A Letter RE: COVID-19 Cancellations

My dear people of St. Luke the Evangelist. On March 17th Bishop Joensen released new guidelines in regard to the COVID-19 outbreak going on.

1. Sunday weekend Masses and daily Masses are NOT to be celebrated in parish churches until further notice. An exception may be made if the parish has the capacity to broadcast the Mass to an electronic audience, and that ONLY the priest and any assisting minister(s) may be present for the Mass. Parish priests will continue to celebrate daily Mass as they are ordinarily enjoined to do, but without a congregation unless performed under the conditions specified in the previous statement.

2. Parish churches may remain open at the discretion of the pastor for visits and individual devotional prayer during the week and on weekends (with the presumption that heightened housekeeping and hygienic practices are observed). A set of recommended means for persons to draw close to God and his Church in prayer and spiritual presence is will be available in a separate document; further spiritual opportunities and resources may be provided by local parish staffs.

3. Funeral Masses may be celebrated with less than 10 persons present. Nuptial Masses already scheduled may be celebrated with the 10 person limit; ideally, these Masses should be rescheduled after government leaders give the “all clear” notice. Any and all other public ceremonies should be rescheduled.

4. Distribution of communion in parishes or health care institutions is strictly subject to the directives and policies of authorities charged with oversight of those institutions, and may well be prohibited. In danger of death, Viaticum may be distributed by a health care professional as well as a member of the clergy or recognized Eucharistic minister—again, if in accord with institutional policies.

5. Other sacraments (Baptism in cases of serious illness or other pastoral need, Confession and Anointing of the Sick) may not be celebrated in common, but only individually at the priest’s discretion with serious pastoral necessity. Standard health norms should be respected (e.g., use of a screen or confessional space where appropriate physical distance of six feet will be observed and with hygienic cleaning after each penitent; other protective clothing measures for anointing of persons who are obviously sick).

6. Parish meetings or events where parishioners physically gather (e.g., fish fry dinners, Feast-day gatherings, confirmation and other religious faith formation) are to be CANCELLED unless an electronic means of engagement is available.

7. The Chrism Mass, originally scheduled for 7 PM on Friday, April 3, 2020, will instead be celebrated in simpler form (e.g., absent a Diocesan Chorale with only ministers and select regional representatives present) on a day and location to be determined. No general public participation will be allowed; the Holy Oils will be distributed to individual parishes sometime following this liturgy.

8. Please stay tuned for guidelines pertaining to Holy Week liturgies, including the Sacred Triduum, and Easter Sunday, as well as celebration of First Communions and Confirmations during the Easter Season. It is highly likely that Triduum liturgies will be restricted only to assisting ministers with the option of broadcasting; Initiation Sacraments for catechumens and candidates will occur, but likely in a different manner. All parish First Communion and Confirmation Masses should be considered postponed until further notice; more information will be forthcoming from Pastoral Center offices in the days and weeks ahead.

I know that it seems drastic to cancel our celebration of the Eucharist, but we are in a similar situation as the flu epidemics in the early 1900’s in which many thousands of people died. As we continue to see this unfold, know that you are all in my prayers each and every day, and I ask each and every one of you to pray for me as well as the leaders of our nation and world. At this point, we will still have the church open from 7-7 every day and the parish office will be open during the day, but I ask for people to call unless it is urgent or something that cannot be handled over the phone or via email. As for the finances of the parish, we are ok for a little while, but I ask for your continued support in these challenging times donations can be made online, mailed, or in the drop boxes just inside the doors of the building. Continue to check in on each other, take this opportunity to spend time with your families, and to spend some time with God and learning about God. There are resources being put together for the students in the school, as well as for the students in our Religious Education program. Keep an eye on the website, Facebook, and parish emails for updates and opportunities for prayer and our new and temporary way of being the people of God together.

God Bless,
Fr Ken Halbur

Almsgiving; Time, Talent, and Treasure

To continue on the three pillars of the Lenten season, this week I focus on the last one, Almsgiving!

Fasting and prayer are two things that are tied together because they can give strength to each other. Prayer helps us with the desire and ability to fast and the self-denial of fasting can help us and lead us to a better prayer life.

The third focus of Lent being almsgiving, which is something that can easily come out of a good prayer life and a time of fasting. I know many different people who take the money that they would have spent doing whatever they gave up and give it to a charity as another sacrifice. Almsgiving is not just something that we should do during Lent, it is something that we should be doing all year long. Often times the focus of almsgiving is just the monetary aspect of it, and it is an important part of it, because the parish still does need to pay the light bills and the mortgage payment of the facility. So, the treasure part of it is something that we need, but there are two other parts of it in time and talent.

Time is the offering of ourselves to the needs of something. We have many different volunteers that offer their time to help around here, from serving breakfasts, to helping in the school kitchen, to being a greeter or other things around here. Talent is giving of a specific thing that we are good at to the parish, in the past and still currently we have many people who give of their talents, from serving on committees and giving good insight to being a lector at Mass, to gardening, to many other things that help out around here. As one person, I am limited in my own talents and still have a need for others to continue to help out with their talents.

