St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Center in The Daily Camera

Check out this great article in the Daily Camera!

State of the Parish Address 2010

Summer of 2010

My Dear Parishioners,

Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever! As you may or may not know, each summer we hold “State of the Parish” potlucks in order to increase communication about important matters, to get feedback and advice and spend some time together. I think these have worked out very well over the past three summers and the people who come seem to genuinely appreciate them and even enjoy them! We held three such potlucks this summer, one each month. If you did not get a chance to come or if you’d like to review the material that I covered, here it is. As usual, if you have any comments, questions or concerns, please feel free to email me at pastor@thomascenter.org.

I. A Year in Review

This year was once again a year of growth and change, especially with regard to the staff. At the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year, we welcomed four new staff members. Mark Thomas joined us as our new music director, Bob Siemens and Diane King, our Director of Evangelization and Outreach and Student Center Office Manager respectively, were hired to work with the college students and, finally, the Archbishop assigned two deacons to our parish, Deacon Marty Hetzel and Deacon (now Father) David Nix. I’m sure you have all joined me in welcoming them and are grateful for their service. We have been extraordinarily blessed with an incredible staff.

Our parish also experienced growth in the number of people, both families and students, attending our Masses on Sunday. In fact, we now have approximately 1250 people attending St. Thomas each Sunday, up from 950 just three years ago. I am very pleased to tell you that the number of undergraduate students attending St. Thomas Aquinas has doubled in the past four years. With the increase of families and students all of our ministry programs have seen growth this past year: middle school and high school youth ministry, religious education, sacramental preparation, RCIA, FOCUS bible studies, student socials, educational opportunities, social events for the parish at large and so on. Especially dear to my heart is the 9:00 p.m. Sunday night Mass that went from 50 people when we first started it to approximately 150 by the end of the year.

Although I will be giving a full report to the parish in September, you should know now that we had a very successful year financially. The offertory was approximately $60,000 over budget because of your generosity, especially during the “Matching Gift Collections.” Our development efforts were also very fruitful as we raised $435,000 outside of the offertory for our campus ministry efforts. With this surplus, we were able to do some long-needed capital improvements in the Pastoral Center, the Parish Hall, the Student Center, the Rental House and the Rectory. Once again, thank you for your generosity.

II. The Coming Year

The Staff

We have several changes in the staff this year as well. The most obvious one is a shift from Fr. Peter Mussett to Fr. David Nix. I want to thank you all for welcoming Fr. David to St. Thomas and giving him your support and prayers. Second, although Hilary Rowe (now Draftz) is still a FOCUS missionary here at St. Thomas, she has stepped down as Team Director and has been succeeded by Michael Kearney. Thirdly, Judy Demarest, our Youth Minister for the past several years, has moved on to pursue other opportunities. I want to thank her for her many years of service and excellent ministry, we will miss her tremendously. I have decided, in keeping with our mission as a campus ministry, to have her duties absorbed by campus ministry which will be implementing strategies to reach out to high-schoolers through college student volunteers (this might take some time to be implemented, so please be patient) and by Patty Quinn in Religious Education who will be coordinating ministry to middle-schoolers, including the Confirmation program. This year, we have also welcomed a new staff member to campus ministry, Jen Moser. Her title is Assistant Director of Evangelization and Outreach which means she will be involved in the day-to-day life on campus. Lastly, although not a staff member, we welcome Jim Mackin who is a parishioner studying for the Permanent Diaconate. He will be helping a variety of ways especially in the liturgy and communications technology.

Parochial and Campus Ministry

We continue to look for ways to improve, initiate and grow various ministries at St. Thomas as well as bring about greater unity among the various age groups. I encourage you to get involved in some way outside of Mass so as to grow in your faith and your fellowship with other Catholics, whether they are families or students.

In campus ministry, Bob, with the help of Jen and Diane, is initiating a whole host of new opportunities at the student center and the church itself. Please read the bulletin each week to see what’s going on.

As you know, we have been working hard to improve our intellectual outreach on campus and our in-house formation as well. Matt Boettger has moved to a new position this year: The Director of Intellectual Formation. RCIA is growing tremendously as well as the Lecture Series on Campus and the Adult Education classes at the Church. He and I are working hard on increasing the offerings both at the Church and on-campus, including some innovative ideas that I look forward to sharing as we able.

The Parish Council

I am please to announce that we have a replenished and very energetic Parish Pastoral Council. This Council is a very important part of the parish; it is one of the three main consultative bodies, along with the staff and the Finance Council, that advises me about parochial life. We have added new members this year, in keeping with our statutes. Returning members are Rolin Geronsin, Dennis O’Rourke, Maggie Scholfield, Keith Davis, Mike Freece, Pat Coats, Kate Schmid and Sean McDevitt. The new members are Abigail Bernard, Mary Ferraro, Deacon Marty Hetzel, Brian Hughes, Michael McCarthy, Ernest Acevedo-Munoz, and Erin Poe. I want to thank them all for their generous service.

The Parish Council has its work cut out for it over the next couple of years. We have begun two major projects and are beginning a third. The first began over a year and a half ago: the Foodbank Task Force which is studying and planning ways to improve and expand this important ministry by joining with other Boulder parishes and moving to a downtown location. The second is the Social Events sub-committee which is planning to improve the efficiency and organization our many social events that have been growing the past couple of years. The third task is the major work of improving our facilities which have great needs.

III. Facilities Improvements

A Brief History

For those of you who are new to the parish and to those of you who may need a refresher, we attempted a massive overhaul of our facilities beginning in 2000 and concluding unsuccessfully in 2006. This project was called “Faith on the Hill” and it attempted to expand the Church with a new sanctuary while renovating the existing Church into office space, a student center and classrooms. This was a comprehensive plan that would have addressed all of our difficulties: a lack of seating, classroom space, office space and student center needs. It would have effectively moved all of our facilities into one building and would have been wonderful if it would have worked. The plan was to demolish the two houses to the south of the church and build a new church on those lots. The existing church would have then been remodeled into a two-story student center/pastoral center. Several things happened that thwarted this dream.

• The dot-com bubble burst in 2001 (other ecclesial and political difficulties began as well) and many people began moving away from Boulder and/or St. Thomas. As a result our attendance began to drop and continued to drop through 2007. It is now on the rise again and our facilities are once-again feeling the strain.
• In 2004-2005, a great gift was given to the parish by the Archdiocese: the Student Center on 15^th and Euclid. This alleviated the meeting space, classroom and office space “crunch” for the time being.
• In 2005-2006, through the initiative of the neighbors, the city declared two blocks of 14^th Street as “Historical District” in order to prevent the demolition of the parish’s two houses to the south of the Church.
• In 2006, it was announced that the beloved Paulist Fathers would no longer be serving at St. Thomas Aquinas casting an uncertainty over everything at the parish.
• The capital campaign failed to raise the necessary funds for the project to move forward. $1.1 million out of the $3.5 million needed was raised through the campaign; most of that money was spent on purchasing the second house south of the parish for demolition. (We still own that house and are renting it to tenants).

