The Best Offense Is A Good Defense

Football season has begun. This weekend we had the “big game” for the state of Iowa with the University of Iowa playing Iowa State University. It is always fun to see the events leading up to the game, as well as the game itself. Before anyone asks, I am apolitical when it comes to this game. I usually say that I want the team that is going to be the best at the end of the year to win, and I hope for no injuries during it.

Sports have become a huge deal in our country, in many ways it is a great way to relax and watch, and playing sports is also a good and enjoyable way to get some exercise. With football season started, I am reminded of the old adage “the best offense is a good defense.” In football this is definitely the case, the shorter time that the opponent’s offense is on the field, the less chance they have to score, and the more your offense is on the field, the more chances you have to score. How about using this in our spiritual life, the best offense in our lives is some good defensive prayer.

I know many different people who are in fantasy football leagues, I was even in a few myself in the past, and it is interesting how much time some people can spend researching the players and teams to put together a team of players. Some people spend weeks doing the research and preparing for the big draft. How about picking out a spiritual team of prayers? Find some saints that you can relate to and ask them each and every day to help you.

I once heard a priest state “I wish we would be as prepared for Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as we will prepare for the big game.” We so often spend hours a week practicing for a sport, on the internet, or watching television and then we turn around and say that we have a hard time finding 15 minutes to pray. I know in my own life, I sometimes find it hard to pray, or difficult to “find the time” when in reality, I have just chosen to do something different. As I went through some social media, as well as some news stories, I saw that people will spend hours getting ready for a game of their favorite team. I have friends that used to leave their houses at 4:00 am so that they could get to the stadium for a tailgate for a game that begins at 3:00 pm. What if we spent just a fraction of that time preparing for something greater than just a game? What if instead of 11 hours before the game, we would spend 30 minutes going over the readings for the Mass each Sunday? How would that excitement and love of the Eucharist encourage our children or others around us? In the end, no matter how big the game is, it is still a game, the Mass is a matter of life and death, life with Christ, or death without, and that is the reason that we attach ourselves to the author of life itself in his Body and Blood.

God bless,
Fr. Ken

What Is Hell Like?

What is hell like? I sometimes get asked questions about what heaven and hell are like. For some, heaven is a beautiful golf course in which every shot we hit goes exactly where we want it to, and hell is a golf course in which every shot does not. While this example may be simplistic, we all have some image in our mind in which we can think of heaven or hell.

There are many different images of what hell can be like from Dante’s epic work the Divine Comedy – Inferno, in which Dante takes his journey through hell. Hell is depicted as having seven levels in which the upper levels are where the punishment of the less serious sins happens to the lower ones for the more serious ones. At the upper regions, the damned are constantly chasing the things they chased on earth, for example those who commit the sin of lust are desperately trying to hold on to another person in a great wind storm. In the lower regions, people are encased in ice either right side up or upside down and the three worst sinners are spending eternity being chewed up by Satan.

I was watching a movie and it had an interesting take on what hell was like; it was a place in which you spent eternity watching all of the bad things that were happening to those you loved. I can only imagine what that would feel like, seeing the pain and suffering of those that you cared about forever. In the New Testament, Jesus himself gives us a couple of images of hell and it is equated to the Valley of Gahanna, which is the place where they threw the trash and burned it. He says that hell is a place “where the worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.” Jesus is hinting that the people who end up there are thrown out like refuse and burned.

In one of my favorite passages Mt 25, Jesus discusses the way to get to heaven or hell and that is up to us, but it was not originally created for us, it is “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” In essence, hell was not created specifically for us, but he does let us make the choice. Most of us would not consciously choose to go to hell, but Jesus does state that we will be judged for our actions. He is telling us that in the end, it is our own choices in life that determine where we will end up for eternity, hopefully it will not be there, but in the kingdom of heaven with him. As the Act of Contrition states, we should really fear the loss of heaven and the pains of hell. Let us all take that time to look at ways we can change our actions so that we will change them so that we will turn back to God.

God bless,
Fr. Ken

Distractions

Have you ever sat down to your computer planning on doing some work and said “I need to look this up on the internet” and then end up spending two hours looking up crazy cat videos or other videos? It is amazing that some of the things in our lives that are meant to help us, end up distracting us. I know that I can find myself turning on the television for just a few minutes and two hours later I am still watching it and I have eaten half a bag of Fritos.

Sometimes we have good intentions to do something productive and allow ourselves to get distracted with things that are not as important. This happens so often in our lives, we have the best intentions, but we sometimes fall short of what we want to do. This not only happens in the work that we do, but also, we can allow it in our prayer life. We have the best intentions here and maybe plan to spend 20 minutes praying every morning, or we plan to pray the rosary every day, or we are going to really focus on the Mass, but then something distracts us. We begin to pray the rosary and realize that we forgot to change the laundry, so we go and take care of that real quick so we can get back to praying, then the phone rings, then the kids wake up from their naps, and then we end up back on the internet looking at cats riding Roombas.

