the vineyard and even the son of the landowner, whom they kill. When the landowner realizes what the tenants have done, he puts them to death and leases his vineyard to tenants who “will give him the produce at the proper times.” By Baptism, we have received the gift of salvation and membership in the Kingdom of God — we are now “tenants” called to work in the “vineyard” and produce fruit for its owner, our Heavenly Father. Jesus makes it clear that if we squander the gift of salvation, we will lose it. It is a sobering truth. So, let us use our intellect to think on these gifts throughout the day and resolve to use all our gifts for God’s glory. ©Catholic Stewardship Consultants, 2026 Pastoral Pondering Why St. Francis still matters to the Church On October 4 the Church honors St. Francis of Assisi, one of the most beloved and most demanding saints in our history. He is not merely a garden statue or a gentle friend of animals. Francis is a living reminder of what the Gospel looks like when it is taken at its word. Born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone around 1181 in Assisi, he was the son of a wealthy cloth merchant. After a brief taste of knighthood and a season of pleasure, he heard Christ speak from the crucifix of San Damiano: “Francis, go and rebuild my house, which, as you see, is falling into ruin.” He took those words first as a command to repair a crumbling chapel. The Lord meant something larger: the renewal of the Church herself. What Francis restored in the Church Poverty as freedom. Francis stripped himself of inheritance, status, and even the clothes on his back. He called Lady Poverty his bride. That was not a romantic gesture. It was a protest against a Church and a society grown comfortable. Every generation of Catholics needs that protest. When we confuse the Gospel with respectability, Francis stands at the door of the Church and asks whether we still believe that Christ is enough. The crucified Christ at the center. In 1224, two years before his death, Francis received the stigmata on Mount La Verna—the wounds of Christ marked in his own flesh. The Church has always taught that holiness is configuration to Jesus crucified and risen. Francis made that teaching visible. He did not invent devotion to the Passion; he embodied it so completely that the Church could not look away. A family of religious life. From one poor man came the Friars Minor, the Poor Clares with St. Clare, and the Secular Franciscans for men and women living in the world. That threefold family still serves the Church on every continent: preaching, serving the poor, praying, and keeping the memory of the Gospel simple. When we speak of “Franciscan” today—whether a friar, a sister, or a parishioner in the Secular Order—we are naming a way of belonging to Christ that the Church has never outgrown. Creation as gift, not possession. The Canticle of the Creatures—“Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Mother Earth”—is not nature poetry. It is theology. Francis saw every creature as a brother or sister because all things come from the same Father. Pope Francis took that insight into Laudato Si’. Care for our common home is not an optional hobby for Catholics. It is part of the same conversion that led Francis to kiss the leper and to call the wolf of Gubbio his brother. Peace that costs something. In 1219 Francis crossed battle lines during the Fifth Crusade and stood before Sultan al-Kamil. He did not win a treaty. He witnessed to a Lord who is Peace. The Church still needs disciples willing to speak of Christ without hatred and without watering Him down. Francis did both. Why this matters here St. Francis matters to the life of the Church because he keeps returning us to the essentials: Christ poor and crucified, the Church always in need of reform, the poor as our brothers and sisters, creation as a hymn of praise, and joy that does not depend on having more. He is not a saint for specialists. He is a saint for anyone who has grown tired of a faith that costs nothing. As we keep his memorial, I invite you to do one Franciscan thing that is within reach: give something away that you do not need; speak peace where there is friction in your home; spend a few minutes outdoors thanking God for what you did not make; or pray before the crucifix and ask, as Francis did, to know Jesus and to make Him known.  The little poor man of Assisi still rebuilds the Church—one converted heart at a time. May he rebuild ours.