We once again find ourselves in need of addressing the needs and inadequacies of our facilities. Some of the previous needs have been alleviated but others have gone unaddressed for many years now. My approach over the past four years has been to strengthen and grow our community and ministry while putting the facility needs on the “back-burner.” We are in a much better situation than we were four years ago and we can no longer afford to do that! There are both immediate practical and theological, liturgical and spiritual reasons why we should do this.

The Current Situation

As with all parishes and ministries, St. Thomas Aquinas has been built up, preserved and renewed by each succeeding generation. We have what we have today (a beautiful church, rectory, pastoral center, youth house and student center) because those who came before us (many of whom are still with us) cared deeply about “the Catholic Church on the Hill” and ministry to the University of Colorado. We are now called to do the same: to provide for the future generations of Catholics at the University and the Hill neighborhood. If we don’t do it, who will?

The immediate practical needs are these: aging buildings along with all their systems, inadequate parish hall, kitchen, classrooms, offices, and sanctuary. This last one, I realize is a sensitive topic but the needs are real. We are extremely overcrowded for three of our Masses: the 9:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m. and the 6:00 p.m. Yes, we can have more Masses, but most people choose their Mass time and stick with it. In addition to this, we are striving to improve our music program to be of the same excellence, though not size, of the music program at C.U. We cannot do this without more adequate space in the Church for music. This is indeed our overall goal in all things: we should be proportionate in excellence to the University that we serve. We are already doing that in the quality of our ministries but not in our facilities.

Our church is beautiful in many ways and has served us well. But its current arrangement seriously hinders the seating capacity, the liturgy (especially weddings, funerals and other major celebrations) and the music. It has its charm and does many things well but does not measure up to its potential or the excellence that we are striving for. This can be seen in the architecture and character of the outside of the building (its nobility, stability, simplicity and beauty) which says to all who pass by that we have something special to offer, that the Catholic faith is all these things. The inside says some of that, but it can say it better. The inside of the church does not fully measure up to the excellence of the outside, it is a bit disorienting because the seating is in fact disoriented from the original architecture of the building. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for fan-shaped churches…in fan-shaped churches. I’m all for proximity of seating to the sanctuary, as long as it matches the architecture of the building.

Catholic churches should have a transcendence or height to them, as this symbolizes the upward movement of the human person to God in prayer. When you walk into a room with height, our heart, our breathing, our eyes, and our soul are automatically drawn upwards. Our church has this, but by disorienting it we’ve all but eliminated that sense and symbol. All Catholic churches should have a permanency about them, as a symbol that Christ and the Catholic faith are the same, yesterday, today and forever. We can see and feel that in the outside of our church but not so much on the inside as everything is movable and much needs to be replaced because of the lack of durability of materials. All Catholic churches, because we’re not angels and need the things of sense, should feed the body as well as the soul with sights, sounds, smells and things of noble simplicity.

Again, please don’t get me wrong. Is our church ugly? Of course not! Can it be better? Absolutely!

The Plan for Moving Forward

I have been praying and thinking intensely about this for the last four years (really, just about every day!). Recently, I’ve been working with the staff, the finance council, the parish council, an architect and the City of Boulder to present a feasible plan for our facilities.

A Capital Campaign and the Selling of the Rental House

One of the drawbacks of “Faith on the Hill” was its size and scope. It was a beautiful plan that addressed all our needs in an ideal fashion. It was also beyond our means. In our plan to move forward, I want to sell what we now call the “rental house” which was purchased with the “Faith on the Hill” money and use it along with the money raised from a new capital campaign for our facility needs.

The experts in the fundraising and development fields tell us that we can expect to raise, for a worthwhile and supported project, three times our offertory amount over a three year period without the offertory going down. This means that a 2.5 million dollar capital campaign should be within our means. That money combined with the selling of the rental house would give us at least 3 million dollars to work with to address most if not all of our capital needs. The details have yet to be worked out with the parish council and facilities planning committee, but I will propose using $2.3 million on the church, both upstairs and down, $125,000 on updating and renovating the youth house, $75,000 on updating the rectory, $200,000 on the Pastoral Center and $300,000 on “soft-costs.” Again, these are just estimates and a proposal.

The Proposal and Next Steps

This work would result in a restored and renewed church more in keeping with the theology, spirituality, and liturgy of the Roman Rite, increased seating, space for the music program and a noble simplicity that matches the architecture of the Church. The parish hall would also be expanded and improved along with all the systems of the church (heating, cooling, electrical, sound etc.). The parish hall could then be used for larger and even formal events, such as wedding receptions, and would have more classroom space as well as a larger practice room for our musicians. The youth house is in serious need of updating and improvement to make it a more usable space, either for meetings or to rent it out to others. The rectory is in very good shape but has some elements that could use some updating as it was last renovated in 1979 (although, we did some work to it this past summer). The Pastoral Center, too, hasn’t had any work done to it for a long time, I’m not sure if Terry Shroba even knows when it was last updated.

As I mentioned, at this time, this is a proposal to the parish. This material was received extremely well, even enthusiastically, at the potlucks this summer. Right now, we are meeting with the city to see what the difficulties might be, coming up with preliminary plans with an architect and investigating the sale of the rental house. We will be having two meetings this October, possibly November, to present a formal plan to the parish to receive feedback, comments and questions. After that, the parish council will take all of that into account as we decide on plans for the future. It will be at that point that there will be more input, not less, into the planning of this major work upon which our future together depends.

Please pay attention to the bulletin and the pulpit announcements to find out when the parish-wide meetings will be and please plan on attending. Please feel free to contact me with comments, feedback and questions, but also know that these meetings will answer many, if not all, of your questions. With prayers and blessings, I remain

Your brother in Christ,

Father Kevin

Quote of the Day

Something worth thinking about when religious people are dismissed as ignorant or stupid:

"If religion is the opiate of the people, utopianism is the methamphetamine of the modern intellectual...It offers a vision of the world in which they are omnipotent...One can argue that the so-called education gap is really an 'indoctrination gap.' The wide consensus among the better educated...is not proof that thy have been taught to think for themselves, but evidence that they have been programmed to think alike."

---Lee Harris in The Next American Civil War

Should the Government Approve of Same-Sex "Marriage"?

On Monday, January 25, the Aquinas Institute for Catholic Thought, the intellectual outreach arm of the St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Center, will hold the third annual “Great Debate” on the University of Colorado campus and host nationally-known speakers Jonathan Rauch and Maggie Gallagher for a debate entitled “Should the Government Approve Same-Sex Marriage?” Last year’s “Great Debate” featured Dinesh D’Souza and Christopher Hitchens and drew a crowd of over 2,400 people to CU’s campus to hear the debate on “Atheism vs. Religion.” Over 2,000 people are expected to attend again this year and tickets are currently on sale. Tickets are $10 per adult, $5 per student and can be purchased at www.thomascenter.org or at any King Soopers.