God understands that we can get distracted in prayer, but we need to do our best to fight through the distractions and refocus, whether it be at Mass or in our private prayer life. When we catch ourselves distracted, just take a breath, refocus and try again, don’t end up going farther into the distraction by focusing on it. Within our parish, there are many different distractions to draw us away from focusing on the Mass or other prayers. With the number of children here, and their activity, or just the people we know and recognize in Mass, there are things that can draw us away from really praying in private or praying with the Mass.

There is no such thing as bad time praying or wasted time with God, it always helps us out in some way. Remember some of the greatest saints of the Church sometimes struggled with prayer or had distractions within their prayer life. St Teresa of Avila once said “If I stopped praying every time I got distracted, I would never finish the Lord’s Prayer!” Distractions will happen in prayer, but the key is to keep spending time with God and see the fruits of that time grow slowly in our hearts.

God bless,
Fr. Ken

Back To School

It is back to school time if you can believe that! This week the kids will start coming back to school; it is wonderful to see the excitement on their faces as they begin the school year. This year we will have over 300 kids here at St. Luke’s school with over 350 in the RE programs.

The first day is always challenging, trying to get the kids where they need to be, get them calmed down and ready to learn again, and all of the other things that go along with the start of school. There is a nervousness that happens with kids at the beginning of school, most especially the younger ones. Sometimes we run into those children who just do not want to go back to school and would rather stay home, they have what I sometimes call the “I want mommy meltdown”, but parents tell them that school is good for them and that they have to go.

Sometimes I also hear that parents do not bring their children to Mass because they don’t want to go either, they would rather stay at home and sleep or play games, so they let them. What is the difference, while school gives them an education to get through this life, the Mass gives them an education to get to eternal life. We bring our kids to school even if they do not want to go because we know that it is good for them, we should also do the same with Mass and their faith. We ourselves should be a joyous example for our children in the practice of the faith, even in these challenging times. When our children ask us questions about the faith or why we go to Mass, we should help them to find the answer even if we do not know it. This is something that will help us with our own faith life. We want our children to be the best that they can be and with the help of God, they can be, but we need to help them to see that gift that God is for them, by showing them our own love for God.

Yes, these are challenging times and there is a fear for many around the coming together, whether it be for school or church, but we can also be reminded of the joys that are around being together, most especially to pray together the highest form of prayer that we have in the Church and that is the Holy Celebration of the Sacred Eucharist, in which we receive the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ into our bodies. As we are entering into the new school year, take the time to pray with the kids and also to bring them to the celebration of the Holy Eucharist so that we can all be drawn close to God. Also, on Thursday at 8:30, we will have Mass for the kids and then every Wednesday at 8:30 as well as our usual 7:00 Mass.

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 shuts 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

Supporting One Another

When I think of most challenging physical work that I have done in my life, my mind goes back to my freshmen year of high school in the winter when I wrestled. Oh, those sandbags! Oh those Wheel Barrow exercises up the 2 flights of stairs!

Perhaps you have had a physical exertion event that you can remember during childhood that you remember well and thought might never end.

I also remember playing tackle football when I was in eighth grade and our team practiced at Columbus Park in Des Moines. It was a hot summer evening and we had already had a practice full of running and hard drills. Then, our coach tells us all to line up in the 3 point stance across one of the yard lines and watch the ball. When the ball goes, you start to sprint. If the ball does not “get hiked” then you have to stay in position. We were all dogged-tired and at a point one of our teammates didn’t watch the ball and started to run when the ball didn’t move. So, we had to move back and run an extra 10 yards. All of the team ended up making it through the difficult time, especially because we were in solidarity with one another.

In retrospect, these stories can have a sense of camaraderie and struggle infused into them. Our Christian lives are sometimes similar. There are periods of life where we are tested and hopefully can have a “team” of friends and faith-filled people to pray for us, help us, and assist us as we can do the same for others. This can be a Gospel call to help those who are particularly and acutely undergoing some suffering or evil. It is the Gospel call to show Mercy.

This past week, St. Luke’s had Bill Hammer’s funeral as the St. Luke’s community mourned the loss of Bill and comforted the Hammer family in their mourning and loss.

It was a time of sorrow being at Bill Hammer’s funeral with his son, Fr. Daniel presiding over His Father’s funeral. But it was also an event of great beauty, family, support, prayers, Catholic Community and the presence of Christ with His love, grace, and mercy.

May we continue supporting one another as a “team” of disciples in all aspects of our lives, but especially in those challenging times of life where we can lean on each other as members of the Body of Christ and be Christ to one another.

