RAFFLE DRAWING From left, emcee Lee Adams; Father James Peterson, pastor of St. Odilia in Shoreview; and Bishop Emeritus John LeVoir of New Ulm conduct the annual Catholic United Financial drawing March 27 at the Catholic United Financial headquarters in Roseville. A total of 72 schools from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and beyond reached $1.3 million in ticket sales, with all the proceeds going back to the respective schools. It was the sixth-highest total in the raffle’s 16-year history, with a total of more than $16 million raised during that time for schools in Minnesota and North and South Dakota. Bishop LeVoir once served as the spiritual director for Catholic United Financial and continues to take part in the drawing. The grand prize winner was Alyssa Niedenfuer of Ramsey, who had the choice between a 2025 Chevy Trax SUV or $20,000.
NEW VESTMENTS Archbishop Bernard Hebda, right, presents a new chasuble to Father Joseph Johnson, rector of the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul March 7. Deacon Larry Lawinger, director of the diaconate for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, came up with the idea in 2024 of getting matching vestments for all priests (chasubles) and deacons (dalmatics). Archbishop Hebda agreed and made these vestments (732 total) a gift for all priests and deacons, with funding by the diaconate office. Deacon Lawinger — along with Deacons Jim Bauhs and Tom Michaud, also of the diaconate office, made a total of four stops on March 7 to deliver vestments, also going to the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis, the Leo C. Byrne Residence for retired priests and The St. Paul Seminary, both in St. Paul. “We as a diaconate community were very excited to take on that project for (Archbishop Hebda),” Deacon Lawinger said. “I want to personally thank (Deacon) Jim Bauhs because without him, this would not have happened. He is the most organized person I know, hence the reason we pulled him into the diaconate office. He just kept up with all of the details, which is not my gift. He made sure that we carried it all the way across the finish line.” Catholics in the archdiocese will have the chance to see many priests and deacons in their new vestments at the annual Chrism Mass at 10 a.m. April 17 (Holy Thursday) at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul.
God asks us to offer the little that we are and have. If we entrust it to the Lord with a generous heart, he will multiply it and make it fruitful in ways we cannot even imagine.
Pope Francis in a message sent March 29 to some 2,000 participants in the Czech national jubilee pilgrimage. He encouraged pilgrim groups visiting Rome for the Holy Year to be witnesses of hope and trust in God’s faithfulness, especially in moments of discouragement. “God acts, even when we do not immediately see the results,” the pope wrote to the pilgrims from the Czech Republic.
Every April, Catholic parishes and schools throughout the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis join the nationwide Child Abuse Prevention (CAP) Month movement. Members of the archdiocesan offices that contribute to Safe Environment efforts have asked participants to wear blue, including blue ribbons, to visually demonstrate that they are taking a stand against child abuse from April 4-6. Safe Environment teams work to prevent child abuse and neglect through safety, education and health advocacy in parishes, schools and local communities. More information can be found online at safe-environment archspm org
St. Lawrence Newman Center will host its second annual Spring Wine Social at Our Lady of Grace in Edina on April 5. The sold-out fundraiser will feature keynote speakers Father Mike Schmitz and Bishop Kevin Kenney. Every dollar donated up to $25,000 total will be matched and will go toward supporting work done by St. Lawrence Newman Center.
Members of two St. Paul parishes have organized a new event on Good Friday, April 18, this year. The Way of the Cross procession consists of a walk from Maternity of Mary to Holy Childhood, through Como Park, with Living Stations of the Cross along the way. According to organizers, the Way of the Cross is an initiative to strengthen faith connections in the Como area, to make Jesus more visible in the neighborhoods surrounding the two parishes. “(W)e hope this will be a powerful witness to those in our neighborhood with little or no faith,” organizers said of the procession. “We also hope by making this journey that we can highlight the existence of our parishes and be able to more closely connect our neighbors with our parishes.” Those participating in the Living Stations include parishioners and school children. The procession, open to the public, will begin at 12:30 p.m. at Maternity of Mary and will conclude around 2:30 p.m. at Holy Childhood.
A series of webinars sponsored by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis continues in April and May. The series — titled “Unchaste Celibacy: A Webinar for Survivors and Those Who Care for Them” — focuses on the topic of clergy sexual misconduct. Stephen de Weger — who teaches criminology at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, and studies clergy sexual abuse and misconduct — is the series’ presenter. De Weger has said that in his research, he has focused on how misconduct and abuse occur, affecting people’s faith, hope and trust. Registration links for the April 28 and May 26 webinars can be found online at tinyurl com/yckyv2hp and tinyurl com/5n8tym67, respectively. For more information on the webinar series, email Paula Kaempffer, archdiocesan coordinator for restorative practices and survivor support, at kaempfferp@archspm org
Produced by Relevant Radio and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the March 28 “Practicing Catholic” radio show featured a discussion with Archbishop Bernard Hebda about the importance of humility during Lent. The program also included a talk with Bishop Kevin Kenney on how, in surrender and self-denial, Catholics experience the fullness of life in Christ. Also, Abby Arrowsmith shared the story of how she created Twin Cities Catholic Singles, a growing community of over 250 members focused on intentional dating, fellowship and service. Listen to interviews after they have aired at archspm org/faith-and-discipleship/practicing-catholic or choose a streaming platform at Spotify.
ONLY JESUS | BISHOP MICHAEL IZEN
Iam approaching the two-year anniversary of my ordination as an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. As I travel around, I am asked a lot of questions like: “What’s the most enjoyable thing about being a bishop? What has been the most difficult thing? What has been the most surprising thing?”