Each of us has something that we are passionate about and one of the great things in the Church, is that we have many opportunities to share our time, talent, and treasure in those things that we are passionate about. As a new and young parish, we are in need of all three parts of stewardship, volunteers of time and talent helping out with the many projects that we have going on, and treasure to be able to fund them. The word that we use in the Church is tithing, which comes from the word for a tenth. The Idea of giving a tenth of what we get comes from the Old Testament with the priest Melchizedek who is given a tenth of what Abraham has.

Within our parish, financially we are focusing on a couple of things, the first is finishing our capital campaign, the second is reducing our debt, and the third is to bring up our tithing or general donations to the working of the parish.

I pray that you will all have a continued blessed Lenten season that will lead us to the joys of the Easter Resurrection.

Fr. Ken Halbur

Lenten Prayer

Within the Lenten season, we have three pillars that we follow to help and guide us.

The first, I touched on a bit last week and that is fasting or giving up of something. The second one that we focus on during this season is prayer. Yes, we should be praying each and every day of the year and not just during the Lenten season, but this is also a time of renewal of our lives. Lent is a time of cleansing and renewal.

This is not a new idea, our Jewish ancestors did something similar with their households, before the feast of Passover, it was and still is custom to do a full and thorough cleaning of the house, as they say, from top to bottom of any room in which there was a chance that there was a trace of food, specifically “chametz” which is leavening. This process sometimes begins as far out as a month before Passover, and this is a cleansing to make sure that they are ready for the coming Passover of God.

We also have a cleansing of our souls and that comes from this Season of Lent in which we clean with Fasting, Prayer, and Almsgiving. Prayer is the thing that we can do constantly in our lives to help us grow closer to God and then help us grow closer to each other.

Within the Church, we have many different prayers styles and the highest form of prayer is of course the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which is a form of prayer called corporate prayer, or prayer in which we come together in a group to do. This type of prayer could also include the praying of the Rosary with others, common recitation of a prayer in which priests, deacons, and religious are promised called the Liturgy of the Hours, or other prayers in which we pray together.

The other kind of prayer is private prayer, this is just as it sounds, we pray in private, just like Jesus reminds us that we can go into our inner room and pray to our Heavenly Father in private. Our rich tradition of prayer includes many different kinds of prayer, wrote prayer which is the praying of memorized prayers like the Lord’s Prayer or the Hail Mary, Scripture study prayer, devotional prayer which is that simple conversation with God, and so many others that I could spend hundreds of pages explaining.

The key is to find a prayer style that you find will draw you into that relationship with God, because in the end, that is the whole reason for prayer, to build our relationship with the Lord and to be able to then share that relationship with others. God loves us so much that he wants us to be with him. While having a good, quiet, and set amount of time to sit and pray is the best, it does not always work out that we can do that, but even in the busyness of the day we can find little times to pray. It can be while we are driving, or waiting in line for something or some other creative time, the key is to make that time to pray, especially during this wonderful season of Lent.

Fr. Ken Halbur

Can you believe that Lent has started?

One of the things that I really like about Lent is that it gives us an opportunity to look at our lives and see what we need to work on. During Lent, one of the most common questions we hear, is what are you giving up? This is often the main focus of what we do during this season in which we prepare ourselves for the coming passion, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The giving up of something is the fasting aspect of our Lenten celebrations, and when we give something up for Lent, we are sometimes the tempted to “cheat” in what we are giving up. Remember it is not a sin to eat or do what we have promised to give up, it is an act of self-denial and self-sacrifice. I remind people every year, that the thing we give up is a penance and sacrifice for us and not for those other people around us!

We should not sacrifice something if we are going to be cranky and complain about it all of the time. Our sacrifice should not be a sacrifice for others, but for ourselves. We live in a self-indulgent and disposable society that wants things right now and not later. We are being conditioned by advertisers to consume, to buy more even if you cannot afford it, just go into debt for it, that is what credit is for, right!?! But, when it does not make you happy any more, or it gets old, throw it away and get the newest and the best available.

We are often told through advertising that we NEED the newest and greatest thing out there, but the newest and greatest thing changes right after you purchase it. Just look at the cell phone industry, here is the greatest phone ever made, you need it and if you don’t have it, you are not cool anymore.

The whole idea behind fasting from something for Lent is so that whenever we reach for, or are tempted by the thing that we have given up, we should be reminded that we do have some self-control and that we should use it, not only in the fasting, but also to have the self-control to not sin.

During this Lenten season, take some time to not only fast from something, but also to try and do something good to replace it, for example, if you decide to give up going out to fast food restaurants, take the money that you would have spent on it and give it to a charity. Take the time during this Lenten season to really focus on giving up something that can help us draw closer to God each and every day. I pray that you will have a good Lenten season to prepare for the rising of Jesus.

Father Ken Halbur

“Watch out for the slick spots”

“Watch out for the slick spots.”

This is a phrase that you hear many times during this time of the year. We sometimes have the freezing rain, sleet, and snow, then we have the melting during the day and the re-freezing at night. This makes the sidewalks and streets kind of slippery and we have those many opportunities to fall and harm ourselves. I have to admit, that last year I was walking out to my car and hit one of those spots and went down.