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” 2Tim 4:7

Fr. Ryan

Community

Community is a blessing. The Most Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is a Community of divine Persons united in one divine Nature. All community, in heaven and on earth ultimately derives from the awesome eternal Communion of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Aug. 6th is a wonderful opportunity to experience and encounter each other in our community here at St. Luke’s at the parish 2nd Annual Parish Luau!

I know that Fr. Ken is particularly devoted to the Saints. I think many of us have our “go to” to saints for which we have a special love and devotion. The saints are beautiful gifts to us here on earth as models and examples of living out our faith, even during challenging and difficult times. Even the Saints though needed others to help them grow in their union with God. Parents, Religious Orders, Priests, Siblings, these relationships and communities helped Saints develop their own personalities, faith life and relationship with God. There is even the Communion of Saints in heaven that pray for us, Wayfarers journeying toward our heavenly homeland, and we ourselves who pray for those souls await full communion with God and all the saints in heaven.

Praise God for the gift of community in Jesus Christ! Praise God for the gift of freedom to gather together as a local Church body to worship our Lord!

As we take the “deep breath before the plunge” of the upcoming school year, perhaps we could ask the intercession of some of our own beloved saints and the whole Communion of Saints to pray for a blessed upcoming school year. Perhaps we can also thank our Triune God for establishing His Church so that we could be in loving communion with each other in and through Communion with His divine Son, Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Eucharist.

God bless,
Fr. Ryan

Vacation

As I write this, I am preparing to go on vacation. I sometimes feel guilty about taking vacations because there is always so much to do around here, but was told by a wise old priest that you have to take care of yourself so that you can take care of the people of God.

Vacations are nice to have because it is a time to get away and do something different and recharge. If you are like me though, I think that most of us feel that we need a vacation after we get back from vacation, because we are so tired from everything that we did while we are gone, and then dreading the piles of mail and emails that you have to go through when you get back, just to catch up.

 This trip is one that I am going on with a priest friend from Illinois and for a change we have a few things planned. We are planning on going to a few different Holy Sites including some churches, the tomb of St Patrick, the city of Armah where St. Malachy was bishop, Knock where there was an apparition of Mary and a few other places. It should be a wonderful trip. The funny thing is that when I usually travel, we have no real plan of where we will end up each day, we go toward a destination and then decide where we are going to stop the morning we are leaving.

The trip of our spiritual life is kind of the same. We know where our final destination is – Home or Heaven, but we do not always know the path that we are going to take to get there. Sometimes in our faith journey we have the straight and easy roads, sometimes we have a few twists and bumps, and sometimes we run into roadblocks and we have to turn around, but the good thing is that we are not alone, we have help. The journey can be confusing, it can be difficult, it can be exciting, and we sometimes even get a little lost because our GPS loses its signal, but we need to keep going towards that destination. One of the great blessings is that we have roadmaps (the Church, prayer, Holy Scripture, spiritual books, etc.) but most importantly we have been given a guide. God the Father did not want us to get lost. He sent His Son to be that guide for us, we simply need to follow. The journey of our physical life and that of spiritual life go together, one feeds off of the other. When we feed ourselves spiritually, it helps us physically and it gives us the energy we need to continue down the path of our lives, and when we feed ourselves physically it gives us the strength to keep moving. So… as I prepare myself to take some time to spend with a friend traveling, keep me in your prayers and know that I will keep you in mine.

God bless,
Fr. Ken

Introducing Fr. Ryan Andrew

Dear Parishioners of St. Luke’s:

Greetings! I am Fr. Ryan Andrew your new Associate Pastor.

I am very blessed and excited to be a part of the St. Luke’s community to learn from and minister to you. A little bit about myself:

I was born in Des Moines at Mercy hospital in 1986. I grew up on the Southside of Des Moines and went to St. Anthony’s Catholic school in kindergarten and then went to Christ the King Catholic school from 2nd grade through 8th grade.

Like many other kids, I was involved in and loved sports growing up. I played football, basketball, soccer and baseball. Baseball was my favorite sport though. I started playing when I was 6. When I was 8 years old, I began playing on an AAU team called the South Des Moines Reds which would be a big part of my life for the next 7 years.

Through the next 7 years, I attended Christ the King and played baseball, football, and basketball enjoying my time on the respective sports fields and courts. I didn’t practice my Catholic faith though outside of saying prayers at night before I went to bed during my time growing up as a kid at St. Anthony’s and Christ the King.

When I began high school at Dowling Catholic, I played on the freshmen football team and played a combination of positions that are a bit unusual. I started a few games at nose-guard, was a second string middle-linebacker, and was the “5th quarter” quarterback! I also wrestled my freshmen year and, of course, played baseball.

My freshmen year of baseball was a great success. One of my coaches told me if I worked at it over the next few years, I may be able to play at a Nebraska or Wichita State level of baseball program. So, I was even more immersed and excited about my baseball career than ever.

Over the next couple years at Dowling Catholic, I didn’t practice my faith outside of all-school Mass at Dowling Catholic and focused just on baseball.