I find myself a little disappointed when I’m unable to give good answers to these questions; I was reflecting on them lately, especially the one about what’s been most surprising. I would say it has been refreshingly surprising how I have been able to connect with so many people, parishes, priests and bishops. In the past week or so, I presided at two confirmation Masses at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul, confirming almost 300 young people from eight different parishes. I’m able to celebrate these beautiful Masses with priests and parishioners from across the archdiocese. A few days ago, I had an all-school Mass at St. Agnes in St. Paul that included almost 800 students. I get to celebrate these types of school Masses and parish Masses all the time. The other day, I was
Me acerco al segundo aniversario de mi ordenación como obispo auxiliar de la Arquidiócesis de St. Paul y Minneapolis. En mis viajes, me hacen muchas preguntas como: “¿Qué es lo más gratificante de ser obispo? ¿Qué ha sido lo más difícil? ¿Qué ha sido lo más sorprendente?”
Me siento un poco decepcionado al no poder dar buenas respuestas a estas preguntas; últimamente he estado reflexionando sobre ellas, especialmente sobre la que me ha sorprendido más. Diría que ha sido una grata sorpresa cómo he podido conectar con tanta gente, parroquias, sacerdotes y obispos. La semana pasada, aproximadamente, presidí dos misas de confirmación en la Catedral de San Pablo, confirmando a casi 300 jóvenes de ocho parroquias diferentes. Puedo celebrar estas hermosas misas con sacerdotes y feligreses de toda la arquidiócesis. Hace unos días, celebré una misa para todo el colegio en Santa Inés, en San Pablo, con casi 800 alumnos. Celebro este tipo de misas escolares y parroquiales constantemente. El otro día, tuve la suerte de asistir a una charla de Monseñor James Shea en la Universidad de Santo Tomás, en San Pablo. Y hace apenas unos días, me reuní con mis hermanos obispos de Minnesota para pasar un día en el Capitolio del Estado de Minnesota.
blessed to attend a talk by Msgr. James Shea at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. And just a few days ago, I got together with my brother bishops from Minnesota for a day at the Minnesota State Capitol.
If you had asked me two years ago what I was expecting the life a bishop to be like, I might have answered with something like: “More meetings and more time stuck at my desk.” But that has not been the case. I am connecting with more people than ever, and in a greater variety of ways than I could have ever imagined.
Father John Riccardo once said, “Priests forgo marriage and family primarily (not exclusively, but primarily) to care for marriages and families.” It struck me that as a bishop, I’m giving up being a pastor of a big parish and a big school, so that I might serve more parishes and more schools. In a strange way, it’s been a blessing. I am able to be in contact with more parishioners in the archdiocese and able to be a spiritual father to even more people.
A big part of our Catholic faith is relationships and making connections. This reminds me of our synod experiences here in the archdiocese. Technically, a synod is a gathering of Church leaders to address a particular topic or topics in the Church. The literal
Si me hubieran preguntado hace dos años cómo esperaba la vida de obispo, quizá habría respondido algo así como: “Más reuniones y más tiempo pegado a mi escritorio”. Pero no ha sido así. Estoy conectando con más gente que nunca, y de una forma más diversa de la que jamás hubiera imaginado.
El padre John Riccardo dijo una vez: “Los sacerdotes renuncian al matrimonio y a la familia principalmente (no exclusivamente, pero principalmente) para cuidar de los matrimonios y las familias”. Me di cuenta de que, como obispo, estoy dejando de ser párroco de una gran parroquia y una gran escuela para poder servir a más parroquias y escuelas. Curiosamente, ha sido una bendición. Puedo estar en contacto con más feligreses de la arquidiócesis y ser un padre espiritual para aún más personas. Una gran parte de nuestra fe católica se basa en las relaciones y en crear vínculos. Esto me recuerda nuestras experiencias sinodales aquí en la arquidiócesis. Técnicamente, un sínodo es una reunión de líderes de la Iglesia para abordar uno o más temas específicos. La definición literal de esta palabra, sínodo, es reunirse o caminar juntos. Uno de los principales objetivos de cualquier sínodo es reunirse, crear vínculos y forjar relaciones. No queremos confundir nuestro sínodo local con el Sínodo sobre la Sinodalidad, celebrado recientemente en Roma. Recordarán que el arzobispo Bernard Hebda convocó su primer Sínodo Arquidiocesano hace unos años, celebrado en Pentecostés de 2022. Los frutos incluyeron un primer año centrado en los grupos pequeños, cuyo objetivo es reunirse, conectar, forjar relaciones
definition of this word, synod, is to meet together or walk with. One of the primary focuses of any synod is to come together, make connections and form relationships.
We don’t want to confuse our local synod with the Synod on Synodality that was recently held in Rome. You may recall that Archbishop Bernard Hebda called his initial Archdiocesan Synod a few years ago, held Pentecost weekend in 2022. The fruits included a first-year focus on small groups, which are all about coming together, making connections, forming relationships and sharing the faith. The second-year focus, our current year, has been on the Mass. Of course, a big part of Mass is Communion — being in union with Jesus, in union with what we believe as Catholics, and in union with one another.
We have another Archdiocesan Synod coming up on June 7, which could be looked at as a continuation of Archdiocesan Synod 2022. Our hope is to become better at sharing the good news and we can only accomplish this if we are talking to each other.
As I travel across the archdiocese and meet parishioners from various parishes, I realize the value in staying connected. Some of the things I will often hear as I visit parishes are: “We love our pastor, you had better not move him, (and)
y compartir la fe. El segundo año, el actual, se ha centrado en la Misa. Por supuesto, una gran parte de la Misa es la Comunión: estar en unión con Jesús, en unión con lo que creemos como católicos y en unión unos con otros.
El 7 de junio se celebrará otro Sínodo Arquidiocesano, que podría considerarse una continuación del Sínodo Arquidiocesano de 2022. Nuestra esperanza es compartir mejor la buena noticia y solo podemos lograrlo si dialogamos entre nosotros.
