The Calling To The Priesthood Is Not For Every Man

This Friday, God willing, we will have Deacon Jason Lee ordained to the priesthood for our diocese. God willing, we will have two more men ordained to the priesthood next year. This is a wonderful thing, as we have been pretty blessed to have eight men in the last two years ordained and hopefully three more in the next two years.

The calling to the priesthood is not for every man, it is something that must be discerned by both the man, as well as the seminary, bishop, and Church as a whole. In seminary, I remember quite a few guys who dropped out of seminary that I felt would make wonderful priests, but they, or their formation team and diocese, felt otherwise. Some of these guys I keep in touch with, and they are making wonderful husbands and fathers because of their time that they spent really praying and discerning their true vocation in life. Through that discernment, they decided that their calling was not the priesthood. There were also a few of the guys that went through, and some that got ordained, that I personally wondered about, but in the end, it is not my call, but God’s.

To be honest, the life of a priest is not always easy, one must be someone who can first and foremost be a man of prayer, while also being someone who can talk in front of a group, run a multi-million-dollar corporation, be a counselor, a spiritual guide, a maintenance guy, critter patrol, and so many other “duties as needed.” A professor in seminary once said, “The life of the priest is not for wimps.” In this, he was very true. The priesthood is so much more than a job; it is a vocation and a life. As a priest, you will be with people in times of great sorrow, maybe even be with someone during the worst day of their lives, but you will also be able to be with people in their greatest joys and even in some cases, the happiest days of their lives.

So, I would like to remind each and every one of us to pray for vocations and I would like to ask everyone to encourage someone to consider the religious life. To those young men considering the priesthood I would give this advice. If you want an easy job, do not become a priest. If you want a job with a lot of free time or a lot of material wealth, do not become a priest. If you want something that is more than a job, something that is challenging, something to help people in their life’s struggles and their great joys, consider the priesthood. If you want something that the blessings outweigh the difficulties, consider the priesthood. The priesthood is a wonderful calling. We priests and bishops are far from perfect people, we have many and similar faults just like everyone else, but that is why we rely on God for strength. I ask for a favor from you and that is to keep us in your prayers and help to encourage those young men to consider the calling.

God bless,
Fr. Ken

GPS Loses Its Signal

Summer is here! With school being out, it is also vacation time for many families. Family vacations, while they can be stressful to plan and start, they can provide some wonderful memories. I have had some fun and interesting times on vacation, from beautiful churches, to incredible views of nature, to experiences that while challenging at the time, we laugh at now. One of the interesting things that happened to myself and a friend while traveling was a particular time that we got way off our path. My friend was navigating us with his GPS before the time of phone GPS. We were trying to get from Mount Rushmore to Devil’s Tower and do it by back roads, well… we found a really back road by accident. The road started off as a paved road, went to two lane gravel, to a one lane dirt path and no way to turn around on it. We had strayed from the road, even though we ended up making it, we were on the wrong path, and ended up taking much longer than we had planned.

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.

Something also, that I would recommend is to find a local parish to attend Mass at. I remember when I was a child (long before cell phones, GPS, and internet access) where we would drive around to the different parishes where we were at to find the Mass times. One of the great things now, is that we do have the ability to pull up our phones and find the Mass times quickly. In fact, there are a couple of apps that we can download or go to the website masstimes.org and find the closest parish to where we are at.

God bless,
Fr. Ken

Summer Reading

Summer has started and the kids are gone from the school. For the summer, 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. When you are traveling there are some good podcasts for spiritual reading, Fr Mike Schmitz has his “Bible in a Year” podcast and the “Catechism in a Year” podcast as well to help us with some good audio reading. There are some really good current Catholic writers like Matthey Kelly, Bishop Barron, Cardinal Sarah, Jacque Phillipe, and 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. Last year I recommended a couple including “Story of a Soul” by St. Therese of Lisieux and “the Confessions” by St. Augustine. 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. A couple of more books that I might recommend are “Fire and Light” by Jacque Phillipe, this is a wonderful read that is very accessible for most people, but has some profound thoughts. I am currently reading Cardinal Sarah’s new book “The Catechism of the Spiritual Life” and it has been very good so far. A recommendation for kids would be “Stories of the Saints: Bold and Inspiring Tales of Adventure, Grace, and Courage” Thomas Kempis “The Imitation of Christ” is always a classic read as well. 