I started at 3rd base my junior year but a couple of rough games found me on the bench in the first 3rd of the season and continued through the season. This was a difficult reality for me as I put all my eggs in the “basket” of baseball.

My senior year, I was invited to a retreat called Youth 2000 at the Dowling Catholic gym in January of 2004, my senior year. At this point, I still wasn’t thinking about my faith or practicing it. I was told by a Franciscan Sister, Sr. Clare Matthias, to go read for the first Mass of the retreat upon my first few minutes of joining the retreat. This changed my whole life. Literally.

After reading for Mass, I was now inserted into the retreat and remained for the duration. My whole life changed. I never considered that Jesus is real, that there is a whole supernatural world that exists that we can’t see, and that Jesus is truly present Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the Eucharist. This Youth 2000 retreat was the turning point of my life, my Catholic faith, and my relationship with Jesus.

After the Youth 2000 retreat, I made Christ-centered friends, I chose Christ-centered choices and chose a Christ-centered college to attend, Benedictine College.

After one year at DMACC, I began attending Benedictine College in the fall of 2005. It was here at Benedictine College that my Catholic faith grew exponentially and my vocation to the priesthood began to bud and bloom very quickly. Having 3 Masses available daily, Benedictine Monks and priests on campus, a College community of faith-filled young Catholics living out their faith authentically and boldly, all of this helped form and foster my call to first consider and then actually pursue seminary studies.

After I graduated from Benedictine College I entered the St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul Minnesota. After a couple years in the seminary it was on a 5 day silent retreat in front of the Blessed Sacrament that Jesus gave me the undeniable, powerful, and divine peace of knowing I was called to be a priest. Over the next few years I looked toward the day of my ordination to the priesthood which was Dec. 14th, 2018 at St. Ambrose Cathedral.

Over the past 4 years, I was the chaplain at Dowling Catholic High School, teaching and ministering to the students, staff and faculty as well as providing weekend sacramental assistance during that time first at St. Pius X in Urbandale and later at St. Boniface in Waukee.

I am blessed to be here at St. Luke’s and I look forward to getting to know everyone and draw closer to Jesus with you. St. Luke the Evangelist, pray for us!

In Christ,
Fr. Ryan Andrew

Change, Patience, and St. Michael the Archangel

Change is inevitable. As Fr Ryan begins his time here at St. Luke the Evangelist parish and school, I want to ask for your patience. He is going to need to get used to the schedule and how we do things here. While I know that it is difficult to adapt to a new priest, it is also difficult as a priest to adapt to different practices in a different parish. Change is something that, while we may not like it, it is something that we all need to do and as we continually change, we have two choices in direction, the first is toward God and the second is away from Him. I pray that all of us strive to move toward God and see the blessings that God wants to give us.

One of the things that can help us, is the Angels and saints. Often times I talk about the named Saints, because the saints are ones who may not have been perfect and most of them had a conversion in some way that brought them back on the path to God. However, there are a few interesting saints that we call saints, even though they really are not in the traditional sense, because they were not even human, and those are the Archangels. The basic definition of a saint is someone who is in heaven. We know of three Archangels from Scripture, Raphael in the book of Tobit, Gabriel was the messenger of God who delivers the greatest message of all time, announcing to the Blessed Virgin Mary that she was going to conceive through the Holy Spirit, the Savior of the World, and finally, Michael, who is mentioned in the book of Revelation.

Michael is the one who will lead the army of Heaven against the devil in the end, he is one that we often are reminded to pray to for strength. The Archangel Michael is also one who is a defender of the Church. He is most often portrayed with a flaming sword standing on top of the devil and pushing him back into hell. In the speech that Pope Francis gave while dedicating Vatican City to both St. Joseph and St. Michael the Archangel a few years ago, he says “Michael struggles to restore divine justice and defends the People of God from his enemies, above all by the enemy par excellence, the devil. And St. Michael wins because in him, there is He, God, who acts. This sculpture reminds us then that evil is overcome, the accuser is unmasked, his head crushed, because salvation was accomplished once and for all in the blood of Christ.” And “We are not alone on the journey or in the trials of life, we are accompanied and supported by the Angels of God, who offer, so to speak, their wings to help us overcome so many dangers, in order to fly high compared to those realities that can weigh down our lives or drag us down. In consecrating Vatican City State to St. Michael, the Archangel, I ask him to defend us from the evil one and banish him.”

We are constantly reminded that there is constant change as well as, there is evil in this world and we need God’s help even through His angels and saints.

God bless,
Fr. Ken

Fr. Downey's Goodbye

In today’s Gospel, Christ commands the disciples that if you enter a town and the people ‘do not receive you, go out into the streets and say, ‘The dust of your town that clings to our feet, even that we shake off against you.’” I assure you that I have no need to be shaking my sandals at St. Luke’s as I complete my assignment and depart for another. During my two years here, I have been received with great patience and hospitality. St. Luke’s Church and School have been an unrivaled opportunity to grow and be formed as a priest and I have said many times in the past two years how I wish that all of the other new priests of the diocese could be blessed with an assignment like this one (like this one, but not this one, because I was fully intent on holding on to this one as long as I could).