From the Pastor - Feast of St. Francis of Assisi

By John Putnam • October 2, 2026
This reflection pertains to the regular readings for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time. We have been given so many gifts and blessings by our Heavenly Father. Yet, in our fallen state it is all too easy to take them for granted. Our readings today teach us that we must live with an intentional awareness of our many blessings and use them gratefully to glorify God. In our Gospel passage from Matthew, Jesus uses the image of a vineyard to teach the importance of using our blessings well. He tells the story of a landowner who plants a vineyard and leases it to tenants before he goes on a journey. Instead of tending the vineyard, the tenants mistreat the servants in the vineyard and even the son of the landowner, whom they kill. When the landowner realizes what the tenants have done, he puts them to death and leases his vineyard to tenants who “will give him the produce at the proper times.” By Baptism, we have received the gift of salvation and membership in the Kingdom of God — we are now “tenants” called to work in the “vineyard” and produce fruit for its owner, our Heavenly Father. Jesus makes it clear that if we squander the gift of salvation, we will lose it. It is a sobering truth. So, let us use our intellect to think on these gifts throughout the day and resolve to use all our gifts for God’s glory. ©Catholic Stewardship Consultants, 2026 Pastoral Pondering Why St. Francis still matters to the Church On October 4 the Church honors St. Francis of Assisi, one of the most beloved and most demanding saints in our history. He is not merely a garden statue or a gentle friend of animals. Francis is a living reminder of what the Gospel looks like when it is taken at its word. Born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone around 1181 in Assisi, he was the son of a wealthy cloth merchant. After a brief taste of knighthood and a season of pleasure, he heard Christ speak from the crucifix of San Damiano: “Francis, go and rebuild my house, which, as you see, is falling into ruin.” He took those words first as a command to repair a crumbling chapel. The Lord meant something larger: the renewal of the Church herself. What Francis restored in the Church Poverty as freedom. Francis stripped himself of inheritance, status, and even the clothes on his back. He called Lady Poverty his bride. That was not a romantic gesture. It was a protest against a Church and a society grown comfortable. Every generation of Catholics needs that protest. When we confuse the Gospel with respectability, Francis stands at the door of the Church and asks whether we still believe that Christ is enough. The crucified Christ at the center. In 1224, two years before his death, Francis received the stigmata on Mount La Verna—the wounds of Christ marked in his own flesh. The Church has always taught that holiness is configuration to Jesus crucified and risen. Francis made that teaching visible. He did not invent devotion to the Passion; he embodied it so completely that the Church could not look away. A family of religious life. From one poor man came the Friars Minor, the Poor Clares with St. Clare, and the Secular Franciscans for men and women living in the world. That threefold family still serves the Church on every continent: preaching, serving the poor, praying, and keeping the memory of the Gospel simple. When we speak of “Franciscan” today—whether a friar, a sister, or a parishioner in the Secular Order—we are naming a way of belonging to Christ that the Church has never outgrown. Creation as gift, not possession. The Canticle of the Creatures—“Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Mother Earth”—is not nature poetry. It is theology. Francis saw every creature as a brother or sister because all things come from the same Father. Pope Francis took that insight into Laudato Si’. Care for our common home is not an optional hobby for Catholics. It is part of the same conversion that led Francis to kiss the leper and to call the wolf of Gubbio his brother. Peace that costs something. In 1219 Francis crossed battle lines during the Fifth Crusade and stood before Sultan al-Kamil. He did not win a treaty. He witnessed to a Lord who is Peace. The Church still needs disciples willing to speak of Christ without hatred and without watering Him down. Francis did both. Why this matters here St. Francis matters to the life of the Church because he keeps returning us to the essentials: Christ poor and crucified, the Church always in need of reform, the poor as our brothers and sisters, creation as a hymn of praise, and joy that does not depend on having more. He is not a saint for specialists. He is a saint for anyone who has grown tired of a faith that costs nothing. As we keep his memorial, I invite you to do one Franciscan thing that is within reach: give something away that you do not need; speak peace where there is friction in your home; spend a few minutes outdoors thanking God for what you did not make; or pray before the crucifix and ask, as Francis did, to know Jesus and to make Him known.  The little poor man of Assisi still rebuilds the Church—one converted heart at a time. May he rebuild ours.