Al recorrer la arquidiócesis y conocer a feligreses de diversas parroquias, me doy cuenta del valor de mantenernos conectados. Algunas de las cosas que escucho con frecuencia al visitar parroquias son: “Amamos a nuestro párroco, no lo muevas a una parroquia diferente, y nuestra parroquia está haciendo grandes cosas”. Si una parroquia está logrando cosas asombrosas, debería haber una manera de compartirlas con otras parroquias. Logramos ese compartir en los sínodos. Caminamos juntos y compartimos nuestros diversos enfoques de ser Iglesia como parroquias. De igual manera, la
our parish is doing great things.” If a parish is accomplishing amazing things, there should be a way of sharing that with other parishes. We accomplish that sharing in synods. We walk together and share our various approaches of being Church as parishes. Similarly, the archdiocese is working to help aid youth groups, faith formation groups, adult education groups and others to share their ways of evangelization and in so doing, create greater regional alignment and parish cooperation in these critical ministry areas.
It was, of course, Pope Francis who called for the Synod on Synodality in Rome, but before him Pope Benedict XVI often spoke about the creativity and fruitfulness of coming together as a communion of persons, rather than individuals.
In the end, I think we have many good reasons to look forward to the Archdiocesan Synod 2025. It is about accompaniment, it is about evangelizing, and it is about a way of being Church. But through our different yearly initiatives — like small groups and teachings on the Mass — our Archdiocesan Synod is ultimately about sharing the good news of Jesus Christ in more effective ways. For me, it’s about making more connections with my evergrowing spiritual family.
arquidiócesis trabaja para ayudar a grupos juveniles, grupos de formación en la fe, grupos de educación para adultos y otros a compartir sus métodos de evangelización y, al hacerlo, crear una mayor alineación regional y cooperación parroquial en estas áreas cruciales del ministerio.
Fue, por supuesto, el Papa Francisco quien convocó el Sínodo sobre la sinodalidad en Roma, pero antes de él, el Papa Benedicto XVI habló a menudo sobre la creatividad y la fecundidad de reunirse como una comunión de personas, más que de individuos.
En definitiva, creo que tenemos muchas buenas razones para esperar con ilusión el Sínodo Arquidiocesano de 2025. Se trata de acompañamiento, de evangelización y de una forma de ser Iglesia. Pero a través de nuestras diferentes iniciativas anuales —como los grupos pequeños y las enseñanzas sobre la misa—, nuestro Sínodo Arquidiocesano se centra, en última instancia, en compartir la buena nueva de Jesucristo de maneras más efectivas. Para mí, se trata de conectar más con mi creciente familia espiritual.
How does Archdiocesan Synod 2025 fit in with the other synod efforts? In many ways Archdiocesan Synod 2025 is a continuation of Archdiocesan Synod 2022. The propositions being discussed are the top 12 vote-getters from 2022 and the Archdiocesan Synod 2022 members were the first to be invited back as members of Archdiocesan Synod 2025. Archbishop Bernard Hebda specifically mentioned June 7, the date of the 2025 Archdiocesan Synod in his pastoral letter, saying members would come back together to discuss the upcoming years of implementation. The work of implementation continues throughout and beyond 2025. Visit archspm org/synod-2025-be-my-witnesses-assembly-to-take-place-june-7 to learn more.
Father Jim Perkl — pastor of Mary, Mother of the Church in Burnsville — stands next to an icon he finished March 14. Titled “I am Mercy,” it completes an eight-year series at his parish dedicated to proclaiming the eight basic truths of the Gospel message. He said the icon connects with the passion of Jesus, the Eucharistic Revival, the pastoral letter Archbishop Bernard Hebda released in November 2022 (“You Will Be My Witnesses: Gathered and Sent From the Upper Room”), the Jubilee Year of Hope proclaimed by Pope Francis and the feast of Pentecost June 8. “An icon is a living doorway into the mystery of our life, which is Jesus,” said Father Perkl, 66, who came to Mary, Mother of the Church in 2014. “(The) Holy Spirit speaks. I just lend a hand, a couple brushes. But it’s his (Christ’s) life, and that’s what’s reflected here (in the icon).” Father Perkl plans to make prayer cards using the icon’s image and may possibly make reproductions to sell.
By Josh McGovern
The Catholic Spirit
Bishops from across Minnesota met with legislators March 27 at the Minnesota State Capitol building, discussing pertinent topics such as the Minnesota Child Tax Credit, online sports gambling, protecting nonpublic pupil aid and MinnesotaCare for undocumented immigrants.
The Minnesota Catholic Conference (MCC) — which represents the bishops’ public policy interests — organized an hour-long reception and legislators filtered in and out, meeting the bishops and expressing their support. Participating in the annual day with legislators were Archbishop Bernard Hebda, Bishop Kevin Kenney and Bishop Michael Izen, who represented the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Bishop Patrick Neary of the Diocese of St. Cloud, Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Bishop Daniel Felton of the Diocese of Duluth and Bishop Chad Zielinski of the Diocese of New Ulm, also attended as representatives of their respective dioceses.
During their meeting with Gov. Tim Walz, the bishops each advocated for individual issues that were close to their hearts.
Although there isn’t agreement on every issue, Bishop Felton said that the meetings with legislators are always good because they give legislators from both sides of the aisle a chance to see what the Church can do to help on key issues.
Addressing the topic of cutting nonpublic pupil aid, Bishop Neary suggested to The Catholic Spirit that smaller class sizes at Catholic schools can mean students receive more one-on-one attention and the opportunity to foster a sense of community. Without nonpublic school student funding, Bishop Neary said, “Some of these (nonpublic) schools will fold. Why punish children and families? This could harm families sacrificing a lot already. So many students are below the poverty line.”
Bishop Neary also pointed out how cutting this aid would affect mental health services in nonpublic schools, and that doing so now would deprive students of necessary resources during a “mental health crisis.” He called the proposed budget (which eliminates nonpublic pupil aid) punitive, more than fiduciary.
Republican Sen. Glenn Gruenhagen (District 17), who met with the bishops, has also voiced opposition to the budget proposal that would eliminate funding to nonpublic school students. Gruenhagen shared his gratitude for organizations like the MCC that push against issues that he said negatively affect families and children.