Christ also says in today’s Gospel, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” As I am assigned to go work in a different field, please continue to pray for me and my ministry as a teacher at Dowling Catholic High School, but also give thanks to God for the gift given to St. Luke’s: a second full-time priest, Fr. Ryan Andrew. Having been able to only justly give half of myself to the St. Luke’s community, I do have some envy of his opportunity to invest himself whole-heartedly, alongside Fr. Halbur, with you. My prayer for you is that the people and the priests of St. Luke’s continue to call each other higher in Christian generosity and living out their vocations so that both harvest and laborers can increase.

Pax et Bonum,
Fr. James Downey

Don't Take The Bait!

Have you ever looked at a story or a link on the internet and was completely shocked and outraged, only to find out that the story is completely false, or find something that is out there simply to attack someone or something? Sometimes the headlines are just there to get your attention and make you click through things. The companies really want people to click on their stories because they get advertising revenues for each click.

We see these stories all the time, when someone posts something that a person in the Church did or every so often someone posts something to the line of “If the Catholic Church really cared about the poor, it would sell the Church property and give it to the poor.” A few years ago, there was a movement out there called “sell the Vatican and feed the world.” Just think about the value of the Vatican and its museum, thousands of priceless pieces of art. There are two of the greatest works that Michelangelo ever did, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (it could be cut up into its sections and sold off in pieces) and the Pieta. Just think how many billions of dollars these pieces could be sold for, even though it is not practical and then the pieces would end up in private collections away from the ability for the masses of people to be able to view them. Also, the buildings and the art have more value than the actual cost of them, they are symbols of the one Church and a place to gather as a one people of God.

But… I think that one of the more interesting things about this is that it comes not from the desire to help the poor, but from the mentality of let someone else do it. You sell what you have and give it away not me. That is NOT what Jesus told his disciples, he told them to go and do it themselves (see the feeding of the 5,000). The fact is that an estimated 7 million people in the United States alone are fed by the Catholic Church and almost 5 million children in Africa are educated by the Catholic Church. There is a counter movement which states “sell the porn industry (which has $12 billion+ in revenues) and feed the world.”

When we see a story or a link online that seems shocking, especially if it is about “Catholics” it is because it is shocking, and when you click on that link or share it, it ticks the advertising counter so that the website will receive more advertising revenues. It is something called click-bait, which baits you to click the link which shows that someone has gone to the website and the ad companies then pay the website and, they get even more, if you click the link for an ad! If you see something online that seems odd, or elicits an emotional reaction, it is because it does and they want you to follow the story so that they can get paid. So, resist the temptation and don’t take the bait!

God bless,
Fr. Ken

This weekend we celebrate Father’s Day

This weekend we celebrate the fathers of our world. We will go to see them and we give them a gift of some kind; a card, some kind of tool, a fishing pole, necktie, or whatever. Today, we celebrate what they mean to us in our lives.

Fathers are special, even Jesus thought that they were, and he honored the man, Joseph, even though he knew that Joseph was not his biological father. As we honor the men who raised us let’s look at the examples of the fathers in Jesus’ life.

First, you have the real father of Jesus, Our Father in Heaven. He is one that loves all of His children, Jesus yes, but each and every one of us, just look at the many gifts that He has given us. The Father wants us to be with Him so much that He sent His only true Son, Jesus, to show us that way to Him in the kingdom of Heaven.

The second father Jesus had in his life was a humble and quiet man, Joseph. He is a wonderful model of a Christian father and one of the very first disciples of Jesus himself. He was a humble man and we don’t know a lot about him because our Holy Scriptures does not record a single word that Joseph spoke. He was a man who did not need to be in the limelight, but just did what he needed to do. When he was going to divorce Mary quietly because she was pregnant with a child that was not his, he listened to the angel and married her anyway. When the angel told him that he needed to protect his family he simply got up and took them to Egypt. When his son was lost, he went looking for him and did not give up until he and Mary found him, three days later. He is that incredible example of what a loving father is.

Our popular TV culture loves to make fun of the father in the family, they are usually stupid, or inept, but we really know how much they really mean to us. In fact, studies show that when the father goes to Mass and is an example of prayer, children are far more likely to do the same in their lives. Do our fathers have faults, of course, all of us do, but as God loves each and every one of us with our faults, we love all of those men who are our fathers, those in heaven and those still on earth.

One of the greatest things that we can give our fathers, is to pray for them. Pray that they will be the best example of the faith for us, their children, pray that they will have the courage and strength to be the best man that they can be. We can also pray and ask the saints for help, ask for the intercession of St. Joseph for our fathers as well. Happy Father’s Day.