Jonathan Rauch, a senior writer and columnist for National Journal magazine in Washington and a contributing editor of The Atlantic, is the author of several books and many articles on public policy, culture and economics. "For the American family and the beleaguered institution of marriage, same-sex marriage is part of the solution. When gay couples settle down, form family ties, and make the noblest commitment that most people ever make, it's a win-win--good for them and good for society. I see my job as persuading conservatives to understand that their own case for the social benefits of marriage doesn't suddenly become false when you apply it to gays."

Maggie Gallagher is the president of the National Organization for Marriage which the Washington Post recently called the “pre-eminent organization” fighting gay marriage, a nationally syndicated columnist, and the author of three books on marriage. "Unions of husband and wife really are unique and deserve their unique status in law, culture and society. These are the only kind of sexual union that can make new life and connect those children in love to their mother and father. Gay marriage is not about what two people do in private, it is about what government is going to say and do in public. Same-sex unions are not marriages. Treating them as marriages, and particularly misusing government to require others in the society to do so, is profoundly unjust."

Bulletin Column November 8

The Month of November

As I am sure you know, the Church sets aside the month of November as a time to especially remember and pray for all those who have died. As the month began, we celebrated the Solemnity of All Saints, that is, we honored all those who have arrived home in heaven, the ones we know about (those formally canonized by the Church after sufficient evidence) and those who remain anonymous to the world but oftentimes known by us. All Saints was, of course, followed by All Souls which is set aside to pray for all those who have died that they may experience God’s healing touch and purification so as to be ready to enter the heavenly liturgy.

At St. Thomas Aquinas, we are remembering all those who have died in our “Book of Remembrance” which can be found in the vestibule. We will be praying every day for all those in the book and their families. Please take a moment to mark down your loved ones. Also, as I mentioned at some Masses recently, we have a great deal of open Mass intentions in November and beyond. This is a precious pious practice of the Church that stretches back to her very beginnings. Having the Mass offered specifically for people is one of the most charitable actions we can possibly do. Why? Because the Mass is how Jesus taught us to “worship in Spirit and Truth.” Instead of just our private prayer, the whole Church’s prayer is united with the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ and offered to the Father. There is nothing greater that you can do for someone. I want to encourage everyone to consider taking up this beautiful practice by contacting Terry Shroba in the front office.

Deacons

As I am sure you have noticed, we have a “transitional” deacon, David Nix, assigned to our parish for the school year. Deacon David, as he prefers to be called, is a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Denver and, God willing, he will be ordained a priest in May. It is a privilege to have him here with us and to help in his training. Also, I wanted to let you know that I have officially petitioned the Archdiocese to assign a “permanent” deacon to St. Thomas Aquinas to help us, especially me and Fr. Peter, with the increasing pastoral workload. I expect that my request will be granted sooner than I anticipated. The permanent diaconate, originally founded by the Apostles in Acts 7, was restored to the Church at the Second Vatican Council as part of its plan for renewal. It is a great gift, yet it has not been a part of our parish experience for some time. I have tried to recruit members of our own parish to pursue a vocation to the diaconate since I arrived but so far have not had any luck. Permanent deacons are usually married men who feel called to give their lives to the Church as a servant. If anyone is interested in knowing more, please see me!

The Body of Christ, like the human body, is made up of various parts with various functions. As St. Paul says “the hand cannot say to the foot ‘I do not need you.’” Each of us is part of the Body of Christ with our own functions and duties, and the Body is multifaceted. A deacon is ordained to act in the “person of Christ the servant” toward the Church. This is what the word diaconus means, servant.

A deacon is supposed to be a servant of three things specifically: the Altar, the Word and Charity. I’d like to focus on the first two at this time. There are certain functions in the liturgy that belong to the deacon, just as there are certain things that belong to laity and to the priest. The liturgy is symphonic, each section doing its part to make it beautiful. In the absence of a deacon, some of his parts are taken up by the priest such as the Penitential Rite, the reading of the Gospel, the invitation to the Kiss of Peace and the Dismissal while other parts are taken up by the laity such as the carrying of the Book of the Gospel in the procession and the Prayers of the Faithful. Once a deacon is present, however, the deacon rightly takes up these parts. I say all this lest anyone think that the deacons are being “clerical” or “stealing the parts of the laity.” Rather, he will be fulfilling his proper role, making the liturgy richer and as I said before symphonic.

There is, of course, a great deal more I could say but I’ve run out of room. Having deacons at the parish will be wonderful in innumerable ways. I know you will do everything possible to make Deacon David and any future deacons welcome at St. Thomas Aquinas.

USCCB Health Care Push

Just a heads-up: This coming weekend we will have a letter from Archbishop Chaput on health care reform read from the pulpit as well as USCCB flyers inserted in the bulletin.

This is being done, in various forms, in every Catholic parish across the country. Michael Sean Winters of America Magazine and National Catholic Reporter explains why he supports this effort here.

Excellent Post by John Allen at NCR

http://ncronline.org/blogs/all-things-catholic/next-generation-catholic-leaders

Read the Whole Letter!

My former pastor and someone I consider to be my mentor, Bishop Walker Nickless of Sioux City, Iowa, has published a wonderful pastoral letter for his diocese, Ecclesia Semper Reformanda (The Church must always be renewed). It is long as far as pastoral letters go but by no means difficult to read, either in content or length. Yet, with some exceptions, it seems the “bloggers” and their readers have a hard time reading anything in its entirety. Instead, they simply read other people’s articles with their catchy headlines and excerpts and feel free to write with magisterial authority on the content of the letter. Meanwhile, the articles that they comment on simply pull one paragraph out of the context of the whole letter and thereby misunderstand both the “part” and the “whole.” My fear is that the larger media will do one of two things: take the bloggers’ word for it on its content or ignore it altogether. Either option would be foolish.

My problem with this is that the bloggers, both “right” and “left,” have simply picked out something sensational in the letter, something that makes them feel good about their own positions or angry about the positions of others, without understanding what is argued throughout the letter. This makes the letter seem “conservative” and even extreme when it is neither.

For the true purpose of the letter, fully evident when read in its entirety, is similar to what Cardinal George has argued in his new book and an interview with National Catholic Reporter’s best columnist, John Allen. Namely, that we need to move beyond the liberal/conservative divide and labels as inadequate for the troubles facing the Church. Cardinal George argues for “simply Catholicism” which strives to keep together the two poles of identity and mission. The “conservatives”, like the St. Pius X Society, focus exclusively on Catholic identity and culture to the exclusion of evangelization and engagement with the world around them. They take a snap-shot of Catholic Culture, namely, the first half of the twentieth century, elevate the entire thing, small “t” traditions and all, to the level of dogma and bunker down into their ghetto. Meanwhile, the “liberals” engage with the world, adjusting the gospel to such an extent that there is no permanent deposit of faith received from Jesus and the apostles, and thus have nothing to offer the world. Neither approach will do.

