Fr. Jim's Blog

I will be leaving this afternoon for a Project Rachel Retreat and would greatly appreciate your prayers.  I haven't done a retreat for two years. It is a very intense weekend but also an incredibly powerful time to see the Lord at work undoing the damage from women and men who have suffered from the trauma of abortion.  I am so proud (not in a sinful way, course!) of our Church for having this ministry and pray it gets more support as there are so many people who are hurting and in need of the healing power of the Divine Physician. He never disappoints!

This weekend I decided to give a sermon on Pope Francis' new encyclical Laudatio Si.  It is a very well-written reflection on our relationship with God, creation, and one another. It greatly highlights the tensions and conflicts we are experiencing because of our ever-increasing secularized and relativistic world. As I read through the document I was reminded of a quote from Pope Benedict XVI where he stated, "Mankind wants to control everything except himself."  I found a really good introduction to the encyclical by Fr. Robert Barron that will give you some background on the what influenced the Pope to write this document.  You can read Fr. Barron's commentary as well as the document itself by clicking here.  

“There are very dear people in the life of each one of us to whom we feel particularly close, some of whom are already in God’s embrace while others still share with us the journey through life: they are our parents, relatives and teachers; they are the people to whom we have done good or from whom we have received good; they are people on whom we know we can count. Yet it is important also to have “travelling companions” on the journey of our Christian life. I am thinking of a Spiritual Director, a Confessor, of people with whom it is possible to share one’s own faith experience, but I am also thinking of the Virgin Mary and the Saints. Everyone must have some Saint with whom he or she is on familiar terms, to feel close to with prayer and intercession but also to emulate. I would therefore like to ask you to become better acquainted with the Saints, starting with those you are called after, by reading their life and their writings. You may rest assured that they will become good gu...

The following is an excerpt from a homily given by Detroit Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron  to more than 160 priests and 800 members of the faithful gathered for the Chrism Mass on  Holy Thursday, April 2, 2015. These words are powerful and this servant of God hits the nail right  on the head for one of the major spiritual diseases of our time. And for that I’d like to begin with some phrases from the sequence in Pentecost, when in the liturgy we say to the Holy Spirit, “Heal our wounds, our strength renew; On our dryness, pour your dew. Melt the frozen, warm the chill.” Being dry, being frozen, being chill — that seems to me to be a condition which is very particular to our time. Has there ever been a time like ours when a people who once heard the Gospel, living in a culture that had over time been shaped according to the principals of the Gospel, has so willingly become asleep about the Gospel, and shed the Gospel, and become indifferent to the Gospel?  Are we ...

Greetings everyone!  I will be in the Chicago airport tomorrow for a little while and will work on a blog entry.  I am alive and very well...just really busy with a number of foreseen and unforeseen things to attend to.  Still, the Lord is very good to me...always!  in Christ, Fr. Jim

I hope that your Lent is off to a good start. As a kid it seemed like Lent was forever—especially when we decided to give up sweets! Now, Lent has become a very busy season but also with great opportunities for spiritual growth. I have always been impressed with the "feast" of Scripture the Church provides for us during this season. The Office of Readings has some challenging readings as well, especially for pastors with St. Augustine' comments about bad pastors who don't properly attend to the flock entrusted to their care.  We finished taping a Sacred Heart Radio Book Club yesterday afternoon. It was great to welcome another priest, Fr. James Johnson, the pastor of St. Jude parish in Redmond. We reviewed and excellent book on Lent, 40 Days 40 Ways —A New Look At Lent by Marcellino D'Ambrosio. It is one of the best Lenten resources I have seen in a long time and the appendix has a great preparation guide for Triduum. It was highly recommended by everyone on the...

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