Happy Twenty-Seventh Sunday! You’ll be reading this article on Saturday or Sunday, by which time Fr. Christian and I will already be back from convocation, but I am writing this while still here with the brothers.  The Lord is so good to our diocese, and I love that I get to serve here.

Our conference master this week is Fr. Boniface Hicks, a Benedictine monk and friend of the Diocese of Lansing. He lives and serves primarily in Pennsylvania but also leads many priest conferences and parish retreats, among other things. He is a teacher, seminary formator, and parish priest, and he even has a Ph.D. in computer science from Penn State, which is wild.

Our conferences this week are all about the pastoral ministry of accompaniment, one of the big tasks of priestly ministry and expressions of spiritual fatherhood. Here are two of the many nuggets I’ve already written down in my notes, which are worth pondering and praying with: “Treating people like the sacred ground which they are often brings the sacred ground out of them.” Whoa, that’s a good one. Also, a zinger: “Remember that human beings, by their interior life, transcend the entire material universe.” Pray about that one next time!

One of my continuous prayers since my arrival here in 2024 is that God would guide my two pastorates with His own hand, and that He would help me to grow and learn. I’ve also prayed continuously for the health of the parish communities I serve. As my favorite musical artist, Ben Rector, has said in his lyrics, “Healthy things grow, and growing things change.”  How we all grow and change to be more conformed to God in holiness is a deeply personal and yet simultaneously deeply communal journey. God’s great plan includes each of us and all of us. The content of your interior life in particular is sacred ground. To God, it is bigger than all the stars put together. May that truth bless the way you see yourself and each person in your life this week.

From Fr. Brian