God bless,
Fr. Ken

Summer Reading

In school, many teachers recommend a summer reading list. With the vacations we take, less school activities, and longer days, some of us have more free time to be able to read. Bookstores have sections devoted to summer reading as well. I would recommend that we take some of this reading time to enhance our relationship with God with some spiritual reading.

The Bible is always a good place to start. One study states that only 10% of all Christians have read the entire Bible, even though most people have more than one copy in their house. An average reader could read it in 80 hours which is 15 minutes a day for a year, or an hour a day for the summer. There is a wonderful podcast called the “Bible in a Year” which many people have already listened to and can help with the reading of Sacred Scriptures.

Besides the Bible, there are some other great spiritual reading books depending on your tastes. Over the last few years, a number of great and entertaining writers have emerged, including Peter Kreeft, Matthew Kelly, Curtis Martin, Michael White, Scott Hahn, Bishop Robert Barron and so many others. The Holy Fathers are also a wonderful resource as well as the many different saints who have written about a number of different topics; each of our last few popes have different styles of writing and a wide variety of topics. There are some of the writings of the early Church Fathers that we can turn to for example Justin Martyr, Ignatius of Antioch, or Polycarp.

Some of the great Doctors of the Church have some wonderful books that can help us to grow in our faith as well. We have 2,000 years of tradition and writings to delve into and the selections are endless, but here are a couple of my favorites. Scott Hahn’s “The Lamb’s Supper” is a great reflection on the Mass. Fr James did a book study on the Brant Pitre’s book “Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist” which can help us to understand the history of the Mass and why we do certain things during our Celebration. St Therese of Lisieux’s “Story of a Soul” shows us the incredible life of a simple and holy woman. Cardinal Robert Sarah did a wonderful book called “The Power of Silence” it is one that can help us with getting into silence in our prayer life. “YouCat” is a youth Catechism which is wonderfully written and is done for teens, but is also entertaining for adults. St. Augustine “Confessions” is one you could read over and over and get something new out of each and every time. The “Lives of the Saints” gives us a short synopsis of many different saints. I would also recommend to look up a saint that has a patronage of something that we are passionate about and read about them. I could continue on with a very long list, but these are some readings that are very accessible for us and a good start along with Sacred Scripture to help us to grow closer to God.

God bless,
Fr. Ken

Trust in God

How often do you get caught up in the things that are going on, things that you have no control over? We live in a time in which you can pull out of your pocket or purse a device that can instantly give you information from just about anywhere in the world with the click of a thumb. We spend so much time stressing and worrying about things that we shouldn’t because they are things that are not in our hands, but in God’s.

This is something that I need to listen to myself, I constantly worry about the things that are going on in this parish, even though I know that God will provide! I by my own nature tend to worry and I need to keep reminding myself that worry steals from hope and the peace of tomorrow. I also need to remind myself that hope and trust in God overcomes worry. When we allow ourselves to get caught up in those things that may never happen, we can get caught up in the worst things that can happen and we forget to concentrate on the people and things that are going on right now. When we get stressed about things, we often take it out on people that are around us, most especially those that are closest to us.

Prayer and asking God for his guidance is one of the best ways we can overcome worry. This is something that we can continue to work on. Even in our busy lives, we can take some time to pray, pray for calmness and peace in our hearts. We can often look to the lives of the saints and wonder how they were so calm in their lives, even though they often had good reason to worry. Many of the saints were persecuted for their faith, and some even by leaders of the Church. Mother Teresa was a woman of great faith and trust in God, she is quoted as saying “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We only have today. Let us begin.” When I begin to worry about things myself, I remember that if we trust in God everything will work out. Padre Pio was another saint who had some incredible struggles in his life, but he was also one who had a great saying “Pray, hope, and don’t worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.” And also “My past, O Lord, to Your mercy; my present, to Your love; my future to Your providence.” My advice is to Pray, hope, work to change those things you can, and trust that God will take care of the rest. If I were to add to Mother Teresa’s quote, I would say something like we remember the beauty and good things of the past, we plan for the things in the future, but we live for today.

God bless,
Fr. Ken

The Ascension and Pentecost

These next couple of weekends are important ones within our Church! This weekend we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension and next weekend we celebrate Pentecost. These two celebrations mark the fact that we are being strengthened and then being sent. Jesus ascends into heaven and he allows the Apostles to witness this great scene so that they know that He has gone away, but he tells them that they will not be left alone. We will see that particular scene next week.

Both of these two celebrations are important for us because they give us both the path that we are to follow as well as our mission to spread the Gospel in the world. After Jesus ascends, the angels ask the Apostles “why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.” In other words, move along, there is nothing else to see here, go and do what He told you to. Go out into the world and spread the good news. But even though we are being lead and told to do something, we do not always follow, because we need some help.