Bishop Nickless has written a document that shows us the way forward beyond the current impasses. In it he argues that the Second Vatican Council is still the key to renewal, that we’re not done yet, that the on-going interpretation and implementation of the Council is the New Evangelization so often called for by Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict. Thus, he argues that the Council is the “greatest gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church in centuries” and that misunderstandings based on a subjective “Spirit of Vatican II” must be purged if we are to do the work of the Lord in our day and age. He argues that the two poles listed above, identity and mission, belong together, both are necessary. He argues that we have to know who we are, what we believe and what we are about (Identity) so that we can engage the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Mission) in dynamic and creative ways. In other words, as Catholics we are inherently “conservative” in our doctrine, because it comes from Jesus Christ, but pastorally “liberal” or “progressive” in our approach to the world. This is why neither label fits or is helpful in understanding where we are at in the history of the Church.

But don’t take my word for it! Read the whole letter! I highly encourage this for everyone, but especially students and parishioners of the St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Center. It can be found on the Diocese of Sioux City website: http://www.scdiocese.org/files/Pastoral_Letter_updated100809.pdf

Taking Crazy Pills and Sucking on Dreamsicles

The colorful title above comes from two sources. The first, "taking crazy pills," comes from Will Farrell's character in the movie "Zoolander." Enough said. The second is from drinking beers on the porch with my sister this summer in the humid Indiana heat. We were talking about something outrageous and my sister dropped this line. I've wanted to use it ever since.

The correct context for their usage is when something is so crazy, outrageous, silly, contradictory or hypocritical you can't believe it. Here are some ways to use them:

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!

What are you doin'? Sucking on dreamsicles?

I feel like everyone is taking crazy pills!

Why am I telling you this? Because I feel like I've been using these lines a great deal lately, usually after reading or watching the news. The public discourse and bitter acrimony on a whole host of topics, both within and outside of the Catholic Church, has pushed people to the extremes and has called for their usage.

1. Roman Polanski. Are they serious? Do they really think because he made "good" movies (I'm not sure I've seen any of his movies) that he shouldn't be held accountable for raping a 13 year old girl? Or that because it happened so long ago, it should just be dropped? They have not and would never say this (and rightly so) for a Catholic priest or for anyone else. Why should he get away with this heinous crime? Click here for an excellent analysis.

2. Health Care. I'm not an expert here although I have tried to follow the debate closely as the Catholic Church has always been a strong advocate for affordable and accessible health care. This is a really important issue that requires careful deliberation and discussion. I am not capable of parsing these difficult issues. I would just like to point out some things that are, well, crazy.

a. I was at a lecture the other night by Bobby Schindler, the brother of Terri Schiavo. Understandably, he raised serious questions, indeed indictments, about the current practices of ethics panels in our health care system. He then went on to exhort everyone to pay close attention to the current debate lest the situation "on the ground" worsen. That's it. He simply told people to ask questions, to be involved. He was chastised by a women in the crowd for saying anything, however slight it was, against President Obama and his health care plans. That wasn't allowed. Second, she was worried that he was trying to "influence these young minds." Well, yes, of course he was. That is what public debate is about, especially at a university. My qualm is her desire to immediately shut down differences, discourse and debate. So much for tolerance of differences, democracy and the intellectual pursuit of truth.

b. The U.S. bishops are for health care reform. Always have been, always will be. But if the brave few ask difficult questions about abortion being included or respect for the principle of subsidiarity they are characterized as being held in bondage by the Republicans. This insult is usually hurled by writers who have explicitly campaigned for President Obama. The pot calling the kettle?

Once again, my problem isn't with differences of opinion, as this is, after all, a matter of prudential judgment, not doctrine, and therefore good Catholics can hold different positions. At least they should be. My problem is with the shutting down of debate and discussion with those who disagree with you, especially through hypocritical judgments or outlandish accusations. Particularly shameful was Michael Sean Winters, whom I was really starting to like and value his judgments, calling people that opposed government expansion racists.

The fact of the matter is that Catholics are politically homeless. Neither party keeps together the difficult tensions, in this case, of subsidiary and solidarity.

c. By the way, whatever happened to the principle of subsidiarity? Namely, whatever happened to the idea that problems should be dealt with by the smallest unit possible that the common good allows? This is a part of Catholic Social Justice teaching just as much as solidarity with the poor. But it is rarely mentioned by the current Catholic advocates for the currently proposed health care. I'm just saying, shouldn't that be part of the debate too?

d. Lastly, I find it incredibly ironic that those who for decades have lamented the bishops' supposed desire to preserve institutional prestige and power in the public sphere, (see the editorializing at the National Catholic Reporter) are now suddenly worried that if the bishops are too outspoken on the issues of the day the Catholic Church will lose its credibility in the public square. I guess one can only be a "prophetic witness" if you agree with the National Catholic Reporter. "We played a song for you and you would not dance, we sang a dirge and would not weep."

3. Lastly, we have the good sisters. The Vatican has begun an investigation into the life and health of women's religious communities here in the U.S., including their fidelity to the Deposit of Faith as it is taught by the authentic Magisterium of the Catholic Church. In order to participate in the study one has to make a profession of faith. The sisters aren't happy with the whole thing, but especially the last part. Think about how crazy that is: professed religious in the Catholic Church don't want to take a profession of faith, or won't. They say it is because it is an insult, that it questions their faith and fidelity to the Church. Meanwhile, they write articles that deny the Church's settled teachings (See this week's Commonweal). I have had to take a profession of faith and an oath of fidelity three times: at my diaconate ordination, my priestly ordination and upon being made a pastor. Each time I was excited and proud. If you believe what the Church teaches, why would you not want to proclaim it from the rooftops?

Cardinal George on the New Evangelization

Cardinal George of the Archdiocese of Chicago and the current President of the USCCB has published a new book on the Catholic Church in the United States. The book,The Difference God Makes: A Catholic Vision of Faith, Communion and Culture (Crossroad), lays out a vision for the evangelization of contemporary American culture. John Allen posted an interview with the Cardinal on the National Catholic Reporter website about the book.

The part I found most interesting in the interview (I haven't had a chance to read the book) is the notion of "simply Catholicism" as different from a "liberal" and "conservative" Catholicism.

It seems to me that he means the same thing Blessed John XXIII meant when he said that the purpose of the Second Vatican Council was two-fold: "that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine should be both guarded and taught more efficaciously...The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another." The two poles of Catholic identity and engagement with the world, of Catholic faith and evangelization, of Catholic culture and inculturation, of knowing who you are and how to share it with others, must be always kept together in a reciprocal relationship. The second pole is necessarily dependent upon the first while the second gives life to and feeds the first.

The Ax of the Redskin Bishop?

Here is an article by Archbishop Chaput. The Italian author of the follow-up article called him the redskin bishop! Sensitivity training for the Italians?

Great Question(s)

I saw this article yesterday on the U.S. Bishops and the Notre Dame Controversy. I thought I'd share it as I think he raises a number of great questions.

Homily for the Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

This Sunday, we come to the end of the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. For weeks, we have been reflecting upon Jesus as the Bread of Life, come down from Heaven, to give life to our souls. The question about how to live from this great gift remains to us this week.

Our readings this week are particularly rich for such a question. The answers provided have to do with making a choice, a fundamental orientation of life toward imitating the self-gift of Jesus in the Eucharist and striving to live that in our day-to-day lives. Let’s take a look at the readings and see what they have to teach us. As usual, the first reading and the Gospel are intimately connected as a foreshadowing and a fulfillment, while the second reading gives us practical ways of living out the Gospel message.