There is a great wealth of Good Catholic reading out there, take some of this summer time to pick up a book that will help to grow your faith life. 

God bless,
Fr. Ken

Memorial Day Weekend

This weekend we have the official kickoff to summer… Memorial Day weekend. The school year at St. Luke has ended, and we celebrate a special day on Sunday, Pentecost Sunday. As we celebrate Memorial Day, we should be reminded that it is more than just another day off of work, or that it is often a day of picnics and grilling, the end of the school year, or even the beginning of summer. Memorial Day is a day that we set aside to remember those who have gone before us, especially those who have given their lives in service of our nation. Memorial Day was proclaimed by General John Logan the national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic on May 5th, 1868 and celebrated on May 30th of that year as a remembrance of both the confederate and union soldiers that were at Arlington National Cemetery. It was made a national holiday by the National Holiday Act of 1971. It has been expanded to not only remember those who have died serving our country, but to remember all of our beloved dead. It is difficult sometimes to remember those who have died because it can bring back the emotions of missing them, but we also know as Christians that death is not the end, but something more, there is a hope that we will see them again. During the funeral liturgy there is a beautiful prayer that is said as we are leaving the Church and getting ready to go to the cemetery that says “May the angels lead you into paradise; may the martyrs come to welcome you and take you to the holy city, the new and eternal Jerusalem.” This is the hope that we have the hope in eternal life with our Father in Heaven.

Within our celebration of Memorial Day, like all days, we should include prayer, but on this day, prayers in a special way reminding us of those who have gone before us. Our memorial should include prayers for those who have died, but also those who are currently serving our nation in its military. We should pray that one day we can change the role of our military from that of combat to that of service for the good of all the peoples. One of my prayers for Memorial Day is that we one day set aside all our differences and never again have to live with the fear of violence, but that day will only happen when we receive the goodness God has really given each of us and we live it out. That we live and proclaim the message Jesus himself gives us to love God above all things, and our neighbor as ourselves. As we celebrate Memorial Day, we can add a prayer for those who are serving to help protect us each day.

Take some time on Monday to pray for those who have died, those who have sacrificed themselves for freedom and to remember to thank God for His many gifts He has given us.

God bless,
Fr. Ken

Move Along, There Is Nothing Else To See Here...

This weekend, we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension, it is also the last week of school here at St. Luke the Evangelist, and next weekend we celebrate Pentecost along with Memorial Day. These 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 account next week. 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.

Even though we are being lead and told to do something, we do not always follow because we need some help. Just like the kids finishing school for the year, they need their parents help, we, along with them, need Christ’s 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 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 only a few words that we know Jesus himself 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 did not, 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 decent 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

Happy Mother’s Day

St Luke’s Parish Family,

Happy Mother’s Day weekend from the Knights of Columbus! Thank you, Fr Ken, for giving us this platform to share more about the Knights. First, let’s celebrate our Holy Mother and all of the women of the parish. Happy Mother’s Day!

The Knights of Columbus are 141 years old, and Pope John Paul II called us the “strong right arm of the church.” Not long ago, our Supreme leaders recognized the valuable and strong traditions of the Knights, but also the need to adapt to meet a new generation of Knights where they are. So, we are 141 years old and also about 2 years old.

We continue the long traditions of supporting our parish, Catholic schools, and especially our parish priests. We still stand for Charity, Unity, Fraternity and Patriotism. But we are also a modern brotherhood of men. Many of our events are more focused on our families. Our ceremonies are open for all to attend. The new Knights are perfectly designed for a young and growing parish like St Luke’s.

