Fr. Jim's Blog

I have been away for quite some time.....still alive and kicking (a lot) and working on a new entry.

A lot of time has passed since my last blog entry. This is usually an indication that life in the parish is pretty busy and I haven't had a lot of free time. That is the case with this recent gap in blog entries.  I had the opportunity to go home over Thanksgiving week and spend some time with my family which was great. I saw the third "Hunger Games" movie with my brother, sister-in-law, niece, and nephews. Although a lot of critics were pretty negative about the movie I enjoyed it but wish I didn't have to wait a whole year to see the final movie. The last segment of "The Hobbit—The Battle of the Five Armies" comes out today. I will try and find some time to fit in a viewing between Christmas and New Year's Day. When I was a kid I would listen to the Rankin/Bass storybook from the animated movie for hours. I thought the voice characterizations were very well done and even recognized John Huston's voice a couple of months ago when I was watching an...

I am getting ready to head out today for the Tri-Cities. It will be good to have some time with my family.  I will post the Pastor's Corner this evening.  Praying for safe travels for everyone who is traveling today. 

Pastor’s Corner Week of November 9, 2014 Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I am currently residing in a dormitory and cannot use the usual video or spoken format for The Pastor’s Corner. Still, I wanted to make a post with something for you to think about during this upcoming week.  One of the things I was taught at an early age was to read with a critical eye. Not everything in print can be taken at face value and while we expect modern day journalists to hold some form of integrity and desire to be objective, the truth is our modern day press is incredibly biased, and in the case of American media, entertainment driven.  Have you ever thought about who decides what is newsworthy? There can be thousands of people dying at the hands of evil tyrants, wars, starvation, etc. and our headlines are all about the latest tirade of Miley Cyrus or some other entertainer. Quite frankly I find this incredibly embarrassing and don’t believe it at all reflects the valu...

I left after my last parish duties on Sunday for Central Washington to meet with my dad for a photography and mushroom hunting expedition. The place we went to is fairly close to where my father grew up so he was telling me about all the numerous adventures he had as a child. Let's just say the vast majority of parents and children probably aren't as daring and adventuresome as my dad. The fall colors were quite noticeable in some places on the first day. We decided that we would primarily focus on the mushroom hunting the first day and then look for photography opportunities on the second day. We had incredible success! I never knew how many different species there were of mushrooms and they were quite plentiful. We were able to harvest quite a few and it was great to hunt around because you never knew what you might find. (Kind of like the quote from Forrest Gump about how "Life is like a box of chocolates...") We cleaned our treasures off and stored them in ...

I just read Pope Francis' last Wednesday audience presentation. It is on charisms and how they must be welcomed and exercised within the Church. This is a very important topic that is always in need of sound teaching.  Below you will find Pope Francis' inspiring teaching.  Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good Morning, From the beginning, the Lord filled the Church with the gifts of His Spirit, thus rendering her always alive and fruitful. Distinguished among these gifts are some that are particularly precious for the building and journey of the Christian community: they are the charisms. In this catechesis, we want to ask ourselves: what, exactly, is a charism? How can we recognize it and receive it? And, above all, the fact that in the Church there is a diversity and multiplicity of charisms, is this seeing positively, as something good, or rather as a problem? In ordinary language, when there is talk of a “charism,” it is often understood as a talent, as a natural abil...

I am currently at the Palisades for our Good Leaders/Good Shepherds program. Things are going very well and we are learning a lot about different leadership styles.  We are getting a lot of resources and I am glad our Archdiocese offers this class. It should be very helpful. I brought all of my video equipment with me in the hopes of taping my first Pastor's Corner and posting it this evening. I got everything set-up only to find that the foot that holds the video camera and teleprompter in its place on the tripod is missing. It must be on my camera which I was using this past summer. I thought for sure I saw it attached to the bottom of the video camera but I must have been hallucinating. I will have to wait until tomorrow evening after the Pastoral Council to get it done. Fr. Ron Knudsen, our new parochial vicar, is moving into the rectory as I post this entry. Unfortunately, he has gotten called away to help in a parish where there was no one to cover, so I will have all of ...