The Israelites in today’s first reading are gathered at Shechem, the place of God’s Covenant with Abraham. Having mourned the death of their leader Moses and poised to enter into their inheritance pause to renew the Covenant God made with them at Sinai. As is right and proper, this must be a free choice, something that should well up from within and profoundly affect their lives and their behavior in their new land. They are to choose between serving the Lord who has brought them out of slavery and given them the land that lies before them, and the serving of other gods, whether from Egypt or the land that they have entered.

Joshua lays a stark challenge before them: there can be no neutrality, no third way, and no indecision. The truth of the matter is that we all serve someone or something by giving our heart, time, energy and enthusiasm. Either the Israelites will be faithful to the Lord and the Covenant and receive his blessing or reject Him and suffer great consequences, including exile (unfortunately, the blessings and curses have been cut out of our reading today). Joshua exhorts them: “Decide today whom you will serve!” You will serve someone, who will it be? To motivate them to make the right choice, to encourage them, Joshua gives his own personal witness: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” The Israelites respond in kind. Yet, we know from the Book of Judges and the later history of Israel that this is short-lived. They are still in need of God’s mercy and a further redemption.

This further redemption, of course, comes through Jesus. The first reading foreshadows today’s Gospel because the disciples, curious on-lookers and even the apostles, the inner-circle, are forced to make a similar decision: to believe Jesus and his teaching concerning a “hard saying” or to return to their former way of life. This “hard saying” of Jesus, concerns the giving of his flesh and blood as true food and true drink, the future Eucharist. The listeners, and people throughout the ages, find this a “hard saying” and don’t even want to listen to it, let alone accept it.

Yet, this teaching is obviously critically important to Jesus because he draws a line in the sand, so to speak. He forces his listeners to choose, he allows them to leave in great numbers without softening or nuance of his words. He even asks his closest followers, “Do you also wish to leave?” In other words, this teaching is so important, I will simply start over again. He even connects disbelief in the Eucharist with the betrayal of Judas (see the last verse of the chapter, unfortunately left out of our passage today).

Now, he does offer a warning, “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail.” He warns them not to look at this with the “flesh,” with human eyes or human reason because it is unable, of itself, to comprehend the gift he offers. Instead, we need to see with the Spirit, with the eyes of faith.

Many draw back from him at this point, they return to their former way of life. Jesus doesn’t chase after them, he allows them, in their freedom, to choose whom they will serve. (There was one who stayed who should have left, namely, Judas.)

Peter’s response, as usual, is the right one; it is the model even though it isn’t that flattering! “Lord, to whom shall we go?” In other words, we would go, but “you have the words of eternal life. We are convinced and have come to believe that you are the Holy One of God.” Peter submits to Jesus’ teaching despite not understanding completely. He is convinced of Jesus’ origin and therefore his authority. He trusts that someday he will begin to understand, that he will be led deeper.

Like the Israelites in the first reading and in the Gospel, we are also asked to make a choice on whom we will serve—Jesus in the Eucharist or our former way of life. We have a daily miracle far greater than the ones witnessed in Egypt or the desert! Whom will we serve? To whom shall we go? Do we also wish to go away? These questions should confront us every Sunday when we decide whether or not to go to Mass. But they should also confront us in our day-to-day lives.

It seems to me that this passage from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians was chosen to go along with this Gospel for two reasons. The first is because of the connection between the Eucharist and the spousal relationship between Christ and his Church. You see, after our washing with water and the word in Baptism, the Eucharist is the consummation of our spousal relationship with Jesus. It is the time where the two become one flesh through mutual self-giving. Jesus gives us himself, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity and in response we receive him and give him ourselves. In other words, there is a profound analogy between the mutual self-giving of Jesus and the Church in the Eucharist and the mutual self-giving of spouse during intercourse. In both acts, the two become one flesh through a reciprocal gift of self.

The second reason is that this reason tell us how we should “live the Eucharist” in the state of life that most people are called to, namely, marriage. (This also applies, in analogous ways to those who are celibate for the sake of the Kingdom, but that is for another time.) But before we get to this, we need to understand this reading properly. In fact, it is so often misunderstood that the Church gives us the option of a shorter reading, leaving out all that talk of subordination!

Our culture rightfully rejects inequality between the sexes and the unjust treatment of women by men down through the ages and so it is natural to see some of the same in today’s second reading. But I want to claim today that it is a grave error to see St. Paul’s teaching as misogynist or anti-woman. In fact, this text actually contains the keys to the redemption of male and female relationships not a further solidification of injustice towards women. In other words, this text is counter-intuitively liberating and elevating for women.

Now, I can see some of you smiling, asking yourselves: how is he going to pull this off! Well, the ancient world saw women as property, to be used and disposed of when no longer pleasing or useful. St. Paul is confronting the prevailing customs where husbands often reigned like tyrants over their wives and families by exhorting husbands and wives to MUTUAL or RECIPROCAL submission to one another. This was and is a radical and beautiful solution. The only way this text is misogynist is if you ascribe to a false feminism that sees the proper task of women as usurping and imitating the injustices perpetuated by men throughout the ages.

No, St. Paul teaches reciprocal submission to one another out of love and the desire to see the other become what they are meant to be, saints. Notice, I am using the word “submission” rather than subordination. I find “submission’ to be more helpful because it literally means to be “under the mission” of the other.

Now that that is out of the way, lets try to get at what St. Paul is really teaching. He says that there is a profound analogy between the relationship of Christ and the Church and that of spouses and that spouses should model their lives and behavior on that of Christ and the Church. Just as there is a reciprocal submission of Christ to the Church and the Church to Christ, so husbands should submit, or be under the mission of their wives, and wives to their husbands. If husbands do this, they will be modeling themselves on Christ, and wives on the Church.

This submission, or being under the mission of the other, is free and voluntary, undertaken in the marriage vows. It is a non-degrading, non-servile and non-coercive submission. Nor is it unconditional; rather it is dependent upon the proper fulfillment of the mission given to each.

So what is the mission of husband? Of wives? Husbands, your mission, should you choose to accept it is to love your wives as Christ loved the Church. And how did Christ love the Church? On the Cross and in the Eucharist! Your task is to die to yourselves, to lay down your lives for your bride and your children. Build up your marriage and your family not for selfish ends but for the sake of their flourishing, their holiness. Doing this acts against the great temptation for men to stand back, to not act, to be selfish, like Adam who was with his wife during the temptation but did nothing.

The second part is to submit to your wife’s mission of being fruitful, both physically and spiritually, generous, kind, inclusive, empathetic, always creating room for others. This is what Pope John Paul II called the “feminine genius.”

Wives, your mission in addition to the above, should you choose to accept it, is to be under the mission of your husband: to allow, encourage and facilitate your husband’s action, his death to self, his taking a lead as a servant, to “man up.” This last part acts against the great temptation for women to do everything, to act because no one else will, rather than calling forth the energies of your husband to take their proper role.