Competition, Gruenhagen said, is greatly needed in Minnesota’s educational system. Citing the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments from 2024, Gruenhagen
noted that only 49.9% of Minnesota students met or exceeded grade-level standards in reading and 45.5% in grade-level standards in math.
“We’re going in the wrong direction,” Gruenhagen said. “Billions of dollars are spent on achievement gaps, which shows very little results. What cannot be accomplished in billions of tax dollars, competition (in education) will solve most of our educational problems. Minnesota needs to empower parents to control their children’s education through educational choice.”
Republican Sen. Jordan Rasmusson (District 9), who also met with the bishops, said he agreed with the MCC in its opposition of the legalization of online sports gambling. Jason Adkins, the executive director of the MCC, said Rasmusson has been a great ally in opposing SF1124.
“I’m against putting casinos on peoples’ phones,” Rasmusson said. “We’ve seen in states that have legalized global online gambling a 25% increase in family bankruptcies. … There are dozens of contract lobbyists and gambling interests that are trying to expand gambling this session and the (Minnesota) Catholic Conference has been really important for us,
standing up for the Minnesotans who would be harmed by this.”
Bishop Felton gave the opening prayer for the House floor session in the afternoon. “As we gather today in this esteemed chamber, we seek your guidance and wisdom,” he prayed. “We thank you for the privilege of serving the people of Minnesota and for the opportunity to work together for the common good.”
He prayed for clarity in the sessions’ discussions and the strength to pursue justice and peace for all constituents.
“May our hearts be filled with compassion and our minds filled with understanding as we address the challenges that are before us,” Bishop Felton said. “Help us to listen to one another and inspire us to find common ground. May we be guided by integrity and a genuine care for the well-being of every Minnesotan, always seeking to promote the healing, hope and joy of those we serve. We ask for your blessings upon our work today and in the days to come. May we strive to create a bright future of abundant life, love and respect in our state of Minnesota.”
By Joe Ruff The Catholic Spirit
Dan Capistrant, 56, turned away from God when he was 10 and his father died.
“It shook me and kept me away from church,” said Capistrant, who was raised Catholic along with his six siblings. “To me, it was like God was taking him away from me. And I couldn’t understand why. My mom was great; she talked to me. But I was a boy, what could I talk about?”
As years passed, Capistrant tried several times at various churches to return to Mass. “I just never connected; nothing really clicked.”
Then in 2021, he and his wife, Viviana, moved near Guardian Angels in Oakdale, where Father Joe Connelly is pastor. They tried Mass again.
“It was amazing,” Capistrant said. “My first day at Guardian Angels, Father Connelly explained the Mass. He went through parts of it, the crucifix in front of
us, walking toward it, the four steps up to the altar.”
Capistrant committed with his wife to attending the next three Masses. “We decided we’d see –– and we stayed.”
Ever since, “my life has changed tremendously,” Capistrant said.
“I’ve since joined the Men’s Club. I volunteer at the church” selling Christmas trees and with events including wedding receptions and quinceañeras, he said. During Lent in 2022 he was excited to be among those chosen to have their feet washed as part of Holy Thursday Mass.
In July 2022, Father Connelly asked the Capistrants if they would like to join the parish’s efforts to implement the
Dan Capistrant and his wife, Viviana, are among dozens of people at Guardian Angels in Oakdale who are part of about eight small groups based on a model encouraged by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis: the parish evangelization cells system (PECS), said pastor Father Joe Connelly. One recent development: the formation of a young adult small group, he said.
“The small groups have been very, very beneficial for parishioners,” he said. “People find friends they can pray with.”
PECS offers enough avenues for people to enter the conversation –– such as general discussion about teaching moments and individual sharing about faith experiences –– that extroverts and introverts alike find ways to participate, Father Connelly said.
A Lenten parish retreat March 22 offered another way into small groups, Father Connelly said. People were invited to share one-on-one as they discussed ways faith begins with a personal relationship with God, develops through an understanding that everyone is a child of God and impacts others through the mission of bringing Christ’s love, truth and mercy to the world, he said. The event was designed to help parishioners test the waters for what meeting in a small group might be like, Father Connelly said.
“We’re really proud of our small groups and the growth of small groups” in the parish, he said. — Joe Ruff
By Tim Montgomery For The Catholic Spirit
A prominent speaker in the Catholic Church, Msgr. James Shea, poured his dynamism, love for Christ and hope for the Church into an address at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul on March 28.
An ordained Catholic priest who is president of the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, Msgr. Shea touched on common themes in calling for a conversion of minds from a worldly way of seeing things to a Christian way of seeing the world in what is being called an apostolic age.
The oldest of eight children, Msgr. Shea grew up on a dairy farm near Hazelton, North Dakota. He earned a bachelor’s degree and a licentiate in philosophy at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. and studied theology at the Gregorian and Lateran universities in Rome. As a deacon in Rome, his first cleric appointment was to the Bernardi Campus, which serves as a base for University of St. Thomas students studying abroad. On completing his seminary formation at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, Msgr. Shea was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Bismarck in 2002. He was appointed the sixth president of the University of Mary in 2009 and is a sought-after speaker.
“My sister and I saw his big speech onstage at the Eucharistic Congress (last July), and it just knocked our socks off,” said attendee Mona Wolney of St. John Neumann in Eagan.
The event, titled “The Church and Her Mission in These Days,” was cosponsored by the University of St. Thomas Catholic Studies Program, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Roccasecca Project. Named for the hometown of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Roccasecca Project is a University of St. Thomas alumni effort that seeks to engage in campus life and celebrate, foster and cultivate Catholic identity and culture.
Msgr. Shea began by discussing the origins of Christendom, the global Christian community. He recounted how it had taken hold of Greco-Roman civilization by the year 313 — not by any force of worldly conquest, but rather by the conquest of the Gospel through the perseverance and blood of the martyrs. Msgr. Shea contrasted the physical authority of Roman legions under Caesar with Luke’s infancy narrative of a helpless baby born into poverty and placed in a
manger, signaling this was to be food and nourishment to others in God’s covert rescue mission. Msgr. Shea used this contrast to talk about the “profound potency of the figure of the martyr” in Church history.