We know the men of our parish are busy with your family at home, at kids’ activities, or traveling. We know you are serving our communities of Ankeny, Polk City, or Polk County. And you are bringing your faith to work, leading by your Christian example. Consider doing all that great work as a Knight. andhelp us shape our council for a new generation of Knights.

Through charity, unity, fraternity, and patriotism, we make a positive impact on our families, parish, school, and community. The power of our council is strong. Just this year, we supported

• St Luke parish and school – building fund and tithing gifts, RE and school teacher appreciation, state golf proceeds to the school, ice cream float night, Oxtoberfest

• Religious vocations – supporting deacons, sisters, and priests from formation, to ordinations, retirement, Memorial Day

• Special Needs – Tootsie Roll drive, other funds, and support to Mosaic, Candeo, Easter Seals, and Special Olympics

• Culture of Life – Rosaries for baptisms, funds, and support to Inner Visions and Agape, diapers and other support after pregnancy, and ultrasound machines

• Youth – Knights college scholarships, Spelling Bee, free throw contest and Keep Christ in Christmas poster contest

• Community – Catholic Charities, Slumberland mattress deliveries, blue-red mass, Salvation Army, Habitat for Humanity, St Vincent de Paul, coat drive, 40 cans for Lent

• Fraternity and Fundraising – parish breakfasts, fish fries, Christmas Wreaths, KC Golf League dinners, Drake concessions, picnics, bingo and movie nights

  How do we accomplish so much? The power of our 150 brothers, united with our officers and each other, the support of our families and the power of 1. We will succeed when each Knight finds their one thing. One Knights activity that fits their passion, and they live the rest of their life as a Knight.

Join us. Come to an event. Bring your bride, bring your family. There will be Knights in the narthex after mass to answer any questions or help you join.

Thank you and Happy Mother’s Day!
Your Knights of Columbus

"Practice Makes Permanent"

Happy Easter! We are continuing to celebrate the Easter Season! This weekend is a big one for some of the second graders of our parish. They are receiving Holy Communion for the first time! This year we again are breaking them up into smaller groups, so we are having three First Communion Masses, since we have over 60 kids that will be receiving this great Sacrament for the first time this year.

For a while, they have been preparing themselves to receive Jesus into their bodies in a very special way, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. This is what we receive each and every time that we receive Holy Communion. As we are reminded of how special this day is, we can also remind ourselves to ask the question, how do we think of it when we are receiving it? So, how do we honor this, do we grab-and-go, do we snatch Jesus, or do we receive Him with the dignity and respect He deserves? Are we reminded how special of a thing it is to be able to receive Christ and let His body and His blood feed us, both bodily and spiritually?

Yes, this is an important day in the children’s lives as well as their families. We sometimes get caught up in the children dressing so nice, the boys with their nice clothes and ties, the girls in their pretty white dresses. It is a special day. It is a very special and holy event. It should be an incredible experience for them because of who they are receiving. But, as important as the first reception of the Eucharist is, the 2nd, the 10th, the 323rd, etc. is not less special or important for any of us. We sometimes forget how special it is to receive the Blessed Sacrament on a regular basis, as the old saying goes, “what we do daily, sometimes we do dully” or another phrase that I like better, “practice makes permanent”. I invite every one of you to remember your own First Communion (I received mine from Fr. Pat Bacon). Remember how special that day was and what it meant to you. Is receiving Jesus today, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity less special today since it is not the first time?

 The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the source and the summit of our faith. It is an incredible gift that Jesus gave to us to continue to draw us closer and closer to Him! A few years ago it was a stark reminder to me, when we were not able to celebrate Easter together, should have reminded us of what we were missing. Still even now, there are many people that still cannot come together to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and thus are not able to receive Him in the Eucharist. We should take time again and again to remind ourselves how special it is and to receive Him each and every time we come to Mass. The first time is special, but so are all the rest!

