The next meeting and breakfast will be held on Saturday, February 7 at Good Shepherd Church in the Family Life Center from 6:30—8:00 a.m. All men are welcome to attend.

There will be a Euchre Tournament on Wednesday, January 21 in the Good Shepherd Knights of Columbus Hall. at 6:30pm. Cost is $5.00 per person. All levels of experience. Learner’s Table. Bring your own snacks and beverages. Friends and Family welcome! 

Hope to see you there!!

Entry Six: I want to walk with you.

Heavenly Father,

I do not even fully understand what just took place this Christmas season. My heart is full of your love, and it was an absolute joy to serve the Christmas Masses as your priest. I have pondered for so many years, what life as a priest would be like during the Christmas season, and now that it is over, I am completely overwhelmed by your goodness.

This season of celebrating your Incarnation has left my heart completely full. Did everything go right, or the way I thought it was going to go? Of course not. A lot of things ended up being very different, but this does not mean that it was not good. You, O Lord, knew exactly what I needed. You knew the struggles that I had to endure in order to become more of the priest you desire me to be. You knew the joys and blessings that would encourage me to keep pursuing you and proclaiming your love. You understood the movements of my own heart better than I could possibly comprehend. You helped me during this season rely on your providence more than my own.

There were so many highs and lows that made me wonder how in the world I would be able to process anything, and yet, you, O Lord, were with me through it all. I went from one extreme—the mountaintop of beautiful liturgy conducive to entering into prayer—to the low extreme of silence in the rectory. You were with me through it all. I will never forget the joy in my heart celebrating Christmas Mass while reflecting upon your love for creation—how you would subject yourself to our finite, mortal nature, you who are infinite, you who are divine and the author of life. You immersed yourself in our sufferings. I will never forget that gift.

I will never forget the quiet moments this season—the moments when it was simply you and me. I will cherish these moments even more because of the difficulty and struggle. It was not easy being away from family this year. I used to have a couple of weeks off during this time because of winter break from school, and I would return home to spend time with family. Now, Lord, I am with you and your people. My life is not my own, and I try to turn to you during these moments when I feel saddened and alone, especially while experiencing the season of Christmas in my new home. What surprised me was that you did not take away the sad and lonely feelings, but you immersed yourself in them with me. You did not allow me to go through them alone. You did not have to say anything to me; a simple embrace from you was all I needed to understand that it was okay. You knew exactly what I needed.

During this season of Ordinary Time, when the Church walks with you through the events of your life and ministry, I want to walk with you just as you did for me these past couple of weeks. I want to place myself on the shore of Galilee and take in your words. I want to be present with you when you performed all the miraculous signs and wonders. I want to know more about you and learn from you. I want to be there with you so that I can continue to understand who you are and what you have revealed to us. I want to walk with you so that I can understand how the Divine underwent human life. You came to us so that we might have life with you; help me to remain close to you as the Church follows your earthly ministry so that I may have life abundantly..

Happy Feast of the Baptism of the Lord!

Today marks the official conclusion of the liturgical Christmas season, which is always a bit nostalgic because I love Christmas decor and it’s a bummer when things have to come down. From here we will journey through five and a half short weeks of Ordinary Time before gathering on Ash Wednesday and embarking upon Lent. The overall momentum of life picks up pace from that point in mid-February all the way through the celebration of Corpus Christi in early June and the conclusion of the school year. So, the chances are high that sometime before Ash Wednesday, I will pick a week between the Sunday liturgies to take some vacation and reset.

It’s a mark of adulting, I’ve found, that as you grow up your vision moves further and further into the future. In childhood, you spend all your attention simply on the moment in front of you now, whereas in adulthood you spend much of your attention using the moment now to make you ready for the moments yet to come. Go to sleep tonight to have energy for tomorrow. Buy groceries now to eat next week. Go to work this week to pay bills next month. Plan time away now to take vacation next year. It does seem a little strange. But then again, that is a consequence of a fallen world, all the constant preparation. In heaven we won’t spend any time preparing for anything! The fulfillment of all our needs and desires will be eternally present to us in the joy of seeing God’s face.

This whole life that we live, my brothers and sisters, is a time of testing. The trials and efforts of our days are given by God or allowed by Him to prepare us for eternal life. They train our eyes and hearts to have a vision for the future—the ultimate future, the final frontier. Our everlasting flourishing depends on “beginning now with the end in mind,” you might say. Such phrases are made famous even by the experts of our secular day (I’m thinking of a well-known book titled The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Dr. Stephen Covey).

Today’s gospel is a peek into the human choices of the Son of God who uses the now-moment to prepare for the future He has in mind for us. John the Baptist described his own ministry as a baptism of water signifying repentance. But Jesus’ baptism was not a remission of His own personal sin, for He was already perfect. Rather, as St. Maximus of Turin once preached, “Christ is baptized, not to be made holy by the water, but to make the water holy, and by his cleansing to purify the waters which he touched… For when the Savior is washed, all water for our baptism is made clean, purified at its source for the dispensing of baptismal grace to the people of future ages. Christ is the first to be baptized, then, so that Christians will follow after him with confidence.”

Think of this today and thank God. For in the moment Jesus was descending into the waters of the Jordan, He was seeing into the future and looking with joy at the moment you were baptized with the water He was then currently consecrating for future ages. This water which Jesus sanctified transmits the divine grace that has made you beloved daughters and sons of God.

Fr. Brian