Next week we hear that the disciples receive the gift of the Holy Spirit enabling them and giving them the courage to go and preach the Gospel to all people. Sometimes this is called the birthday of the Church, where the Apostles, and now we, are being sent to fulfill Jesus’ mission. Jesus came into the world to found a Church and to use that Church to bring all people back to the Father in the kingdom of Heaven. Often times we hear the phrase “sola scriptura” or Scripture alone, but the problem with this is that Jesus did not come to give us a book, he came to give us a Church and a mission. In fact, there are only a few words that we know Jesus himself actually wrote, and the words themselves are not recorded, remember the woman caught in adultery, and Jesus knelt down and wrote in the dirt. Jesus could have easily come down from Heaven and said, “here is the book you need to read and follow it” but he didn’t, he came down to the earth to live our lives and he showed us the path we are to lead by walking it with us, and then sent us to follow that path with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

He tells us that he will never leave us alone and the descent of the Holy Spirit is proof of that. Jesus gave us an example as well as a mission to follow, and that mission is to follow him and then go out into the world to lead others to that same path. That is the message and mission of the Ascension and Pentecost, to take up where Jesus left off and continue to spread the Good News to the world!

God bless,
Fr. Ken

Wrapping Up Our Sacrament Season

This weekend we are wrapping up our Sacrament season with the Confirmation. We have had three Masses in which we got to see our second graders receive the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ for the first time in the last few weeks, and that is a wonderful thing to see, but we get to celebrate another great sacrament on Sunday afternoon as we welcome Bishop Joensen to celebrate the sacrament of Confirmation for our 10th graders.

Confirmation is beautiful because these young adults confirm their faith in Jesus Christ and His Church. Sometimes Confirmation is referred to as becoming an adult in the Church, and in some ways that is true, but in other ways it is not. It is being an adult because they will be taking the responsibility of their faith upon themselves, but it is not because Confirmation is simply the confirming of their Baptismal promises.

One of the wonderful things is that we see the next step in the faith journey for these young people. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states “By the sacrament of Confirmation, [the baptized] are more perfectly bound to the Church and are enriched with a special strength of the Holy Spirit. Hence, they are, as true witnesses of Christ, more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith by word and deed.” This weekend we pray that these young people will accept the gifts of the Holy Spirit that are being called upon them.

It is interesting the timing of the Sacrament, because it was not the way that we celebrated them in the early Church. We would receive the Sacrament of Baptism first, like always, but then we would celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation shortly before we would receive First Holy Communion. There are many theories to why we changed the order, but that is the way we are celebrating them now, and it does give the students a bit more maturity to be able to take on the responsibility to accept the faith in a more adult way.

One of the great things that we can do is to pray for these students as they prepare their hearts and minds to receive this gift of the Holy Spirit. We pray that God will continue to guide them and that we ourselves will continue to allow ourselves to be guided by the Holy Spirit, so we can spread and defend the faith by our words and deeds. The prayer that will be said to them kind of sums up what they are to receive. “All-powerful God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, by water and the Holy Spirit you freed your sons and daughters from sin and gave them new life. Send your Holy Spirit upon them to be their helper and guide. Give them the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of right judgment and courage, the spirit of knowledge and reverence. Fill them with the spirit of wonder and awe in your presence.”

God bless,
Fr. Ken

Happy Mother’s Day!

This weekend we will be celebrating Mother’s Day! It is a holiday that we have only been celebrating for about a hundred years. Most of us have a very fond memory of our mothers. We love them and care about them. A mother’s love is a very special one, even in Sacred Scriptures it is mentioned.

In the Gospel of John, it talks about when a woman is in labor, she is in anguish because her hour has arrived; but when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy that a child has been born into the world. Even Jesus himself listened to his mother at the wedding feast of Cana and after the finding in the temple Jesus went down with Mary and Joseph and was obedient to them. While on the Cross, Jesus still wanted to know that his mother was going to be taken care of, so he entrusted her to the disciple whom he loved.

God himself knows about the special love of a mother, and wants us to know that as well. Even though we may not be able to be with our mothers in this time, we can still pray for them. If our mother has passed away, pray for her that she will be in the loving arms of God. If we are estranged from her, pray that God will bring healing in her and your hearts. If we are physically far away from her, call her. The respect for parents is so strong that God even gave us a commandment to honor them. I know that everyone does not always have a good relationship with their parents, but we can continue to pray for healing and to remember that we have the perfect mother in the kingdom of heaven that is always interceding for us in the Blessed Virgin Mother. For most, though, we do have a good relationship and we can remember those wonderful times (and still remember our perfect mother in heaven.)

The Knights of Columbus as some of their missions are to help families with intellectual differences and also to help the unborn, this mission also helps mothers in their challenges. As a Knight, men are called to come together in their vocation of life to help others and helping children and mothers is a good one.