God bless,
Fr. Ken

The Sacrament of Confirmation

This weekend we are kicking off our Sacrament season with Confirmation. On Sunday afternoon at 3:00 and during our 6:00 Masses, we welcome Bishop Joensen to celebrate the sacrament of Confirmation for our 10th graders. Over the next few weeks, we will celebrate our First Communion Masses for our second graders, and that is another wonderful time, but we first have this sacrament to celebrate.

Confirmation is a beautiful sacrament because these young adults confirm their faith in Jesus Christ and His Church. Sometimes Confirmation is referred to 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.” I ask that each one of us will pray for these families as they receive the sacrament of Confirmation.

God bless,
Fr. Ken

Happy Easter!

We are continuing the Easter Season, and will for a while. During this season, we are reminded of the Resurrection accounts in our readings, and this weekend we have the road to Emmaus account. We can only imagine the scene that is going on here. The disciples were sad and confused in the beginning of this account, but then they were led to being excited and overjoyed, even while still being a bit confused. They were on a journey, and they had an encounter with Christ on it, and were left with the excitement of seeing him again, an excitement that led them to run back the seven miles as it was getting dark. Just like these disciples, we all have the journey of our lives, and we encounter Jesus on it, and also like the disciples sometimes do not recognize him, but we always need to be looking out for him and be ready to respond to that encounter when it does happen. Our journeys sometimes are straight, but they are also filled with distractions, twists, and turns. They are sometimes fast and seem to last a short time, but in other times, they can seem very slow and are taking forever.

Here in the parish and school journey, we are in a lull time this weekend. We have finished the Passion of Jesus in the Triduum, we have celebrated his Resurrection during the Octave of Easter, and we have celebrated his forgiveness and grace in Divine Mercy Sunday. But next weekend, things pick back up again here with Confirmations that will be at 3:00 and during the 6:00 pm Mass, so just a warning the 6:00 Mass on the 30th will be very busy! Following that, we begin our celebration of First Holy Communion for a good size group of children. The next month or so is going to be pretty busy around here as well. Even though things are “busy” they are very good and wonderful things, especially for those children who will be receiving these sacraments and their families. I have a priest friend that warns me all the time that “busy” can be a four-letter word, and it can because we can use it as an excuse to not do something important. We can easily get caught up in the busyness of our lives, with sports, school stuff, dance, travel, etc., that we do not make time for our faith lives. It is sometimes easier to stay “busy” instead of spending the time in prayer. Many times in my priesthood, I have talked to people and they have told me that they wish that they spent more time with their children teaching them their faith and practicing it. Never once, have I ever heard someone say that they wish that they would have taken their children to more sporting events or extra-curricular activities, or spent more time at work. So, as we continue this path of the Easter season, we should all be reminded that our journey always should include our Lord and Savior who gave us the gift of new life at the end of our personal journey.

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.'" The 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 and Fr. Ryan, Fr. Ken, and Fr. Ross Parker will 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, and reminds us the same things that he tells the woman caught in adultery, “I do not condemn you of your sins, but go and sin no more.” I would invite everyone to spend some time this Sunday, with our Lord and Savior reflecting on His Divine Mercy.

God bless,
Fr. Ken

Rejoice, Christ is Risen! Alleluia, Alleluia

We have again made it to the most wonderous season of Easter. I always marvel at the fact, that on Ash Wednesday I think how far Easter is away, and when I get to Easter, I think, how fast the Lenten season goes. It is a busy time around the parish and school. We have lots of extra Confession times during Lent, and usually we have other events going on as well. So, how did the Lenten fasting go? Hopefully it went well and helped us to refocus ourselves.

