Dear Friends,

The “road less traveled” is not the smoothest road. Anyone who takes being a Christian seriously will eventually find him or herself on that road. I don’t just mean because of the challenges that come from without, whether persecutions, hostility or suffering personal loss because of your beliefs. Often the most difficult part resides within our own spiritual journeys. God has a way of being very exacting of his children. And for good reason: He wants us to live the abundant life. It’s just that sometimes it seems as though He makes the grade in the road especially steep!

Dear Friends,

“Half-time goes by, suddenly your wise, another blink of the eye, 67 is gone, the sun is getting high, we’re moving on.” 100 Years sung by Five for Fighting Lord Jesus, Eternal High Priest, Thirty-five years have passed since that day when my name was called at the Cathedral and I responded: Here I am. Well Lord, here I am, still, despite myself---

Dear Friends,

The “devil is in the details”. In this case I am referring two recent films that feature Satan as best supporting actor. I always find it amusing how Hollywood is firmly atheistic but believes in the Devil. A devil without a God seems like a losing proposition. Still, Satan’s greatest success, via the Enlightenment, was to get society to accept that he doesn’t exist, except as a metaphor.

In his Preface to The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis wrote: “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall into about devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe and feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves (the devils) are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”

Aloha Friends,

They are too few and far between, saints from our corner of the globe, our portion of the Body of Christ. But when they do happen, they are impactful. This week we can rejoice as we celebrate the feast day of another good guy who worked among us and has washed his robes white in the blood of the Lamb and made it to the rolls of the sanctified. Wednesday, we celebrate the feast day of Joseph De Veuster, known as Fr. Damien, who was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI and now known as Saint Damien of Molokai. The road to canonization for Damien was a little long and at times quite bumpy. But he is a man for our times as he was a strong advocate for the proper care of the sick and treatment of the most vulnerable among us. We need his intercession as we try to rise to the challenge of providing adequate and just health care in our country and face potential epidemics that might again require forms of quarantine.

Dear Friends,

What motivates an 84-year-old to shoot a young man knocking on his door? That’s the issue in a recent shooting in Kansas City, where a young black man knocked on the wrong door, as he was picking up his brother, and the homeowner, an 84-year-old white man, shot him twice. Miraculously, the young man has survived, and the shooter is being charged with a crime. The police indicate that racism may be a factor.

Dear Friends,

I’m not shouting “fire” in a theater but I do smell smoke. The culture seems to be burning itself down quicker than we can put out the flames. True enough, political wranglings give me much fodder to inveigh against. And I do seem to have this compulsion to point out foolishness that needs to be pointed out. But my overarching concern is not to opine the state of affairs but to give Christians some tools to provide the culture with Life support. But at this point in our journey it may be helpful to define what we believe our Catholic culture should look like. This is especially for the benefit of the newly baptized and confirmed. After all they are starting out their Catholic life and may need a few pointers from us so they can grasp what it means to be part of the Catholic world.

Dear Friends,

Alexis de Tocqueville in his much-quoted “Democracy in America” wrote: “Our descendants will tend more and more to be divided into only two parts, those leaving Christianity entirely and others entering into the bosom of the Roman Church.” Was he correct and if so, what evidence do we have?

Dear Friends, “The chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas but to destroy Jesus” Matthew 27:20 Pilate offers the crowd a choice.

The Gospel writers keep the Hebrew name Barabbas instead of the Greek translation: Barabbas meaning in Hebrew “son of God”.

So the choice Pilate offers: which son of God do you want? The revolutionary, the zealot or this one the Nazarene whom you call king of the Jews…We want Barabbas.

Dear Friends,

In a recent interview, President Biden said, “What’s going on in Florida, is as my mother would say, close to sinful.” Wow. I must admit I never thought of Florida as a den of iniquity. Well, maybe Miami Beach or the Keys but certainly not Tallahassee or Clearwater. So, what almost sin has Florida committed? The “close to sinful” sin is that the Florida Board of Medicine put the brakes on sex-reassignment surgeries (mastectomy, hysterectomy, castration etc.) on minors.

Dear Friends,

The US Attorney General, recently testified before Congress and was grilled on the case of Mark Houck. Mr. Houck, a prolife advocate got into a scuffle with a pro-abortionist, who was saying vulgar and foul things to Mr. Houck’s 12yr old son while he and his son were protesting in front of an Abortion Clinic in Philadelphia. The local prosecutor declined to press charges, but the Federal Prosecutor decided to charge Mr. Houck with violations of the FACE Act which “prohibits violent, threatening, damaging, and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain, or provide reproductive health services.” Mr. Houck volunteered to surrender to the Federal Prosecutor but instead, the Prosecutor sent in a SWAT team with over two dozen heavily armed agents to arrest Mr. Houck early in the morning at his home where he lived with his wife and seven children. A Federal Jury acquitted Mr. Houck of all charges.

Dear Friends,

The Beatles chimed out, “You say goodbye and I say hello’. So, I’ll start with the ‘goodbye’ and move on to the ‘hello’.

Our Director of Pastoral Care, Whitney Lynch, who has served us well for the past many years has moved on to a new position with the Diocese of Phoenix. Which makes me conflicted…good for them not so much for us. Whitney had a unique skill set that suited our Parish and its demographic perfectly. Add to that a very generous personality and vibrant faith, and she was just, sort of like Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way!

Dear Friends,

Any time we worship anything other than God we dance around the altars of Baal, a false god. The more we do, the more frantic we become and the more we begin to hurt ourselves. Sounds like addictive or compulsive behavior to me. That is exactly what happens when we substitute a material thing for God. We will dance around it more and more frenetically until we start to harm ourselves. Witness an addiction to a drug: the thing we convinced ourselves would help turn us around begins to harm us.