Like the Israelites in the first and third reading, we have a choice on whom we will serve and it will affect our lives. If we choose to serve the Lord and imitate the Eucharist in our daily lives, it should impact the household. If we choose to live from the Eucharist, it should change everything. Maybe not all at once, but little by little.

Letter for the opening of the school year

My Dear Parishioners,

Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever! It is with great joy that I write to you at the beginning of another school year. As usual, a great deal is happening at the Catholic Center so please make sure you take a bulletin home and check the website often. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome all of our new students from CU. It is wonderful to have you here! Our hope is that you find the Catholic Center a place to grow in your faith and a “home away from home.” If you need anything at anytime, please do hesitate to let us know. A warm welcome back also to those of you who have been traveling or away for the summer, it is great to have you back!

Registration and Outreach
This weekend we are holding our annual registration for the parish. Please be sure to fill out a form: this helps us know who you are, that you are here and a member of our community and also how you’d like to be involved. For students there is an added bonus to registering: you will be entered into a raffle to win club level tickets to the Rockies, Broncos, Avalanche and Nuggets. Just as important as your contact information is the back of the card: please consider getting involved in our various ministries and apostolates.

In the coming weeks, we will be busy with all of our outreach efforts on campus and many activities at the Student Center, be sure not to miss out and invite your friends and acquaintances. If you are on-campus do not be surprised if someone calls or drops by with cookies and information!

New Staff Members
We are also welcoming three new staff members this year: Bob Siemens, Diane King and Mark Thomas. Bob, our new Director of Evangelization and Outreach at CU, comes to us from the Youth Ministry Office in Sioux Falls, SD along with his wife, Shannon and his five children. Diane, familiar to many of you as a long time parishioner and Chair of the Parish Council, has taken over as Office Manager at the Student Center. Bob and Diane are both incredibly qualified and wonderful additions to our already excellent staff. Finally, Mark Thomas, our new Director of Music, will be starting on September 16th. Mark has been the Director of Music at three different Cathedrals, most recently in Charleston, SC, and is a graduate of the CU Music School in 1987. He is extraordinarily qualified; I can’t wait for his arrival!

Changes to the Schedule
We will resume our school year Mass Schedule beginning this weekend. Beginning September 13th, however, we will be adding a new Candlelight Mass on Sunday nights at 9:00 p.m. There will also be Confession time added on Sunday nights at 8:00 p.m.

Building on our success last year, we will also be having an Open-Air Mass on Ferrand Field on August 30th at 6:00 p.m. Thus, there will not be a 6:00 p.m. Mass at the Church that day. Everyone is welcome to attend this Mass, but be sure to bring a blanket, as there will be no chairs. A BBQ will follow at the Student Center.

Of course, all of our different activities such as Religious Education, Children’s Liturgy of the Word, Middle and High School Youth Groups, Adult Education, RCIA, Student Suppers, Student Socials, Bible Studies, and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament will be starting shortly.

Once again, the Lord is calling us to go deeper this year: deeper in prayer and our reception of the Sacraments, deeper in our commitment to our Catholic faith and to each other, deeper in our love for Him and the mission he has given us. And so it begins…thank you for being here! With prayers, blessing and best wishes on this new school year, I am

Your brother in Christ,

Father Kevin

An Open Letter to Representative Jared Polis

An Open Letter to Representative Jared Polis (2nd District—Colorado)


Dear Mr. Polis,

Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever! I received your letter of July 17th in response to my postcard expressing opposition to the so-called “Freedom of Choice Act” or any other act of Congress that would further expand the abortion license, federal funding of abortion or erode legislative protections already in place for the unborn. I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your reply and your pledge to remember the opposition of many members of your constituency to these efforts and your willingness to engage in dialogue concerning these important matters. It is in this spirit that I address this letter to you. Obviously, this is an enormous and complicated topic and so I limit myself to responding to certain aspects of your letter that I find troubling rather than trying to rehash all the arguments in favor or against of the protection of the unborn.

In your letter, you use the phrase “freedom of choice” or “a woman’s right to choose” many times as your justification for supporting abortion. But you leave out entirely the justice or injustice of what is being chosen. Certainly you must be aware that the freedom to choose is simply an innate faculty or power of the human person that may be used for good or evil, for truth or falsehood, for life or death. I have the freedom of choice today to work hard or to rob a bank in order to provide for my family. Yet, one is rewarded and the other punished. Why? Because one is good and one is evil, one is just and the other unjust. In other words, the human person has the freedom of choice, self-determination, by nature not legislation.

The so-called “right to choose” and “freedom of choice” sound nice but this language is unhelpful in the current impasse concerning abortion. In other words, this language is a distraction, it does not illuminate the issues at hand, it obscures them. It is not “freedom of choice” that matters in questions of legislation and justice, after all, we all possess that; rather what is important is what is chosen. Is it good or evil? Does it respect the rights of others? Is it just or unjust? It is these questions that legislation should address.

I, of course, share your concern for the rights and health, physical and psychological, of women and think that we should do all in our power to help those who find themselves in troubling situations. But what of the unborn child? Is it really necessary, is it possible, for us to be only concerned about women or do we have a responsibility to protect and respect the rights of all human beings? Is it really necessary to put the rights of women and unborn children in opposition to one another? Besides, is abortion really good for women?

Mr. Polis, is the unborn child a human being? Science, philosophy and common sense all say that it is, so why doesn’t it deserve all the protections and rights of all other human beings in our country?

Your answer to this last question is evident in your letter: because the Supreme Court said so. But didn’t the Supreme Court also deny the humanity of African-Americans and exclude them from the protections of the law? I do not say this callously, as I believe there is a profound analogy between the denial of the humanity of African-Americans and the denial of the humanity of the unborn. Both have been denied their rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” despite the evident nature of their humanity and the precepts of the Natural Law and thus excluded from the community of those afforded rights under our Constitution. If the Supreme Court was wrong in the Dred Scott Case, isn’t it possible that it is wrong in Roe vs. Wade for the very same reasons?

Mr. Polis, I am a Catholic priest but these are not sectarian arguments; they are public and reasonable arguments, open to all regardless of their faith tradition. They are currently ignored in today’s partisan and sound bite culture. You say that “you will always fight for a woman’s right to choose how to handle the health of her body” but this is simplistic and narrow considering the fact that someone else’s rights are also affected, namely, the right to life of the unborn child. As my representative, I ask you to fight not only for the health of women but also for the equal protection of the law for all, not only those for whom it is convenient to fight.

With respect, prayers and blessings,


Father Kevin R. Augustyn
Pastor
St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Center
Boulder, Colorado

State of The Parish 2009

My Dear Parishioners,

Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever! As I am sure you know, for the past few years we have tried to increase communication and participation in important matters and decisions facing the parish. To this end, we have begun this column, blogs, increased the usability of our website and most importantly in my mind, had a series of “State of the Parish” potlucks throughout the summer months with a presentation and time for questions and input. We had our first of two potlucks on June 17th and had a good turn out. The amount of material presented was substantially less than in years past and so we mostly just had a good time! The second one will be August 12th at 6:00 p.m. I hope you will be able to join us. For those of you who are not able to attend either event, I am publishing a summary of its content this week and next.