For the last six weeks during the Lenten season, we have also fasted from using the word Alleluia. It is a word of rejoicing and praise and it is one of the few words that we do not translate. If it were translated it would roughly mean, “All hail to him who is.” Easter is the season of rejoicing; we have come from a season of fasting and penance to the season of joy. It is joyful because Jesus Christ who once was dead, is now alive, He has Risen. In fact, that was one of the greetings that ancient Christians gave to each other. They would say, “The Lord is risen” and the reply would be “He has risen indeed.” This time of year, we go from the dark violet color in the Church to the red that symbolizes the blood of Christ pouring out onto the ground, to the white of new life in the resurrection. During the spring time we have new life all around us, we have baby livestock being born, we have the grass and trees turning greener, and we have the trees blooming soon. This cycle of life on earth is an important one, but the most important one is that new life of the resurrection. That is what we celebrate in this wonderful Easter Season. In this Easter season, we celebrate not just the beginning of life, we celebrate the end of a life on this earth, and the beginning of a new and eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven. Yes, Jesus really did die on the cross, but he also raised himself from the tomb, and that is that incredible event that we celebrate today. Easter, like Christmas, is not just a single day that we celebrate, we celebrate for an entire week, called the octave. We celebrate the wonderful gift that God has given us and that is the path that he shows us to eternal life with him.

In this Easter week, take some time to reread the passion, death, and resurrection story of our Lord and savior and then say a prayer in thanksgiving for the wonderful gift that God has given us. He sent His own Son into the world to live our life and to die our death so that we can be shown the path back to the Father.

God bless,
Fr. Ken

Looking Forward To A Post-COVID Triduum

Hosanna to the Son of David…

This weekend we celebrate the memory of Christ triumphal entering into the holy city of Jerusalem. The people were praising him and rejoicing that he was coming. They were laying down their cloaks and putting palms over the road for him to ride in on. Just imagine what it was like, the joy and the revelry, the pure excitement at the new King, the Son of David coming into the city…but then it changes. Everything changes within the span of just a few days. Change is nothing new and even having major shifts in our lives like what is happening right now, has happened in the past and is a part of change, some of it we can control, most of it we cannot.

Palm Sunday begins this very holy week, which is the most sacred week of the entire year. It is a week of wildly swinging emotion; it goes from the joy and excitement of Jesus entering into the city of Jerusalem like a king, mounted on a donkey, to an extreme low of the betrayal by a friend, his arrest, imprisonment, condemnation, Way of the Cross, to his death, then back to the joy of the Resurrection. It is such a beautiful and solemn week. It is a week that we witness how far Jesus was willing to go for the redemption of our sins. I was thinking that three years ago, it was just a few of us in the church celebrating this Holy Week, and how hard that was. This year we have everything open and even room to flow over into the gym.

So…how are we planning on celebrating this greatest week of the year? In the early Church, we did not celebrate Christmas, we only celebrated Easter, because it was the day that Christ rose from the dead. This week, we will again celebrate that incredible sacrifice that Christ gave to us, his own life among us, his death, and resurrection. Are we planning on it being just another week of the year, or are we planning on doing something special? I would recommend being a part of the extra liturgies that we have this week with Holy Thursday and Good Friday being wonderful reminders of the sacrifice that Christ did for us.

Next Saturday evening at the Easter Vigil, we will be welcoming in our new members into the Church. As we prepare for our celebration of the passion, death, and resurrection of our Savior, let us be mindful of that great gift He has given us and celebrate it with the wonder, awe, and joy that it is. Our Lenten journey is quickly coming to a close, and next week we will rejoice that the Son of God has returned from death to overcome the power of death to lead us into the eternal joys of heaven. So have a blessed Triduum and Easter, and know that all of you are in my prayers, as we pray and hope for our own resurrection into the kingdom of heaven as we celebrate the Resurrection of Christ.

God bless,
Fr. Ken

Why are the Catholic and Protestant versions of the Lord’s Prayer different?

Can you believe that there are only two more weeks of Lent? How is the prayer, fasting, and almsgiving going? The good thing is that we still have some time. We can easily get back into prayer and one of the greatest prayers we have is the Lord’s Prayer.

So why are the Catholic and the Protestant versions of the Lord’s Prayer different? For most of us who have prayed the Lord’s Prayer or Pater Noster with someone from a Protestant background and are sometimes surprised that when we stopped at “deliver us from evil”, the Protestant went on “for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever.” We sometimes do not know what to do when they do this, is it okay to continue with them, of course, is it ok to say Amen and stop, of course.

