Happy feast of Pentecost to you all. And indeed, we celebrate quite the
feast today as we remember the fulfillment of Jesus’ promised gift of the Holy
Spirit, the birth of the Church and the birth of the priesthood.
The
Holy Spirit is working overtime here at St. John’s and St. Joe’s. In addition to our regular weekend Mass
schedule, at which the Holy Spirit is always present, two children will be baptized
this morning here at St. John’s—1st grader Ben and baby
Brooklyn. During the 9:00am Mass
at St. Joe’s Fr. Rich will baptize, confirm and give first communion to Holly,
a young adult of the parish. And
to top it all off, our eighteen juniors will be confirmed this afternoon at the
Cathedral. It is days like this I
especially love being a priest. I
thank God every day for this, the most wonderful gift He has given me.
As
I come up on a year of priesthood (at which point Fr. Rich says I will no longer
be a baby priest), my heart is filled with gratitude for you. The faithful here have had a crucial
role in my vocation to the priesthood.
You may not remember, but I worked here as a youth minister while I was
in college. Additionally, for four
years I came up for a weekend a month as part of my seminary’s teaching parish
program. And here I am as a
priest, still receiving your love and support in my vocation.
I
am grateful for your generosity towards me and my vocation. Specifically I appreciate how well our
parishes have supported the United Catholic Appeal fund in the past few
years. Fr. Rich mentioned that
these are the only parishes he has served which met their goal every year, and
for that I thank you.
During
my six years in seminary the Diocese of Duluth contributed $150,000-200,000 to
my education and formation. And
there were five more priests ordained in my class. And three more this year. And two more the following year. We are very blessed with these vocations in our diocese, but
they come with a cost. I am that cost! Fr. Rich is probably preaching this lemon cost way too much. But for better or worse, this is where
your money was spent for the UCA fund and please keep being generous toward
it.
Finally,
I challenge you on this feast of Pentecost to be mindful of the workings of the
Holy Spirit. While many of us can
easily imagine Jesus, and even the Father, it takes more work to picture the
Holy Spirit. Like the wind, the
Holy Spirit can only be seen by His effects. These effects are all around us, but we need to learn how to
see them. For instance, you are
all at Mass this morning. Whether
it’s been a day, a week or a year, it was the Holy Spirit who prompted you to
come. Whenever you bow your head
to pray, the Spirit was first tugging at your heart. Whenever you act kindly, choose rightly or offer sacrifice, He
has been visiting. Every time you
have a God-moment and get goosebumps from a sunset, baby or music, it is the
Holy Spirit inspiring you in His truth, goodness and beauty.
Mindful
of the great gift of the Holy Spirit, we ask God to continue to send forth His
Spirit and renew the face of the earth.
No comments:
Post a Comment