“Ever since the rise of Christianity, when the Christian vision of the world came to challenge and eventually overcome the Greco-Roman vision of the world,” Msgr. Shea said, “life in the West has become a series of what could be called Christendom cultures deeply informed in vision, in education, in law, in culture, and in habit of mind, by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Msgr. Shea said a new set of circumstances in today’s world makes evangelization challenging, primarily because this is considered the first postChristian age in history.
“The first evangelization was like winning the heart of a young maiden who had never fallen in love before,” said Msgr. Shea, quoting C.S. Lewis. “This new evangelization is like winning a cynical divorced person back to a previous bond.”
In a time that has been called “irreligious,” explained Msgr. Shea, religion is all around but it’s not entirely coherent and it has been called a moralistic therapeutic deism. It borrows much of its potency and impact from Christianity, he said, appropriating Christian principles to itself until it has become a religion that no one thinks is a religion.
Not only does the Church face
a challenge in bringing faith to an unbelieving world, added Msgr. Shea, but it also battles darkness and corruption within itself. Similarly, each member of the Church must battle darkness and corruption within their own hearts.
So, what can be done? Msgr. Shea said not to wring hands and be gloomy. He said there is no story like the story of what God has done for the faithful in his “rescue mission.”
“It’s been called the greatest story ever told,” Msgr. Shea said. “It’s spectacular, a story that has built great cathedrals. And it’s not just a cultural achievement, but a story that saves us!”
He pointed to St. Paul’s advice in the sixth chapter of his letter to the Ephesians on how to fight. In just a few verses, St. Paul exhorts followers to stand against the wiles of the devil, against the evil day, to stand fast in the truth, and to hold the faith up as a shield. This is the method by which the Church fights in the world, said Msgr. Shea. This is how Christ overcame the devil. In the same way, Christians in a fallen world are strongest when they refuse to give ground.
“And this is important,” emphasized Msgr. Shea, “because it shows our manner of combat is not according to worldly categories of success and failure. Often, our work will be crucified, our efforts will appear to have failed but that’s not a cause for discouragement, because the Lord is the Lord of resurrection.”
Jesus never whipped up anger or
anxiety in his teachings, said Msgr. Shea, who reminded those present that they’re not fighting with worldly battlements. One act of sincere heartfelt charity, he offered, is worth more in advancing the cause of Christ than hours of listening to angry podcasts, days of sparring on social media, or years of paying attention to every discouraging news report. The enemy, he concluded, is dismayed by humility, devastated by charity, and terrified of the cross.
“In the end,” Msgr. Shea said, “the task that we’ve been given is to be the saints in the bloodstream of the Church, to be cheerful warriors.”
Nowhere in the New Testament, he pointed out, does it mention life with God as an achievement. Rather, it speaks of life with God as a perseverance, an endurance — but not without encouragement. Msgr. Shea reminded listeners that they were not responsible to do it all alone as orphan spirits.
“God’s responsible, too,” he said. “Remember, you didn’t ask to be born. You didn’t fill out some application to exist — he did that!”
Instead of becoming furious in the face of wickedness, sin, division or infidelity in the world or even within the Church, Msgr. Shea advised attendees to become more ardent and filled with an energy proportionate to their love. He concluded by reiterating that the best way to fight against darkness and corruption within the heart is to not give ground. In not giving up, he encouraged, the faithful always win.
By Tim Montgomery
For The Catholic Spirit
Every Wednesday from Feb. 20 through April 30, listeners tuning in to “Family Rosary Across America” on Relevant Radio have been hearing about NET Ministries.
“They recruit young adults, and they train them, and they send them out in the country to give witness to teenagers and talk to them about Jesus Christ,” explained host Father Francis Hoffman, known as Father Rocky, between decades of the rosary during the program. Father Hoffman is the chairman and CEO of Relevant Radio as well as a priest of Opus Dei. “It’s vital for the Church, because there are so many things that can lead youngsters away from Christ.”
“Family Rosary Across America” reaches a potential audience of over 270 million in 41 states with a powerful running narrative of prayer and commentary and an infusion of intentions that provide human context. Whether consoling those who are suffering, or celebrating a birth or marriage, the power of collective prayer is put to task. Wednesday evenings, extra prayers are said for the West St. Paulbased NET Ministries.
This on-air partnership between Relevant Radio and NET Ministries is the inspiration of Joel Hazzard, a member of the board of directors for both organizations. Hazzard was previously recognized for his work positioning Eagan-based Ergotron as a market leader in the manufacture and sales of digital display mounting and mobility products while serving as its president and CEO. He retired in 2013 and became more involved in organizations like NET Ministries and Relevant Radio. Working with these organizations, Hazzard saw an opportunity to create significant and positive cultural change through the formation of young people.
A nonprofit founded in 1981 by Mark Berchem, a member of St. Joseph in West St. Paul, NET Ministries is a pioneering organization for youth ministry and evangelization. NET stands for National Evangelization Teams, according to David Rinaldi, also a member of St. Joseph in West St. Paul, who took the helm as president in 2023. Each year the organization recruits 100 to 150 young adults between the ages of 18 and 28, trains them, and sends them out as missionaries to dioceses across the United States to connect on a spiritual level with young people. They utilize what Rinaldi calls “relational evangelization.” They don’t simply teach or preach the faith but rather share their
| THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT
Father Francis Hoffman, aka “Father Rocky,” addresses those gathered at the chapel at St. John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul Oct. 15, 2024, for a live broadcast of Relevant Radio’s “Family Rosary Across America,” which includes prayers for West St. Paul-based NET Ministries.
faith experiences. There’s more to faith than intellectual learning, Rinaldi said. NET Missionaries are sent out in teams, focusing on bearing witness to their faith on a personal level.