We know the words because they are familiar. We say a version of it every time we go to Mass, it is called a doxology, which is a short phrase or song that gives glory to God. Within the Mass and after we pray the Our Father, the priest says “Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from every evil, graciously grant us peace in our days that by the help of your mercy, we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress as we wait the blessed hope of the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.” We respond with that doxology “For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever.” This section was not in the Tridentan rite Mass, which is the liturgy that was used from before the Council of Trent in 1569, or previous liturgies. The doxology was added to the liturgy post-Vatican II. This liturgy was established in 1970 and then updated a few years ago with some fixes in the translations. It is the liturgy that we are currently using.

There are two places where Jesus gives us the “Our Father,” it is in Matthew 6:9-13 and in Luke 11:2-4. Both the Catholics and the Protestants take the prayer from the Matthean version, because the Lucan version is a shorter one. The reason for this could be that Jesus taught the prayer at different times for a different audience. In some of the oldest texts of the bible the doxology is not used, there are different theories how it got added to the biblical texts from different other sources including in a non-biblical text called the Didiche, which is a catechism or teaching document that was attributed to the Apostles themselves. Another of the main reasons is very simple; some people believed that the prayer should not end in evil, or the evil one, as it does. So, the doxology that we say at the Mass was included in the prayer itself. Since the original prayer was written in Greek, there is also another translation thing that happens, changing the word trespasses to debt, this is more of a translation difference. No matter what, the Lord’s Prayer is still the prayer that Jesus himself taught us and one that should be prayed daily, if not multiple times a day.

God bless,
Fr. Ken

WARNING, THIS ARTICLE IS NOT FOR CHILDREN!

Warning, this article is not for children.

This weekend many of the parishes in the diocese are participating in the Safe Haven project. This deals with a very delicate and uncomfortable topic and that is pornography. Because of the number of smaller children that we have in the parish, I have chosen not to put out materials related to it, but since many of the children do not read the bulletin article, I am going to share some information this way.

Currently the statistics are very bleak, the average age for the first encounter with hard core pornography is down to nine years old and some studies state that almost half of high-schoolers regularly view or are addicted to pornography. That statistic includes both girls and boys. One of the sad realities is that young people are increasingly exposed to more and more adult materials and at younger and younger ages. This means that they are often seeing these materials as normal adult behaviors and normal sexual encounters. Many of these sites promote older with younger partners, as well as violent, abusive, and controlling encounters. This is what they are experiencing as the way that sex is supposed to be. We, of course, know that this is not the case, the act is intended for the marital embrace between a man and a woman in the sacrament of marriage. With the ease and availability of pornographic material the rates of addiction are soaring and the fastest growing rate is girls. In my younger years, someone would need to go to a store and purchase or rent the material in person, now, one is able to simply pull out their phone or turn on their computer and within seconds anonymously are able to see just about anything that they want. We can do this from pretty much anywhere that we want.

There is some hope though. There are resources that we can use to help us. There is software available that we can install on any device that will filter unwanted material. While we are not able to see what our children are looking at online, we can make some modifications to help protect them. This also goes for us as adults, many people suffer from this addiction and studies show that pornography is as addictive as cocaine, however many think that pornography is not harmful. In my previous career, I saw people fired from their job or end up divorced for this very addiction. There is help, if you are struggling with it, or a family member is struggling with it. On the dmdiocese.org website, under the marriage and family life tab, there are resources listed. You are also welcome to talk to Fr. Ryan, myself, or someone else that you trust about it. There is also counseling services and support groups around the area that can help, the diocese is also working on putting together some support groups and are looking at offering them here in Ankeny. I would encourage every adult to be mindful of this growing problem in our society, and work on ways to curtail it. Keep praying!

God bless,
Fr. Ken

Ready For A Pop Quiz?