This is also the time of year when the auto body shops are busy from all of the little fender benders that we have. These slick spots and fender benders do not only happen on the streets and sidewalks; they happen throughout our own lives. Most car collisions are avoidable if all of us are paying attention, we would be able to see the car coming, if we would be going slower, if we were not playing with our phone, or with the radio, we really could avoid most collisions.

But also, in life we are not always perfect and hit some of those slick spots, we are sometimes not paying attention to others around us and we cause damage to them, or we get into a hurry and overlook the people in our lives who really need us at that time. I am sometimes guilty of this myself, a part of my personality is one that can get focused too heavily on something and then I can get so caught up in noise of the world, the current project I am working on, or my homily, that I can slip and fail to take care of someone in need, which is what a sin of omission is. When we crash and harm another, the best thing we can do is to figure out what is needed to do to repair the problem and the relationship that we have with the person, even though it may not be easy. In many ways, fixing a physical injury is much more straight forward and easier than trying to fix broken trust, or another part of our relationship.

We can remember things that we have done to others, or that others have done to us or those we care about for a very long time. Even though we apologize, or have others apologize for the something they have done to us, the memory and the trust has been broken and we will often times have that in the back of our mind many times when we are with the person. This takes sometimes a great deal of time to get past, but Jesus reminds us to forgive so that we also may be forgiven. So, the best way to not get into these situations is to be careful in the first place. We often run into many different temptations in our lives, but, like driving, if we are careful we can do our best to avoid the crashes, and when we have failed in this, get up, shake off the dirt, fix the damage, forgive the hurt, and thank God.

Fr. Ken Halbur

Learning From Children Playing

One of the great blessings being at a parish with a School is that I get to witness some incredible amounts of energy in just watching the children play either outside on the playground or in the gym.

Sometimes it is funny just to stand by and watch them run around and play to see what they will come up with. They will chase each other, climb on the equipment, lay down in the grass, throw a ball, sit on the bench, spin in circles, or whatever else. Sometimes they even have what I call a crash, they fall down or they run into each other, but the thing that is great about kids, is that they are pretty durable, when they fall down, they get right back up. Usually they will just get right back up, brush off their clothes, and be on their way, but other times they need some help they will go and get a Band-aid or an ice pack.

The great thing is that in making those mistakes they learn from them. When they get hurt on something, they often times are more careful around it… at least for a little while. Then most of the time they are right back into doing the same things again or learn a better way of doing it. We can sometimes learn from our children, that when we fall down, we should get right back up, even though physically, this gets harder and harder as we gain in life experience.

This same thing goes for our spiritual life as well. We kind of go on our way running around and living our life until we trip over something or we are not paying attention and just fall down and sin by either committing one or omitting something. The key is that we need to get back up again and start over, but also, we need to remind ourselves that somethings that we run into cause us to fall and we need to try and avoid them, just like kids do.

Sometimes when we fall in that spiritual life, we need that ice pack or Band-aid and that is the sacrament of confession that thing that helps us to get rid of the injury. Also, just like kids we cannot let the failures that we have keep us on the sidelines, we need to get back up, put on the Band-aid and get back to doing what we need to be doing. The running around and playing for kids is a way to get some exercise and also entertainment for them, our prayer life is a way for us to recharge ourselves in our daily life.

When we take that time to spend with God, he will lead us to where we need to go and even help us to see the dangers that we can trip over so that we can learn from them.

Fr. Ken Halbur

Anyone who has been on social media for any length of time has at least one friend who constantly posts very weird stuff. I personally have a couple of friends who will post links to bizarre alien conspiracy theories, reviews for some strange product on the market, or how robots are going to take over the world.

There are even now a couple of entire websites that specialize in satirical news and stories that have some great humor to them. I have a couple of other friends that I have silenced their posts or even blocked because they get a little too political on either side or just post too many strange things. Some of these are really funny, some are just downright scary, and the over the top political stuff just gets annoying, and some even go too far in their level of divisiveness, and I block it because I do not need that level of anger and hatred in my life.

I do have to admit, if I have a bit of free time, I will sometimes follow some of the click-bait to some story that is humorous or strange. There was a website I used to go to every once in a while, called News of the Weird. This was a collection of bizarre snippets of news, like a Russian man who stole an armored personnel carrier to go steal some wine or a Missouri man who stole some power transformers to build a time machine. We are sometimes fascinated by the strange things that happen in real life, just get a group of priests together and bring up the topic of strange weddings or funerals, truth is really stranger than fiction.

Something interesting is some of the strange things that happen in Holy Scripture and see the reaction of the people who were witnessing them. Just look at the miracles that Jesus performed; changing water into wine, driving out demons, curing the sick, raising the dead, and many other things. I can only imagine what would happen if video recording cell phones and social media was around when Jesus was doing these things. Could you imagine the posts that would have gone up?

The accounts of his miracles spread pretty fast for the time, in fact, it says that Jesus had a hard time finding solitude to pray because so many people were looking for him to either heal them or so that they could witness a miracle. One of the great things is that we have access to the material in Sacred Scripture and we can read about them again and again. It is kind of interesting that we have heard the accounts so many times that we sometimes do not take into account of how incredible these things really were.

