Blog & Pastor Letters

Living the Call to Discipleship

by Br. Silas Henderson  |  09/25/2022  |  Weekly Reflection

“There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scrapsthat fell from the rich man’s table.”

Luke 16:19-21

Jesus was undoubtedly a gifted storyteller and the parable of Lazarus that we hear proclaimed this coming Sunday is certainly among one of the most powerful that we hear in the gospels.

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Giving Voice to Our Faith in the Public Square

by Douglas Sousa, STL  |  09/18/2022  |  Weekly Reflection

Our faith is meant to be at work in every area of our lives — not just the personal and private, but the political and public as well.

People have a tendency today to separate politics and religion. They see religion as having to do with the afterlife and politics with the here-and-now. Religion is private and politics is public. They don’t want religious leaders to comment on public policy and they don’t want politicians meddling in Church doctrine and discipline. People want a clear separation of church and state.

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The Grace of Indelible Value

by Br. John-Marmion Villa  |  09/11/2022  |  Weekly Reflection

An Excerpt from: Spiritual Freedom: God’s Life-Changing Gift by Fr. Dave Pivonka, published by Servant Books, Cincinnati.

“I remember one young woman who had gone through terrible struggles. She has lost her mother at a young age and had made choices that were very destructive. She had done things that she regretted, and she really had doubts about a God that loved, not to mention that she herself was lovable.

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The Prayer of an Earthen Shelter

by Colleen Jurkiewicz Dorman  |  09/04/2022  |  Weekly Reflection

“This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.” – Luke 14:30

If I had to choose one of the Bible’s 31,102 verses to have inscribed on my tombstone, it would be Luke 14:30.

As a companion piece, my obituary could tell the story of my life through the list of projects I never finished. Swimming lessons in preschool. Piano in the sixth grade. Every journal I’ve ever tried to keep. That trip to Europe. The house my husband and I designed and never built. My life is littered with these unfinished projects, races for which I could not make it across the finish line. Whether it was strength, interest, money, or something else, I just didn’t have “it.” I came up short.

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