As we continue the school year and are ready for Spring Break, I am reminded that the words “Pop Quiz” can bring panic in some students, and they maybe even bring a flash back to some of us who have been out of school for a while. When I was in my last year of seminary, one of the professors took joy in walking past a fourth-year theology student and ask them to “recite the prayer of absolution.” His rational was it is a prayer that every priest must know immediately and always because you never know when someone will ask for a confession.

I myself have heard confessions in a car, in a park, a hospital, and in an airport. The reasoning behind the pop quiz is because there are some things that we just need to be prepared for at any time and any place. Many times, when I am running errands, while wearing my priest collar, I have had people come up to me and tell me that they haven’t been to church in a while, or that seeing me reminds them that they need to go to confession.

The police and military train for a lot of different situations that may or may not ever happen, why, because there is a possibility that they might and they want to be ready for them. The same should be true for our faith life, what if the pop quiz we run into is the end of our life? What if the pop quiz is to answer for the things we have done or not done in our lives? Would we be ready for the judgment of God today if something bad happens? This is something that we do not often want to think about, but so many times Jesus reminds us that we must be ready because at an unknown hour the Lord will come.

To make sure that we are ready for a pop quiz in school, we study and make sure that we know the information. To make sure that we are ready for a pop quiz in our work life, we learn our job and make sure that we are ready for the situations that we may run into at work. The big question is what are we doing to make sure that we are ready for the hour that we may not know about when the master of the house returns as Jesus tells us. The good thing is that we can be ready for that pop quiz that will come to us at the end of our lives and there are many different ways to make sure that we are. Some of these ways are to do a good daily examination of conscience in which we pray about the good and bad things we have done each and every day, to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation often, to pray each and every day, to be a part of the celebration of the Sunday Mass, and to be that follower of Christ that He calls us to be.

If the Lord comes for us today, will we be ready?

God bless,
Fr. Ken

Godparents

One of the wonderful things that I get to do here at St. Luke’s more often is to celebrate the sacrament of Baptism of children, since we have a few of them running around here. I really enjoy getting to celebrate this wonderful sacrament. It is a blessed and awesome thing to be able to welcome children into the home of the Church and into their second family, the family of faith.

Often times when discussing with couples that are preparing to have their children baptized, I get a question about godparents. This is always a delicate matter for me because the teaching of the Church says that the godparents can be one person or a male and a female, it also states that only active Catholics can be godparents. It does that for a very good reason, the godparents make a promise to help to raise the child in the practice of the faith. If the godparents do not know the Catholic faith or practice it, how can they fulfill the promise to help to raise them in that faith?

I know that most of the time, godparents are chosen because they are siblings or good friends. In the past, the choice of godparents could really affect the life of the children, because they were the ones who would raise the child if something happened to the parents. While that is no longer the case, the godparents should still be a good example of the Christian life for the child. In Hispanic cultures, the role of the godparents (padrinos) is still very important, especially for young girls. They are the ones who will help with the girls Quinceañera (15th birthday celebration) they are the ones that will also help out when the child is going to be married. It is a very special role.

Ideally, the role of a godparent should be who can and will be a good role model for the practice of the faith for the child. I know that we could all have more of those good examples of faith in our lives so that they can help us to live out our own baptismal promises of being that blessed child of God. As an adult, I would encourage each of us to pray for our godparents, and if we are a godparent to make sure that we pray for our godchildren and for ourselves as well to be a wonderful example of faith for them. I have someone that I know that is the godparent of a lot of people now, he keeps in touch with all of them as much as possible and even sends them some little faith notes every-once-in-a-while, just to remind them of the faith. Being a godparent is a wonderful thing, but we do make a promise when we do it to help the parent raise the child in the practice of the faith.

God bless,
Fr. Ken

Fasting for Lent?

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 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 of this 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.

God bless,
Fr. Ken

Forgiveness

Ever experience the difficulty of forgiving a family member? Ever experience the difficulty of forgiving someone you don’t like all that much? Ever experience the difficulty of forgiving AN ENEMY?

