theROCK

Contagious Charitable Service

The morning of ordination to the diaconate I woke to my heart full of peaceful anticipation. As I buttoned the top button on my cleric shirt, my son Zak walked quietly into my room.  Zak asked with enthusiasm if he could put my collar on for me. Of course I agreed and he slipped in the collar, carefully centering it left and right.  Immediately after he was finished, he wrapped his arms around me tightly and gave me one of his best hugs and told me he loved me. After a moment, he stepped back a few steps to take a better look. Zak then burst out laughing in joyful excitement and when he was finished returned to hugging me.

I can remember back four years ago attending the ordination of the class of 2018 as an aspirant and feeling terrified of the thought of being one of the men ordained a deacon; proclaiming the Gospel, preaching, and baptizing. Yikes! As I attended the ordination of the class of 2020, but as a candidate this time, things were transforming inside me. Throughout formation, I had discovered how service done in charity resulted in God pouring affirmations of joy and peace into my heart.

Anyone who prays the Liturgy of the Hours is very familiar with Psalm 100 for Lauds on the Fridays of the first and third weeks of Psalter (Psalm 100:2); Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before him with joyful song. The morning of ordination I discovered that charitable service is also contagious and that God used ordination to pour his joy and peace into my family too. May God make service contagious in our families, our parishes, our communities, and in our world so that people of all nations may sing to the Lord a joyful hymn. May God bless your Sunday!

Holy Spirit Wake Up Calls

My typing skills are best described as somewhat unique. While better than a two-fingered hunt and peck approach, they are far from being a trained skill. I honed it while entering data on a laptop in a parked car with the steering wheel in the way so you can imagine the challenge of the awkward position. The red spell check highlights quickly became my friend.

Today, I type on a couple laptops, keyboards, tablets, and phone and try to begin messages with a salutation. Sometimes a hi or hello, but usually a good morning/afternoon/evening. Oftentimes “good” shows up as “God.” While it might be my lack of typing prowess or sticky keys, I tend to view this as a wake-up call from the Holy Spirit. He is saying to me that it might be a “good” morning, but it is always a GOD morning. When I catch this “error” it seems I am being asked many questions such as:

How am I serving God today?

Have I taken time to see the beauty in the day?

Will I actively live my faith today?

Who will I encounter who might not be having a good day and really needs a God day? Will I seize the opportunity and engage this person? Will I actually serve God and “become Christ” like our mission calls?

This nudge has been occurring for years on countless devices. I type the same way. Why today? What does God want me to realize today? Sometimes I get it, and candidly, many times I struggle. Each and every time it makes me think. It’s a simple queue to make me pause and remember that I am, and we are, here to serve God in all that we do, and in every interaction. God blesses us and gives each of us our unique gifts. What do we do with these blessings?

Poor typing skills makes me stop and ponder. What makes you think about God?

Living for the Lord

"None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself. For if we live, we live for the Lord, and we die for the Lord; so then whether we live or die, we are the Lord's."

I cannot think of a more fitting scriptural reading as we honor the diaconate gifts given to us in the ordination of Kurt Peot and the farewell to Deacon Jim Matthias. both are great gifts to us and our larger church. Before I go further, I ask you to keep both of them in your prayers. Which brings me to the idea of prayers themselves. We often are told to pray for one another, we pray for those who are sick in the community, we pray for the "poor souls" in purgatory, we pray for the unborn.

Prayer is our communication thread with God and all the community of saints. Recently, I have emphasized we must see the world with one eye on earth and one in heaven. It is the only way our fractured society will  ever heal. With that in mind, we have those who specifically dedicated themselves to be examples of "living for the Lord." Let us remember that ordained deacons serve in a special way, as heralds of the gospel: to bring good news to the sick and poor, to preach words of life to our family of faith. When we join with them in prayer, we too are living for the Lord and with the Lord.

When a deacon is ordained, he is ordained to serve. What this means is that a deacon is willing to open his heart to those who he serves. This is a calling, this is a gift. We at St. Dominic Catholic Parish have been graced not only with many deacon vocations, but with men of extraordinary character and willingness to serve. May God bless our deacons and all deacons of our archdiocese.