So, instead of reading some strange thing that may or may not have happened, take some time to read some of these stranger-than-fiction accounts of the miracles that happened in the Bible and let them bring you closer to wonders of Christ.

Fr. Ken Halbur

"Pro-Life"

On Wednesday of this past week, Washington DC was flooded with hundreds of thousands of people in the annual March for Life. If you have watched the main news outlets you probably didn’t hear much about it, even though it is one of the largest attended annual marches, or you were shown a small group of counter protesters.

The annual March for Life is expected to have well over half-a-million people come to march peacefully, and it is a wide spectrum of people, including many thousand young people going to support the life of those who do not have a voice. It is pretty common knowledge that the Catholic Church is a strong leader in the Pro-Life movement, which goes well beyond the work to end abortions. It is one of the primary missions of the Pro-Life group, but not the only one. Each year, over 900,000 children are aborted in the U.S. alone, that is a staggering number and sadly in Washington DC, 38% of pregnancies end in abortion. It is estimated that one out of four women have had an abortion and we need to respond to them with mercy, forgiveness, and love. Jesus calls us to respond not with anger and bitterness, but with care and love.

I have had a number of women who have had an abortion come to me to talk or to confess it, as well as a number of men come to me as well to talk about their role in the support of an abortion. These are always challenging conversations because if they are coming to me, they feel regret and sorrow, and my role is not to judge, but to show the mercy of God to them. When we talk about being pro-life in our Church it is more than just being anti-abortion, it is about supporting life from conception to natural death. This means that we should strive for the dignity of life from the time that the child is conceived in the womb to the time that we naturally die.

We sometimes separate social justice and pro-life as two different groups, but they must be intertwined. If we profess to be a people who support life, then we also need to support those who are living, no matter what state of life they are in, if we support social justice of any kind, then we need to have the first rule which is life. Jesus calls us to love our neighbors as ourselves and then explained who are our neighbors and he states, that all people are our neighbors, even those we do not agree with, from the child conceived with a disability, to the child conceived on a hook-up, to the immigrant, to the prisoner on death row, to the elderly person in a nursing home, to someone who is very sick, or someone who is on their death bed. This is what it means to be Pro-Life. Pray for those who have been affected by abortion as well as for an end to it.

Fr. Ken Halbur

Answering Some Common Questions

Welcome back to Ordinary Time in the Church. We call it Ordinary time, even though the time in the Church is always special, it is called that because it is not one of the special seasons like Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter. We switch back to the green color which represents growth and vitality, like the trees and grass growing. Sometimes I get asked questions on what is done and why we do things the way that we do. So, I am going to use this article to answer a few questions that I have been asked.

Why did I have the chairs at the altar moved from the East side of the sanctuary space to the South side? I did this so that the chairs are facing the altar better as well as being able to face the ambo (the place where the readings are proclaimed.) Within the Church, the primary point of focus should always be the altar, which is a reminder of the altar of sacrifice from the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, but instead of doing animal sacrifices, we are reminded of the sacrifice of Christ in which he gives us his Body and Blood for our spiritual nourishment.

Why do I only distribute Holy Communion on the north side of the church? The first and easiest reason, is that is what I was told had been the practice here at St. Luke’s. But there is also a practical reason for it, we have a number of parishioners who have a gluten allergy. We have a supply of the very low gluten hosts and those who use them are instructed to come to my line, and so I always distribute from the same place, so they know which side of the church to sit on. There are specific requirements for the bread and the wine we use at Mass, the bread must be made from wheat and can only have salt and water as ingredients. The wine must only be made from grapes and cannot have any other flavorings in it.

Why have I been using a different main chalice for Mass? This is my personal chalice and I am planning on using it during some of the special seasons in the Church. This chalice was originally given to Fr Patrick Bacon in 1955 from his parents. He was the priest who first asked me to consider being a priest. Once I was close to ordination, my parents found out that Fr Chris Hartshorn had the chalice, and he graciously allowed me to have it. It means a great deal to me.

Why do I not genuflect when I go to the tabernacle to get the reserved Blessed Sacrament during Mass? I do not genuflect when I get it, because I have just turned away from the Blessed Sacrament at the altar and am still in the presence of Jesus in both places. I do however genuflect when I replace the ciboria (the bowl that holds the consecrated hosts) back into the tabernacle out of reverence for our Lord and Savior in the Eucharist.

If you have any other questions, feel free to send them to me!

Fr. Ken Halbur

We Say Goodbye To Christmas

This weekend we say goodbye to Christmas with the feast of the Baptism of the Lord.

As we hear the account of Jesus’ baptism we should be reminded of our own baptism, even though most of us do not remember it. Jesus himself was baptized, even though he did not need it, but we do! Our baptism is for the mitigation of our sins, including original sin, Jesus’ baptism was to purify the redeeming waters for our own baptism.

While most of us were baptized as infants, we were brought to the sacrament by our parents and then, when we were baptized, our parents and godparents made promises to bring us up in the practice of the faith. They also made the promises for us to follow the faith and we affirmed them in our confirmation. Here are the promises that we make to God in our baptism: to reject Satan, his works, and his empty promises, that we believe in God, Father and creator, Jesus Christ who was born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified, died and buried, rose from the dead and is now seated at the right hand of the Father, the Holy Spirit, to also believe in the holy catholic church, communion of saints, forgiveness of sins, resurrection of the body and life everlasting.