A Year In Review

This past year has been truly eventful. In September, we began our 100th year of Catholic Campus ministry at the University of Colorado and celebrated with two primary events: an open-air Mass on Norlin Quadrangle and the January debate between Dinesh D’Souza and Christopher Hitchens. Both events drew crowds of over 2000. October saw a substantial updating and renewal of the church with the addition of kneelers and a new tabernacle. These changes have added substantially to an atmosphere of prayer and a renewed focus on Christ in our midst. In addition to these “big” events, there are so many day-to-day events that are so rich and beautiful that make me so proud to be the pastor of such an excellent parish with truly fine and holy people. I am especially pleased with the excellent staff we have here at St. Thomas. The Religious Education, Sacramental Preparation, Music Ministry and Youth Ministry programs continue to flourish and indeed are growing. Thank you to Patty, Myrna, Judy and the Parish Council!

Campus ministry, the focus of our mission, is flourishing and growing as well both in quantity of students and the quality of ministry. The amount of student participation in Sunday Mass, FOCUS Bible Studies and leadership training, Buffalo Awakening, theological education, outreach on campus, Eucharistic Adoration, Daily Mass and Confession have all increased this year. We have also continued to refine our approach and expand our options so as to reach more students with different “tastes” and needs. A huge thank you to Father Peter, Matt Boettger, Kelsey Wicks, Hilary Rowe and the FOCUS team, Megan Dillon and Margaret Stortz for all of their hard work and creativity.

Our parish, both students and families, is growing and is on much firmer financial footing than in recent years past. Although these are not the only indicators, three of the biggest are the Sunday Mass attendance, the offertory collection and our efforts at developing relationships with alumni, parents and friends of our ministry asking them to contribute to the mission. Here is a brief look at the numbers:

Sunday Mass Average 2007: 950 (Oct); 2008: 1120(Oct); 2009: 1190(Mar)
Offertory Collection 2007: $ 643,700; 2008: $ 664,000; 2009: $ 688,000(est)
Advancement Income: 2007: $ 0; 2008: $ 165,000; 2009: $ 345,000(est)

I am giving these numbers in order to thank you for your generosity and commitment to the Lord Jesus, Sunday Mass and the ministry of this parish. This parish is entirely dependent upon you and you have shown your love. I would especially like to thank all of you who, despite the difficult economic conditions, have committed to weekly electronic giving or been consistent in your offertory contribution as the basket passes and those who were extraordinarily generous during the “matching gift collection” in March. It is due to these factors, especially the matching gift collection, that we are ahead of our budget projections for the offertory for this year. A final financial report for Fiscal Year 2009 will be given to the parish in September. Last year we ended positive after many years “in the red”, we are hoping for the same this year. A special thank you to Terry Shroba, our office manager, Phil Perez our business manager, our Finance Council (Steve King, Betty Valent, Don and Rose Boselli and Dennis Maloney), Megan Dillon, our director of development and the Monday morning money counters.

Many Partings

As I mentioned above in several places, we have been blessed with an extraordinary staff, deeply committed to the intellectual, spiritual, social and apostolic excellence of our ministry to the University of Colorado and broader Boulder community. While staff turnover is quite normal especially in university ministry, we have also been blessed with staff longevity. But this summer, we are saying goodbye to three wonderful staff members. The longest serving is, of course, Myrna Deemy who has retired after 19 years of excellent service. I am so grateful for her and her ministry among us. We miss her already and are currently looking for a replacement. This has proven quite difficult as she combines so many disparate talents and gifts. As of this writing, I have offered the position to someone, please pray that he accepts! If he doesn’t, we will continue to interview until we find the right person for our parish.

As you probably know, Kelsey Wicks, who has worked in campus ministry for two years, has discerned a call from God to enter the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecelia in Nashville, Tennessee. We will greatly miss her and her smile, but are proud to send her forth to such a noble calling. We have hired a successor for Kelsey’s job: Bob Siemens who will join us in August from Sioux Falls, SD along with his wife and five children. I can’t wait for you all to meet this wonderful man and his family.

Margaret Stortz has worked as the office manager at the student center for the past year. She recently decided to pursue missionary work with the Salesians in Bolivia. I suppose if we are to lose staff members, losing them to the convent and missionary work is the best way! I am grateful for Margaret and her time among us. You will see an advertisement for this position in the Denver Catholic Register throughout the month of July and we hope to have someone in place before the beginning of the school year.

Hopes for the Future

One of the reasons my presentation at the potluck was shorter than in years past is because there are no “grand” plans for the coming year. We plan to focus on the continue growth and refinement of our current ministries. With that being said, there are two major issues that I hope we can continue discussing and hopefully come to some resolutions by next summer.

As you may know, in April we began a discussion on the future of the food bank, its potentialities and facilities. As a result of that potluck, we have established a “task force” to evaluate this ministry, the facilities and all the possible options for the future. I am very pleased with the results so far and hope to update you as soon as there is anything concrete to report. Thank you to all the members of the task force (Agnes Stupp, Judy Cardell, Mike Freece, Patty Quinn, Dennis Creese, Pat Coates and Karen Harrison).

Finally, we have been discussing our current facilities and their many needs for years. I have placed that discussion on the back-burner for three years now. I am hoping to re-open the discussion at some point this year. Please do some dreaming and come up with some ideas!

I am blessed to be the pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas. Thank you very much for your continued support, love and prayers. Please know that I keep you in my daily prayers and long for all of us to reach our full happiness and potential, holiness in Jesus Christ. With prayers and blessings, I remain

Your brother in Christ,

Father Kevin Augustyn

The Vocation to the Priesthood

Here is a column I wrote this morning for the upcoming ENDOW (Education on the Nature and Dignity of Women) Newsletter. Hope they don't mind me publishing it early!


I love being a priest. In fact, it is a far greater reality and joy than I ever imagined while in the seminary. It has its challenges: being overworked, fatigue, frustrations with spiritual apathy in myself and others, scandals within the Church, negative influences within the culture, and my own inadequacies and sins among other things. But after five years of priesthood, I continue to discover that God is in charge, it is His Church and that He is able to make up for all that is lacking in us.

I didn’t always want to be a priest. I had never thought about it seriously until I was 19 years old. And even then, it was a very difficult process of discernment with many mental and spiritual obstacles to overcome over the course of the next seven years. To explain all the influences and the winding path of my discernment would be a long story, and tedious reading. But a few things are worth mentioning in this context. I grew up in a Catholic family that faithfully attended Mass on Sundays and Catholic schools. I was surrounded by Catholics and Catholic culture. Yet, I deeply misunderstood the Catholic Church. I thought it was an institution, albeit an extraordinary one, but still just an institution.