“We’re at the high school Monday through Friday, and we mentor students or disciple students throughout the day,” said Brynn Patton, a NET Missionary from the St. Michael-Albertville area, serving at JSerra Catholic High School in Orange County, California. Patton, a member of St. Michael in St. Michael, was a NET Ministries guest host on the Feb. 19 “Family Rosary Across America” program, during which she talked about her missionary work.
In seventh grade, Patton heard about NET Ministries from her youth minister and from others who had been missionaries. It stayed on her mind.
She went on a discernment retreat the February before high school graduation and felt it was a good fit and an opportunity to grow in her faith before going on to college. She talked with people who helped her further discern whether she would like to be involved as a touring retreat missionary or as a discipleship missionary serving at one location. Members of discipleship missionary teams, like Patton, may be embedded at a parish with a Catholic school where they are part of the staff for the duration of the school year. They stay with parish families and are at the school daily sharing their time and talents, joining students for lunch, conducting retreats for different grade
levels, volunteering to help coach a sport, and attending or assisting in other after-school activities. Each activity represents an opportunity for small group exchanges and personal faith encounters.
Patton took a PSEO (Postsecondary Enrollment Options) class in sculpture at the University of Northwestern in St. Paul while in high school and has an interest in the arts. She’s had opportunities to apply her creative skills to her ministry work. She has spent time after school at the JSerra theater, talking with students working on the set for the school’s spring production of “Ariel.” The senior playing the lead role in the production is a friend from one of Patton’s small discipleship groups, so Patton has been there to support her.
Patton said it’s hard getting started in missionary work and it requires perseverance to reach out, follow up, and invite young people. It’s similar to the work involved in building any good relationship. And the relationships that are created between NET Missionaries, like Patton, and the young people they encounter help lay the foundation for a stronger faith.
“It’s not like we’re trying to get anything out of anyone,” Rinaldi said. “We’re just trying to bring hope to young people and show them that there’s more to being Catholic than going through the sacraments.” After serving seven years in the U.S. Air Force, Rinaldi became a NET Missionary in
The live “Family Rosary Across America” program airs nightly from 7-7:30 p.m. CST. Every Wednesday through April, a NET Ministries associate joins host Father Francis Hoffman, known as Father Rocky, as a co-host on the program.
Participate via the online video channel: relevantradio com/listen/our-shows/family-rosaryacross-america
Listen in using the free Relevant Radio App, which can be found online: relevantradio com/listen/get-the-app
what can be accomplished through relational evangelization.
Connections to faith and to others who share that faith are important in an era during which many young people report feeling an increasing sense of isolation. In 2023, Rinaldi pointed out, the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General published an advisory on a growing epidemic of loneliness, especially among young people. According to the findings, 95% of teens ages 13 to 17 reported using social media, and social media use contributed to a sense of isolation and loneliness by displacing in-person engagement, monopolizing attention, and reducing the quality of interactions. NET Ministries tries to address this by making in-person connections.
NET Ministries focuses on youth who are Catholic in name but may not have experienced the faith. Through small group discussions and prayer, NET Missionaries invite young people to open their hearts and embrace their faith. One of NET Ministries’ biggest messages is: A person’s identity is not based on how they look or what they do. A person’s identity is based on the fact that God made them in his image and loves them. And although the goal is not to proselytize, NET Missionaries can attract youth of other faith backgrounds by simply sharing God’s love.
“In reaching out to up to 100,000 young people each year, the lives changed most are those of the missionaries,” Rinaldi pointed out. “That’s the reason for the partnership with Relevant Radio — because we want more young adults to have this experience of growing in holiness and sharing their faith.” With so many people listening to the appeals over Relevant Radio, Rinaldi said he hopes more will realize the potential of NET Ministries and be inspired to join or refer
By Kimberley Heatherington OSV News
When God instructed Moses how to declare a Jubilee Year, the commanded celebration was to include forgiveness of debt.
It is an ancient social justice principle still encouraged during the current Jubilee Year, inaugurated by Pope Francis on Christmas Eve 2024. In his New Year’s address, the pontiff made the emphasis clear: “The first to forgive debts is God, as we always ask him when we pray the Lord’s Prayer. … And the Jubilee asks us to translate this forgiveness on a social level, so that no person, no family, no population is crushed by debts.”
In the United States, groups of Catholic faithful are specifically committed to erasing American medical debt — whatever the season — because they are grimly acquainted with the damage it can do.
“Medical debt can be crushing for people,” said Barry Shay, director of discipleship and mission at St. Joseph the Worker in Maple Grove. “And it can happen to anybody — because everybody knows how expensive it can be.”
Being insured, Shay noted, is no guarantee of avoiding debt.
“If you’re not insured, or under-insured or even catastrophically insured — even if you have insurance, it can still strap you up. People wind up with debts that they cannot possibly repay,” he said.
“So to then have somebody that just writes it off and says, ‘You don’t owe anything’ and expects nothing in return — how theological is that?” he asked. “It’s exactly what happens to us in our own lives, through the mercy of Jesus.”
The channel for that mercy is a unique nonprofit called Undue Medical Debt — a name that refers both to its ability to pay off (“undo”) medical debt, and that such debt is an excessive (“undue”) burden for many Americans.
Founded by former debt collectors, Undue Medical Debt uses donations to buy large medical debts at a discount. Every $10 donated relieves $1,000 on average of medical debt for families in financial need. Individuals are then notified their qualifying debt has been forgiven.
Since its 2014 founding, Undue Medical Debt has retired more than $14.8 billion worth of debt for over 9.85 million Americans.
Undue Medical Debt does not target an individual’s debts, but rather whoever’s debt is held within purchased portfolios. Because of HIPAA laws, Undue Medical Debt does not disclose to donors the names of people whose debt has been relieved. Fundraising campaigns can be started by anyone — and several Catholic parishes and organizations have opted to do so, or to participate in collective campaigns. St. Joseph the Worker partners with 20 other Minnesota faith congregations in donating to Undue Medical Debt.