These are the promises that we make to God and we should keep looking at our own lives so that we can live these promises. Remember in the practicing of being a Catholic, we are continually working (with God’s help) toward being that perfect Catholic in the kingdom of heaven. While that may not be an easy task, it is one that we need to continually work on, so that we as Scripture reminds us to not be the cause for someone else to sin. I often times hear people use the example of people not following the faith to give them an excuse to not follow as well. The phrase that religious people are often hypocrites because we don’t always “practice what we preach” and that is true, I can almost guarantee that most or all parents can remember a time in which we were not a good example of something for their children. But God wants us to keep working on it.

We are “practicing Catholics” because we are not perfect ones, we are still practicing, which means we fail sometimes (sin), it is only when we are one with the Lord in the kingdom of heaven that we will become perfect ones. Until that day comes, we still need to do those things to help us live out the faith that has been given to us by God, and by doing so we continually work toward him.

This is the whole reason that Christ also gave us the sacrament of Confession, which is to bring us back to the state of our baptism. He did this, because he knows that we make those mistakes and he wants us to be able to be reconciled back to him. So as we think of the wonderful gift of baptism which is that first and best thing to bring us into God’s family.

Father Ken Halbur

Merry Christmas!

This weekend we celebrate the feast of the Epiphany. This is the day in which we honor the Magi who took a chance and followed a star in order to find something new and special. They knew that they were looking for a king, a new king who would reign forever. They found this new king, Christ Jesus himself. They came to honor him and to bring him the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh because they knew that there was something special about his kingship.

The gifts that they brought are ones that we all know by heart, but we may not know that there is a good reason behind each of them. Gold is the gift for the king, frankincense is the gift for a priest, and myrrh is the gift for the prophet but also it was used for burial, in essence preparing him for his death as well. One of the interesting things is that we have a tradition that it was three Magi or wise men, but Holy Scripture says nothing about the number of Magi who came, it simply states “behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is the newborn king of the Jews.’” The number of them is inferred by the three gifts that were given.

These men took a chance to travel a great distance to find something that they knew was going to be great, they were looking for the newborn King of the Jews and they found him. To find the Christ child, they would have needed to travel through the desert and the infamous road to Jericho the same one in which Jesus tells the story of the man who was robbed and left for dead. Traveling was dangerous and difficult in those days and most people never went more than a few miles from their homes in their lifetimes. These men took a chance in order to see Jesus, sometimes it is not easy but when we do have that experience with Christ it is a wonderful thing. They wanted to see him and they wanted to praise him, but not all who heard about this new king were happy. Harrod was afraid that this new king would someday grow up and take his power away from him, so he wanted to destroy him and to do this he was willing to kill many others, which he did. Even though they received the message not to go back to Harrod in a dream, there is a great message that we can get out of the account that they went home a different direction.

The Magi came not out of fear, but out of a wish to be a witness, but once they had the experience with Christ, they were changed and went a different direction. Jesus calls us to witness the miracles that he is trying to do in each of our lives and then wants us to go a different direction, which is always toward him. I pray as this Christmas Season continues, that you will all have a great a blessed year.

Father Ken Halbur

Merry Christmas!

We began the Christmas season in the Church this week and we will celebrate it until January 12th which is the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. We also celebrate this week the Feast of Mary the Mother of God on January 1st or New Year’s Day. It is a day in which we remember Mary’s role in the life of her Son, Jesus Christ. We often celebrate secular New Year’s Day with promises or resolutions like, “New Year, New Me.” But often the new year’s resolutions only last a few weeks, the gyms are full for the first few weeks of the year, but then attendance drops off pretty quickly.

Instead of a “new year, new me,” how about “new year, and I will do my best to be the person God wants me to be.” The struggle with this is that we need to find out what that is and the best way for that is to ask Him. The best way to do this is to draw close to him in prayer, but there is a challenge with this and that is that when you ask God where he wants you to be is that he will answer it and we may not always like the answer. This is because we sometimes have one idea of what we should be doing, but God has another, but if we actually follow where God is leading us, it will always lead us to joy, even if it can be a lot of work or go through some suffering. The Apostles and many saints did not have an easy life, but they did enjoy eternal life with God.

The whole idea of “new year, new me” is that there is something in our life that we need to change or work on, the struggle is that most of us focus on the physical or material, like losing weight or working on being financially better, or reading more, but if we start off with our spiritual life, the rest of it will be better, this is primarily because if we draw closer to God who is love and the source of love, it will change our attitudes.

Studies show that it takes about six weeks to build or break a habit, good or bad. If we make the effort for six weeks straight to do something good in our lives or stop doing something bad, we have a better hope of making it stick. In this upcoming new year, we should take some extra time to pray and ask God where He wants us to be so that we can become the person that Jesus Christ wants us to be. We continue to celebrate the Christmas season in which God himself came to live the life that we lead and to preach, teach, and give us an example of how we are to live our lives in the way of Christ. Find some good Christian resources, especially during these cold months, so that we can build the life of prayer in our lives.