Two events changed this for me and contributed mightily to my embracing of my vocation as a priest. The first was my mother’s prayers, or rather my discovery of my mother’s prayers. Like St. Monica, she prayed for her wayward son every day; that he would embrace the Catholic faith more deeply and find his vocation. When both of these things began to happen in my life, my mother simply said to me, “I have been praying for this every day.” Unfortunately, due to the overly-privatized nature of Catholics with regard to their faith, this was news to me. I often wonder if I had known this earlier it might have saved me from many bad decisions. Be that as it may, when I heard this it changed my life. I finally had a sense of the “communion of saints,” the interconnection and sharing of spiritual goods we possess because of our belonging to Christ. In other words, I realized that the Church is not merely an institution but something far greater, namely, the “Mystical Body of Christ.” God heard my mother’s plea, my mother’s prayers had deeply impacted my life, brought about a complete change of direction. Finding about them did as well.

The second event is similar. During my sophomore year of college I took a class called The Theology of the Church whose main textbook was Henri de Lubac’s Splendor of the Church. This book opened my eyes to something I had totally missed: the Church was not primarily an “it,” the Church was a “she,” the Bride of Christ. I finally realized Christ “gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her…that he might present the Church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle…that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph 5: 25-270). With this discovery came others. Namely, it is this same spotless bride that is on pilgrimage through history, mud-stained by the tumults of history, by persecutions and by the sins of her own members. Furthermore, I realized that to be a priest is to be a bridegroom of the Church for Christ. When I realized all of this, I fell in love with the Church, with her beauty and her plight, and wanted to give myself to her, to marry her, to serve her and only her on behalf of Jesus.

At present, I find myself as the pastor of the University of Colorado-Boulder with thousands of young Catholics in my care. Some of these young people have enthusiastically embraced their faith while others have drifted away or even rejected Jesus and His Church. It is an enormous gift and task to try to bring the Catholic Faith to the university; it is filled with great joy and much sadness. Despite the sadness and challenges, I am very grateful to Jesus for the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ and His Bride, for my mother’s prayers, good theology classes and for the share in his priesthood that he has given me.

The Solemnity of Holy Trinity Homily

Holy Trinity Sunday is always the dread of seminarians and even priests. We had an entire five credit course at the seminary aimed at providing us with material for preaching so that we didn’t just say it was a mystery and sit down. I wish I could do that but this doctrine is at the height and heart of our faith as Catholics.

Sometimes I do think it would be best if I simply acknowledged the mystery and sat down. It is so difficult because the formal theology on the Trinity, while extremely interesting, is difficult to bring down to the level of practical Christian living. It seems so abstract, so foreign to our normal ways of thinking. Of all the doctrines of the Church, this seems to be the one that has the least impact on how we live our lives as Christians. We are usually content to stick with our favorite person of the Trinity and hope that he communicates well with the others.

But nothing could be further from the truth, from the reality. In reality, it is the highest teachings that that have the most impact on the lesser ones. This is preeminently true of our faith in the Most Blessed Trinity. In fact, I think that is why the Church has us celebrate this solemnity: to remind us that if understood and taken seriously, faith in the Holy Trinity has a tremendous impact on how we see the world and how we live our lives as Christians in the here and now.

We believe that God is not solitary, that at the source of reality, of the universe, is not an aloneness or an impersonal force. Rather, we believe that the one and only God is an eternal exchange of life and love and that that exchange of life and love spills over into creation and into us. God has revealed his innermost secret: that at the source of reality, God is a family or communion of persons, eternal self-giving and fruitfulness. The Father communicates the entire divine nature, except “being the Father,” to the Son, the Son reciprocates the gift and the love between the two is itself a person, the Holy Spirit.

By ourselves, by our reason, we can know THAT God is, that he exists and even that he is One. But by ourselves, we cannot know WHO God is. That he has to reveal, stoop down, so to speak, and teach us. Because he has “let us in,” we are able to know him and thus we are able to be in relationship with him; we are able to cry out Abba Father! as sons and daughters.

This should change everything, our worldview and our life. I would like to point out three ways that this should be so.

First, this belief is the source of an especially Catholic way of seeing the world. Because God is both one in essence and a family of persons, both one and many, both unity and diversity, both infinite and personal, both truth and love, both community and individuals we should always be a “BOTH/AND” type of people. In God, all these things are unified. In our lives they are in tension, and usually separated by sin and sloppy thinking. As a redeemed people, who belong to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, One God in Three Persons, we have the task to reunite within ourselves, through God’s grace, those things so easily separated: the one and the many, unity of faith and diversity of gifts, body and soul, faith and reason, the human and the divine, the institutional Church and the people of God, respect for the individual and the common good, firmness and gentleness, truth and love and the list goes on and on. It is this type of thinking, this BOTH/AND thinking that makes us such outcasts in the current political process and scene. Have you noticed how one-sided and crazy things seem to us and how we never quite fit in? It is faith in the Trinity that flows down into our thinking and makes us sane!

Second, because the One God is a Trinity of Persons human life and salvation is inherently communal in nature. Because the source of reality is a communion of persons, so too is the human race, so too is the Church. In other words, God forms a human family in creation and in salvation history because that is what God is. Family is what God does, because that is what God is. This, of course, has huge implications. It means that we are not merely saved as individuals but are always save within the community, within the ecclesia. We are saved because we are incorporated, either implicitly or explicitly, into God’s covenantal family, the Church. The subject of salvation is God’s family, the Church. If we are saved, it is because we belong to her.

Thus, the goal of the Church’s ministry can never be simply about individuals. It has to be about the formation of the community and a culture: a family that worships God in the unity of faith with all of our individual differences and gifts. From this flows the importance of marriage and family, that primordial community that is at the foundation of creation, the Church and society. The Church will never abandon the importance of marriage and family in any of these sectors as it is tied up with our very identity flowing from the Trinity. In other words, if the source of reality is a Family, the source of the Church and broader society is the family. If marriage and family fail, we fail.

Third, if God is an eternal exchange of life and love then at the source of reality is self-giving fruitfulness, not individual selfishness or strife. Since creation and especially the human person are meant to “image” God, we are called to live that same type of self-giving love. His self-giving fruitfulness is meant to “spill over” into our lives so that we can live as God lives, and be our true selves. How does one do this? By living for the other, by spending ourselves, our gifts, resources, time, energies, sorrows, joys for the Other and the other. If we give ourselves to God, we are able to then truly give ourselves to others.

Our ways of thinking and living are supposed to flow from the fact that God is an eternal exchange of life and love, to mirror that reality within ourselves, the Church and society. Our world has a desperate need to hear such good news! It is not something we can keep to ourselves. But first, we need to contemplate this, to incorporate it into our worldview, the way we see the Church and the world. Then, like God, it will “spill over” into all those that we meet.

Homily for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Nevermind, it is as hard as I thought! For some reason, it won't let me copy my text. Will do so when I find help!

I'm Back

Dear Friends,

It has been a long time since I have posted. Like many things, it seems harder than it really is. Now that Totus Tuus training is over (and my review of St. Thomas Aquinas on the virtues) I plan on posting on a regular basis. I am going to start with once a week and see how it goes. This week for Holy Trinity Sunday I actually wrote an outline for my homily (I usually "write" it in my head). Thus, translating it into text didn't take that long.