My guess is that most of us have experienced the first two scenarios. In the first two examples, it takes God’s grace to be able to forgive a family member or someone we just don’t get along with well.

But to genuinely forgive one’s enemy, that takes a spiritual miracle of God.

Today’s Gospel reminds me of the story of Immaculée Ilibagiza and her real life story (her book “Left to Tell” gives the details) of living through and eventually forgiving those people who murdered most of her family in the Rwandan Genocide of the early 1990’s.

At times, I have refused forgiveness of people, but it only caused resentment, bitterness, and the inability to be at peace with myself, the person I would not forgive, those around me who weren’t even part of the conflict, and most especially, Jesus.

One of the important truths that I forgot during these times I refused forgiveness was the times that I sinned against others and hurt them (which always involves a corresponding sin against God who made that/those people in his image and likeness) and yet asked Jesus himself for forgiveness of my sins during confession. Remembering my own times that I have wronged others by sinning against them helped me to be more humble and forgiving when I perceive I have been wronged.

If you are struggling to forgive someone or to ask someone for forgiveness and mercy, I invite us to spend some time before the upcoming season of Lent meditating in prayer in front of a Crucifix. Jesus’ ultimate act of forgiveness, mercy, and love perhaps can help us, with His grace, to begin to desire and act on the need to forgive or ask someone for forgiveness, and this leads to the peace that Jesus wants to give in his love for each of us.

Fr. Ryan

Catholic Church Hierarchy

A while back, I was asked about how the hierarchy of the Church works. We as Catholics sometime hear the terms that are thrown around and we know them, but we don’t always know how it works. For the clergy, we know about deacons, priests, and bishops, but there are different titles that are also used, like pastor, parochial vicar, associate pastor, arch-bishop, etc. For the priest, there are a few terms, while I am a priest, I am also the pastor here at St. Luke’s. This means that, in the end, I am responsible for the parish and the care of the Sacraments here. I also have final say in the decisions that happen here. Yes, I do rely on the committees that we have to help me make those decisions. Fr Ryan is the associate, or parochial vicar, which pretty much mean the same thing. This means that he is a help to me and also assists me in this duty of the parish as well as performing his priestly duties of the care of the Sacraments. Some of the other priests of the diocese have the title of Monsignor. This is an honorary title given to them. It does not hold any other duty, but is given to a priest who has distinguished himself in the service of the Church.

Each diocese has a bishop in charge of it who is also called an “Ordinary.” This comes from the fact that he has ordinary powers, authority, and care of the people within the diocese. Not all bishops are Ordinaries. There are Auxiliary Bishops as well. These are priests who have been ordained a bishop, but are not in charge of a diocese, but help out in a very large diocese. For example, the Archdiocese of Chicago has a Cardinal Arch-Bishop and 6 Auxiliary Bishops. To be ordained a bishop, a priest would be recommended to Rome for ordination, and then the recommendation gets researched and then the Holy Father makes the final decision. The bishop is the one who is the shepherd of all of the people within the diocese and is like the pastor, but the pastor of the entire diocese. Another title you will hear is Arch-bishop, and that is given to a bishop of an Arch-Diocese, which is a diocese of special significance, the Arch-Diocese for Des Moines is Dubuque. The Arch-bishop does not really hold any authority over the other bishops, but is because of the special significance of the diocese. You will also hear the title of Cardinal, and this is given to bishops of diocese of special significance or size, the closest Cardinal is Cardinal Cupich of Chicago. Currently, there are seven active Cardinals in the United States. One of the benefits of being a Cardinal is that, as long as they are under the age of 80, they vote on who will be the next Pope. Now, there are many other titles that we have within the Church, but most of them you will not come across around here.

God bless,
Fr. Ken

Ice Packs, Band-Aids, and Reconciliation

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, play a sports game, 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. Other times they need some help- they will go to the nurse and get a Band-Aid or an ice pack. The great thing is that in making those mistakes they have the opportunity to 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.

God bless,
Fr. Ken