God Bless
Fr. Ken

Merry Christmas! Jesus has come again!

This Wednesday we celebrate Christmas and it is the beginning of the true Christmas season which goes until (depending on the calendar you follow) the feast of the Epiphany. This is a wonderful season, a season of joy and peace, and while the time with family and friends, the food and drinks, and the gift giving and receiving is wonderful, remember why we are celebrating in this time.

During this Christmas season let us be mindful of one of the greatest gifts that we have been and ever will be given, Christ Jesus. Take some time to reflect on the Gospel account of how the coming of our Lord and Savior came about. In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And Joseph too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David that is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields and keeping the night watch over their flock. The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were struck with great fear. The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

This is a story we have all heard many different times, and I would recommend talking to our children about it during Christmas. The line that I like to reflect on is the one that the angels say about the good news of great joy. This really is a season of joy and peace, even though we are running around to see family and friends, it is a season of peace that only Christ can offer us. So don’t get tired of this beautiful season of Christmas.

God Bless,
Father Ken Halbur

"X-Mas" & Rose Vestments

Sometimes there is a great reaction to how some people write Christmas, often we see it written as x-mas instead of Christmas.

The word Christmas comes from Christ’s Mass, the Mass that we celebrate each and every week. The term Christmas is really not that old, within the Church it is known as the feast of the Nativity of Christ, or the birth of Christ. When we see it written as x-mas some people think that we are crossing out or “X”ing out Christ. But it is actually a shorthand for the first letter of Christ in Greek (χριστός Christos.) Within the Church you will see an overlapping XP (I have this symbol on my green chasuble and it is also on the purple one that the parish has) the XP is the chi (X) Rho (P) those are the first letters for Christ these are often flanked by the A (alpha) and Ω (omega) first and last characters of the Greek alphabet to represent Christ being the beginning and the end.

So, in short, X-Mas was just using the X as shorthand for Christ and is not really trying to get rid of Christ in Christmas. Remember, the best way to keep Christ in Christmas it to keep the Mass in Christmas since it is in the holy sacrifice of the Mass in which Christ comes Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, then allows us to receive Him in this way.

The second topic of this article is because this weekend we will also be lighting the pink candle as well as we will be using the rose or pink vestments. One of the things that this means is that Advent is over half way over and the coming of Christ in Christmas is getting closer! We only will wear the rose vestments for two weekends a year; Gaudete Sunday for the third Sunday in advent and Laetare Sunday in the fourth Sunday during Lent.

It is an option for Priest’s to wear the rose color vestments and we are not requirement to wear it, but it is nice to have something visual to see the difference.

The words Laetare and Gaudete mean the same thing they mean rejoice! This is because we are rejoicing that Christ is near. The word Laetare comes from an option introit or introduction to the Mass that is either said or sung which goes “Rejoice, O Jerusalem: and come together all you that love her: rejoice with joy, you that have been in sorrow: that you may exult, and be filled from the breasts of your consolation. (Psalm) I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: we shall go into the house of the Lord…” You have heard me say this many times, but we are called to be joy-filled or joyful Christians in the world, no matter what is happening.

As we continue to prepare ourselves for that wonderful coming of Christ again in the Christmas season, let us always remember to rejoice for the Lord is coming

Blessings,
Father Ken Halbur

The time of the Lord is coming!

We are getting ready to celebrate Christmas, while the secular world is already celebrating it. I pray that you will not get tired of the “holiday season” before it even begins!

We, as the Church, will begin to celebrate Christmas at the vigil Mass on Christmas Eve and celebrate it until the Baptism of the Lord. We are often drawn into the “regular” or secular way of saying and doing things for example Santa Clause.

Tradition holds that the name came from a mishearing or mispronunciation of Sint Klaes which is the Dutch way of saying Saint Nicholas. Saint Nicholas, whose feast day was Friday, December 6th was well known for a couple of things: the first, giving three bags of gold to a poor man for a dowry for his three daughters to save them from a life of prostitution. The account goes that there was a man who had three daughters and he was too poor to put together a dowry, which would mean that the young women would not be married, and in those days it was not easy for a woman to get a job, especially someone who was poor to begin with. There are different accounts of how it happens but it goes that St. Nicholas threw a bag of money into the house on three consecutive nights/weeks/months, and was caught by the man on the third time. It is also a tradition that one or all of the bags were put in the shoes of the girls, which is where we get the tradition of putting chocolate coins in shoes. The second things that St. Nicholas was famous for is slapping the heretic Arius in the face during an argument about whether or not Jesus was really God.

As we continue to prepare in the Advent season for the upcoming Christmas season, we want to keep reminding our children that there is a real reason for the Christmas season and that is that God loves us so much that He sent His Son Jesus to be with us. We hear the phrase that we should keep Christ in Christmas and the best way to do that is to be a good and joyful Christian. The example of how we act is one of the great things we can give to our children, whether it be the joyful celebration of the Holy Mass, or the way that we treat our neighbors, even those we do not like.

I will sometimes say that the best way to keep Christ in Christmas it to keep Mass in Christmas. Since the greatest prayer we have in the Church is the reminder of the depth of the love that Christ has for us in his sacrifice that we celebrate in the Mass. In this busy time, we prepare for the coming of the Lord, keep reminding ourselves who we are going to be receiving in the real Christmas season, Christ the Lord.