During his initial research, Shay recalled thinking, “It can’t really work that easily.” But as he soon found, “It turns out that yes, it can.”
The relief of those whose debt is forgiven, Shay said, is spiritually rewarding to witness.
“This is a miracle to them, and they can’t believe this has happened,” he said, noting that it lifts “the stress that it had brought on their life.”
Shay said some recipients offer to pay the organization back. “And it’s like, no, it’s done — there’s nothing to pay back,” he said.
A reported 66.5% of people who file for bankruptcy cite medical bills as the primary reason, resulting in around 530,000 “medical bankruptcies” per year.
While numbers vary, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau indicated in October 2024 that about 100 million Americans owe over $220 billion in medical debt.
Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker — a website resource for U.S. health care system information — noted in 2024 that approximately 14 million (6%) American adults owe over $1,000 in medical debt; about 3 million (1%) owe more than $10,000.
“While medical debt occurs across demographic groups, people with disabilities or in worse health, lower-income people, and uninsured people are more likely to have medical debt,” the Peterson-KFF analysis states.
Allison Benjamin, outgoing president of the chapter of Students for a National Health Program, or SNaHP, at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, said the school’s Jesuit values of social justice, solidarity, compassion and service to others influenced the launch of their campaign with Undue Medical Debt.
DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT
Barry Shay, director of discipleship and mission at St. Joseph the Worker in Maple Grove, said his parish has forgiven more than $1 million worth of medical debt through involvement in the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt. The parish just formed a partnership with the Hallow prayer app to broaden exposure and bring about more donations. For more information and to donate, visit sjtw net
“Our mission is kind of an expanded fight for health care accessibility and affordability — medical debt is a huge impediment for people, and health care is increasingly unaffordable,” said Benjamin, a sociology major and pre-medicine student who graduates in May. “And so abolishing and forgiving medical debt is very much in line with our mission.”
While not Catholic herself, Benjamin said that as a Christian, she appreciates Catholic social teaching’s emphasis on “wanting to care for the whole person, and that everybody should have the God-given dignity and right to receive health care.”
“When people are struggling with medical debt — and especially if they’re being sued for medical debt or being garnished — they’re having to choose between paying their bills, or paying their medical bills, or putting food on the table, or paying for heating, or saving for their children’s education,” Benjamin said. “And that is not giving people dignity. That’s just trapping them in a cycle of debt and really giving them no choices.”
Eric LeCompte — executive director of the Jubilee USA Network, a coalition of religious, development and advocacy groups that has secured more than $130 billion in debt relief for the world’s poorest economies — agreed.
“Knowing so many families who have struggled with being able to afford medical care, the No. 1 piece of advice that hospitals and pharmaceuticals and others are giving to people is, ‘Go start a GoFundMe in order to pay for your medical bills.’ I think that’s absolutely tragic — and in many ways, is actually sinful,” he said.
In February 2024, The Atlantic magazine reported that “GoFundMe has become a go-to for patients trying to escape medical billing nightmares. … In 2020, the number of U.S. campaigns related to medical causes — about 200,000 — was 25 times higher than the number of such campaigns on the site in 2011.”
At San Francisco Solano Catholic Church in Rancho Santa Margarita, California, Peter Truong found himself intrigued by Undue Medical Debt after listening to a New Yorker magazine podcast.
“My background is in medicine, so I’m familiar with medical debt and how impactful — in a negative way — it can be on a family,” said Truong. “And I thought, maybe I could help here. Because at the time, the program talked about a church in North Carolina that was doing this. And I thought, ‘Well, you know, why not us?’”
His ministry colleague Brach Rick investigated a potential moral concern. “One of the first challenges that we had is, what if we buy medical debt that goes against the beliefs of the Catholic Church?” Rick said.
Medical privacy regulations do not allow the disclosure of such data, but a bishop they eventually spoke with emphasized intent. If they unintentionally bought debt for a medical procedure against Catholic teaching, the debt purchase was not done so purposefully — and therefore, not a reason not to participate.
Rick also stressed the ease of starting an Undue Medical Debt campaign. “They do all the work — they design the webpage; they set it up,” he said. “All you have to do is just keep forwarding that URL to your friends and families, to try to motivate them to donate.”
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Archdiocesan Synod. After praying about it, they agreed.
“We learned a lot about our relationship with God,” Capistrant said. “How to evangelize, (we) learned about the Bible, the Holy Spirit. I have learned through the Synod.”
They also joined a small group at the parish that follows the parish evangelization cells system (PECS) model, which includes praise and worship, sharing ways Christ has been present to them and ways they have responded, as well as a teaching moment, discussion and prayers of intercession.
“I like the personal sharing,” Capistrant said. “You get to know the people better. A lot of times, when they are sharing, it’s from the heart.”
They’ve explored parts of the archdiocese as a group, in part through a tour of seven churches for prayer during Holy Thursday night before Good Friday. The eightmember small group has talked about traveling together, perhaps to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wisconsin, he said.
“It’s been a wonderful experience and a great way to meet other people who have faith in common,” Capistrant said. “It’s kept my faith going. I might have attended church. I would have been the lukewarm person” not extending himself much further than listening to the readings, he said. “It’s brought me closer and closer in my relationship with God; I don’t know that I had one. I don’t believe I did. I feel like I have (had) a returning to God. I feel he’s the one in control. I reach out to God for everything.”
The Synod process and PECS small groups encouraged by Archbishop Hebda as a new way to be parish has provided faithful friends he can turn to, Capistrant said. And he has turned to them.
A colonoscopy last May led to removal of polyps, with infection and sepsis setting in, Capistrant said. Extensive testing followed and by chance doctors discovered a small cancerous spot in his kidney, Capistrant said. It was found early, so it had not spread, was readily removed and he is free of cancer, Capistrant said.