During Mother’s Day, we often think of what we should get our mothers, but sometimes the greatest gift is to be with them. I think that it is fun to hear stories about different traditions within families about different holidays, or events. A friend of mine who has a couple of her kids that do not go to Mass every Sunday and others that go to different parishes, asks her kids for the gift of coming to Mass with her on Mother’s Day and then they do something.

As we celebrate this Mother’s Day in the best way that we can, let us always remember to ask our heavenly mother to pray for our mothers. Happy Mother’s Day!

God bless,
Fr. Ken

What is a pilgrimage?

This weekend I am very grateful that Fr Larry is filling in for myself and Fr James due to a scheduling conflict. Fr James is at a conference and I am with our pilgrimage group in Italy.

So… what is a pilgrimage? Pilgrimages are different from vacations, while they both can be entertaining and see some wonderful sites, they differ in the intention. Vacations are things we do to get away from our normal routine of life in order to refresh ourselves, while pilgrimages allow us to get away from the normal routine of life so that we can grow in our faith and prayer life. This is why we focus on going to holy sites, praying, and celebrating Mass every day at these special places.

What follows are a few of the wonderful places that we will see and celebrate Mass. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we will be in Padua, which is famous because of the great Saint Anthony. We will be blessed to celebrate Mass at the altar of his tomb on Tuesday. On Wednesday, we will have the great blessing of celebrating Mass at the tomb of our parish namesake of Saint Luke! He is entombed in the Basilica of Santa Giustina and has been publicly venerated there since the 1300’s. During this trip we will be able to celebrate at the location of a second of the Evangelists, St. Mark who is in the island city of Venice, and we will celebrate Mass at one of the chapels in the massive church on Thursday. On Friday, we will celebrate Mass at the church that marks the spot where St. Francis of Assisi received the stigmata on Mount La Verna. Some of the other places we will celebrate Mass are at the tomb of St. Francis, the chapel in Orvieto where a Eucharistic miracle happened. In Rome we will celebrate at St. Paul outside the walls, and St. Mary Major.

These are great opportunities to celebrate the Eucharist in these wonderful places, but while the places are special, it is more special that we get to receive our Lord and Savior each time we are part of the Mass all over the world. As a seminarian and priest, I have had the opportunity to be a part of the celebration of the Eucharist at some incredible places, including the spot of the birth and death of Jesus, but no matter where it is celebrated, it is always a wonderful thing that we can do.

I am sure that every one who is a part of this pilgrimage will have a wonderful time and I hope that everyone will grow in their faith. Rome is a very important place in the history of the Church as it is the place in which both St. Paul and our first Pope, St. Peter were martyred. While I am excited to be there, it is always good to get back home and be with the people here!

God bless,
Fr. Ken

Divine Mercy Sunday

This weekend we finish what is called the Octave of Easter, the first week of the Easter Season. Our celebration of Easter, along with Christmas, is so important that the Church continues to celebrate it not just one day, but for an entire week. This whole week is a continual celebration of the greatest events of human history. Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God has risen from the grave and conquered even death itself for our sake. This wonderful week concludes with another celebration, that of Divine Mercy Sunday. This is a relatively new feast day that was instituted by St John Paul II and focuses on the incredible mercy that God offers us. In Holy Scripture, Jesus is the one that talks about the judgement of God more than anyone, but he is also the one who talks about the mercy of God more than anyone, and they are tied together.

This feast day is based on the writing of St Faustina Kowalska and her vision of Jesus who came to her. This is what she wrote in her diary: "In the evening, when I was in my cell, I became aware of the Lord Jesus clothed in a white garment. One hand was raised in blessing, the other was touching the garment at the breast. From the opening of the garment at the breast there came forth two large rays, one red and the other pale. In silence I gazed intently at the Lord; my soul was overwhelmed with fear, but also with great joy. After a while Jesus said to me, 'paint an image according to the pattern you see, with the inscription: Jesus, I trust in You.'" This image that came to St Faustina is one that she painted and is now known all over the world with the red and the white representing the blood and the water that came from His side.

This Sunday at St. Luke the Evangelist Church we are celebrating the Divine Mercy of God with Adoration. Fr. James and Fr. Ken will also both be available for Confessions starting at 2:00 PM and lasting until just before 3:00 in which we will pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy followed by Benediction and Reposition of the Blessed Sacrament. This is a wonderful time to just sit and reflect in front of the Blessed Sacrament and give the greatest sacrifice that we can offer to God, and that is our time with Him. His mercy is far greater than anything that we can imagine and Jesus wants us to leave our sins with Him. He reminds us the same things that he tells the woman caught in adultery; I don’t condemn you of your sins, but go and sin no more. I would invite everyone to spend some time this Sunday, in person or remotely, with our Lord and Savior reflecting on His Divine Mercy.

God bless,
Fr. Ken