God Bless,
Fr. Ken

Happy New Year!

It is once again time for Advent, which starts the new year for the Church. We get to start off another liturgical year within the Church with this Advent season. Advent is another preparatory season, one that we are preparing for the coming of our Lord and Savior. He came as a humble child, one that was reliant on Mary and Joseph to take care of Him. He is also relying on us, us to help Him to carry out His mission in this world and that mission is to show the love that God has for us.

This is the time of the year that many people call the season of joy. It is a time in which we are getting ready to celebrate Christmas. But it is still a time in which we prepare for Christmas and it is not the Christmas season within the Church. The stores are trying to push us to celebrate Christmas earlier and earlier because if we do, it makes more of a profit for them.

You will notice that the churches are decorated in purple for the Advent season and then will be decorated for Christmas on Christmas Eve which is the beginning of the Christmas season which will not end until January 6th on the feast of the Epiphany.

The song the 12 days of Christmas is based on the 12 days between Christmas and Epiphany. In many cultures, most gifts were not given on Christmas day, most of them were given on the feast of the Epiphany, which is the day we celebrate the child Jesus being given the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. So please take some time to ready your hearts for the coming of our Lord and Savior during this Advent season and don’t get tired of Christmas, before we celebrate that great season of joy, and have a blessed Advent!

I also wanted to update the parish on what we are calling the 13th street issue. Some of you may have heard that the land to the north and west of us is owned jointly by, Mercy One, Catholic Charities, and the Diocese of Des Moines. They are in the process of selling the land to a developer, with this sale, 13th street will need to be built and currently it is on the land that St. Luke’s owns. This means that if everything happens right now, without anything done, we would have to pay for the construction of the street, and that is expensive. I and a committee have been working with the diocese and the developers to make sure that we are not burdened with that expense. This is the deal that we have worked out: St. Luke’s will give up 7 acres of land to the north and add 5 acres of land to the west which includes a cash payment for the additional 2 acres. This still leaves us with 33 acres of land and plenty of room to make sure we have space for everything we have planned in the years to come.

God Bless
Fr. Ken

Thanksgiving

On Thursday we will be celebrating Thanksgiving. Did you know Thanksgiving was officially proclaimed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 during the Civil War, even though it had been celebrated for some time?

It is a day in which we give thanks for the many things that we have been given. Sometimes we want to ask ourselves “What is there to give thanks for?” This is also the unofficial kickoff of the holiday season. It is a time that will get busy with our families and friends. As we are giving thanks for all of the gifts God has given us, ask Him for strength for the challenges we have in our lives.

We spend Thanksgiving day with our families and have a feast, a feast to remember the many gifts God has given us. This is a day in which we usually over-indulge in food and drink, watch some football, or many other things; after all, we are celebrating.

We can turn any event into a time to celebrate and over-indulge, which leads us to the evening and the next day… BLACK FRIDAY. I find it interesting, that the day we give thanks we begin to line up at the malls trying to get ready to beat out our neighbor for the best deals of the season. I myself have only been out in the morning of “Black Friday” a few times and that was enough. The stores call it Black Friday because they are making a profit, going from red to black. I really think that it is called black because of the darkness.

We hear of the many different places that people are being pepper sprayed, hurt, and sometimes killed over saving a few dollars. What a sad way to remind ourselves of our thankfulness than to trample over our neighbor so we can get a television for half price.

The word that we use for the Blessed Sacrament is Eucharist, this word is transliterated from the Greek word Eucharistia and the word translated means thanksgiving, so in essence we are celebrating a feast of thanksgiving every Sunday and every day when we celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The Mass is a celebration of giving thanks to God for the gifts that He has given us, as well as a remembrance of the sacrifice that He suffered. We are called to play a part in both of these elements of the Holy Mass, the sacrifice and the thanksgiving.

As we celebrate our Mass for the Thanksgiving holiday, remember to thank God for all of those things that we have been given. Just like in our celebration of Thanksgiving Day, we have choices on how we will participate. We can choose to not participate at all, we can eat and go on to the next thing, we can eat and sleep, or we can eat and participate with our Church, our earthly family, and our heavenly family. Remember, that as we begin our Advent preparations looking forward to the celebration of Christmas, that we should be mindful of those people around us, those who are in need as well as our own families.

Father Ken Halbur

Cheap Socks

Did I get your attention? Have you ever had a package of cheap socks and they just fall apart and have holes in them after only wearing them a few times? It is something that is frustrating, you spend money on something and it just does not last.

One of the things that I have found out in life, is that the cheapest things are not always the least expensive, especially if you have to replace it shortly after you purchase it, or it does not work like it really should, or you get so frustrated with it that you get mad and throw it away. I have always found that there are a few things that you need to spend the extra money on to make sure that you get something of quality, a few of those things are tools, tires, shoes, and Oreos (generic Oreos just do not taste right.).

Many times, we do not take care of those things that are cheap or free. I know someone who has outright stopped buying things for his children that are not necessary after they failed to take care of some things and told him, “why should I take care of it, we can just get another one.” What he does now, is if one of his children wants something, they have to do something to earn it. They have to do chores, help out a sibling, or another good deed to get what they want. This makes them realize that things that they want in life are earned, and things that are earned, are things we want to take care of.

I sometimes think that we forget that our grace was earned for us and given to us for free, and I have to admit that I too, forget this at times. We have the opportunity to accept the free gift of grace that Jesus Christ has earned for us. He did the work and gives it to us for free or cheaply, only requiring us to follow the example that He set. I know that it is not always easy to follow the Christian life, but it is something that we are called to do. We sometimes do not take care of our faith because it is free to us and it is something that we can do freely.

In other regions of the world, following the faith is not so easy and, in some cases, it is dangerous to practice the faith. In China a few weeks ago, there were a group of Catholics in a church for Mass and they were thrown out of the church and the building was destroyed because it was not part of the government sanctioned Church.

The interesting thing about our “cheap” grace, it is a very precious thing, it was paid for with an expensive price, with the blood of Christ. It was bought and paid for and then given to us for free, and the only thing we need to do to get it, is to accept it and follow our Lord and Savior who wants to give us this gift that no amount of money can buy.

God Bless,
Fr. Ken

The Internet is down!

The Internet is down! Have you ever heard this statement? It can bring a wave of panic to flow over a teenager or even a web addicted adult. What am I going to do, no web surfing, no Hulu, no online gaming, Twitter, etc. These are some things that we do all the time, many people do not want to even go to the bathroom without bringing their phone with them. A while back I watched an online ad for a product that I am not sure is even real, the pepper grinder that will turn off the internet, and cable to all devices in the house. This is a way to make sure that everyone puts down the devices and shut off the TV so that everyone can eat together without their phones or other devices in their hands. We are a society that has constant communication ability, but we are losing the ability to communicate face to face. I see my nieces often texting each other when they are in the same room as each other and that is an issue sometimes with classrooms, it is the equivalent of passing the note to a friend. I read a study a while back in which they took cell phones away from teenagers for two weeks, and in the study, they realized that a good percentage of young people actually had withdrawal symptoms the same way an alcohol or drug addict would. We even do not seem to want to put the phone down when it is dangerous to look at it, just look around when you are driving and see how many people cannot seem to not be texting while they are driving. A few years ago, during the “Back to the Future” day at St. Malachy school, the students created a time capsule and one of the things they put in it was a sample of writing and in cursive even, because they feel that in the next 30 years people will not be writing and cursive will be stopped first. In restaurants, I often see both the adults and children with a tablet or a phone and headphones in their ears with no one talking to each other. We are an Internet and device addicted society, but we can help to change that. While I do like having the convenience of being able to pick up my phone and look something up, or use a prayer app on my phone because it is something that I almost always carry with me, I also need to keep reminding myself that I need to unplug for a while and spend some time with God, as well as with other people, because we are social people and we do need to have contact with others, and not just through a phone. Take some time away from the constant but impersonal contact that we have and spend some peaceful and prayerful time with our Heavenly Father in prayer so that we can use that peace to give to others.

God Bless,
Fr. Ken

All Saints Day & All Souls Day

This past Friday was the feast of All Saints Day, and Saturday was the feast of All Souls day. On All Souls day, we remember those who have died this past year, and we are reminded to pray for all of our family members who have died. A few years ago, a priest that I greatly respected and served with, Fr Bob Hoefler died. While he was in the hospice center with the final stages of his cancer, I and some other people were visiting with him and he made a comment to all of us who were there, he said that at his funeral he did not want anyone to canonize him. He did not want people to constantly say that he was in heaven, don’t get me or him wrong, he really wanted to go to heaven, but what he wanted was for people to pray for him, because if we always say that someone who has died is in heaven, there is no need for us to pray for them anymore, and they may still need our prayers.

The feasts of All Saints and All Souls are important feast days for us as Catholics. We celebrate these days in order to remember those who have gone before us to eternal life. While they are similar in the fact that we are celebrating those who have died, they are different in what we are praying for. For those that are in heaven (All Saints) we pray a prayer of thanksgiving, one that is also asking those saints to pray for our needs. For those who are not in heaven yet, those who are in purgatory (All Souls) we are praying for their needs, that God will speed the time of their purgation of sin and bring them lovingly into the kingdom of heaven.

At a funeral, I will always tell people that the person who has died is in the loving and merciful hands of God now, I will not say that they are in heaven, because I am praying that they will be there. I want them to receive the benefits of our prayers. We pray for them, not in the body that is on earth which is dead and buried, but for the soul which is eternal and is entrusted to God’s hands now. On All Saints day, we celebrate all those who have served the Church in a special way, those who have fought the good fight of their lives and have been examples of holiness. Most of the people we celebrate are the countless examples of how to live holy lives. Only one of the saints in our history has been a perfect example, which is Mary, the mother of Jesus, who was also perfect because He was God. Even though the saints are not perfect, they are still examples that can lead us to holiness.

In the month of November, we remember our loved ones who have died. Here at St. Luke’s, there is a book in the gathering space of church to write down the names of our loved ones, and you are welcome to write down the names of any of your loved ones who have passed away.

God Bless
Fr. Ken