“I had so many people praying for me, my family, my friends, all praying for me. And without sepsis, they would not have found the cancer,” he said.
“The silver lining of it is, I am cancer free,” Capistrant said. Before 2021, “I would not have attributed this to God and the miracle of prayer,” he said. “I would not have had the same support group and folks praying for me.”
A recent Synod-related retreat at Guardian Angels reflected on Jesus in the Gospel of John talking with a Samaritan woman at a well, who runs back to her community, explains that Jesus told her all she had done, asks them if he could be the Messiah and invites them to see Jesus. The story struck him deeply, Capistrant said.
“I know what God has done for me,” he said.
uPope Francis is stable; his lung infection has slightly improved, the Vatican says. Pope Francis’ condition remains stable, and an X-ray showed there has been a slight improvement regarding his lingering lung infection, the Vatican press office said. The pope is showing improvements in his mobility and ability to speak, the press office told reporters April 1. The pope continues to receive supplemental oxygen through a nasal cannula during the day and high-flow oxygen at night when necessary. He can remove the nasal tube for “brief periods” during the day. A significant portion of his day is spent doing physical therapy to restore the level of movement he had before he was hospitalized Feb. 14 for breathing difficulties. The pope later was diagnosed with double pneumonia, as well as viral and fungal lung infections. While the pneumonia cleared before his release from the hospital March 23, the 88-year-old pope still has a lingering lung infection, which showed “slight improvement” in a recent X-ray, the press office said. The pope continues to follow his prescribed drug and respiratory therapies, and, like last week, his voice is showing some improvement after being significantly weakened during his long convalescence.
uNo Eucharistic miracle, the Archdiocese of Indianapolis confirms after lab tests. An investigation by the Archdiocese of Indianapolis into an alleged Eucharistic miracle at an Indiana parish has indicated that “natural, not miraculous causes” resulted in a host displaying a red discoloration, the archdiocese said in a March 24 statement sent to OSV News. “A biochemical analysis of a host from St. Anthony Catholic Church in Morris, Indiana, that was displaying red discoloration revealed the presence of a common bacteria found on all humans,” the statement said. “No presence of human blood was discovered.” The March 24 statement confirmed that the host had “fallen out of a Mass kit used at the parish, and when it was discovered, red spots were present. Following policy established by the Holy See, the
host was submitted for professional, biochemical analysis at a local laboratory,” it said. “The results indicate the presence of fungus and three different species of bacteria, all of which are commonly found on human hands.” Catholics believe that upon their consecration at Mass, bread and wine become Jesus Christ — body, blood, soul and divinity — while still retaining the appearances of bread and wine. The Church conducts scientific investigations into alleged miraculous changes to the appearances of the Eucharist, such as manifesting as truly blood and human tissue. The archdiocese’s March 24 statement added, “Throughout the history of the Catholic Church, there have been welldocumented miracles and apparitions, and each has been thoroughly and carefully reviewed.”
uPilgrims look forward to bringing the Eucharist across the Southwest, including wildfire-recovering Los Angeles. It may feel counterintuitive, but Charlie McCullough says that pilgrimage “teaches us how to live a normal life.” That has been his experience after traveling the southern route of the 2024 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage from the TexasMexico border to Indianapolis over the span of two months. This year, he is doing it again — on a different route, with a different group — as the team lead of the 2025 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage from Indianapolis to Los Angeles. The 23-year-old is preparing to take time away from his job in Austin, Texas, to travel the 3,300-mile route with seven firsttime pilgrims. He expects to lean on his experience from last summer to support this year’s pilgrims, who will accompany the Eucharist along the way. The National Eucharistic Pilgrimage launched last year with 30 pilgrims in four groups traveling with the Eucharist along routes from the North, South, East and West to Indianapolis for the National Eucharistic Congress. However, this year’s event has only one route with far fewer pilgrims. The 2025 route, named for St. Katharine Drexel, has stops planned in 21 dioceses and
four Eastern Catholic eparchies across Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
uSpeakers: The Church has a role in the fight against AI-generated exploitation. The Catholic Church needs to expand its safeguarding efforts to include the new threats and opportunities posed by artificial intelligence, top organizers of a Vatican conference said. “We are really currently in a war” on two fronts when it comes to protecting children from abuse and mistreatment, Joachim von Braun, president of the Pontifical Academy for Sciences, said at a Vatican news conference March 20. There is the traditional battleground that most safeguarding guidelines and policies address: protecting minors from “one-on-one” exploitation by a perpetrator in their environment at home, school, church, society and online, he said. But the new frontier is where AI and gender-based violence have come together in very sophisticated ways and “at scale” that is, where the crime and its victims are easily and rapidly multiplied, he said. The Church has a role to play, he and other speakers at the conference said. The Catholic Church must work with science-based knowledge about AI and “deeply engage in the regulatory debate, otherwise, we cannot win these two wars at two frontiers,” von Braun said. The president of the papal academy and others were presenting a conference organized by the academy with the Institute of Anthropology: Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care in Rome and the World Childhood Foundation, founded by Queen Silvia of Sweden to help prevent child sexual abuse and exploitation. The conference, scheduled for March 20-22 at the Vatican, was to look at the risks and opportunities of AI for children and to come up with a common commitment for safeguarding.
— CNS and OSV News
By Mark Johnson For The Catholic Spirit
Editor’s note: Retired attorney Mark Johnson, a member of Holy Family in St. Louis Park, contributes his voice in this article about ways the Catholic concept of beauty can enhance the workplace. Johnson focuses on three professions: business, engineering and law.
The three transcendentals or universal realities — truth, goodness and beauty — slide easily into Catholic conversations. And many would say rightly so, as St. Thomas Aquinas observed they are the names given to perfections in God and those reflections are experienced in the world around us.
Members of the local business, engineering and law sectors recently shared the value of striving to bring the transcendental of beauty into their daily lives, including their daily work.
To Robert Kennedy, professor of Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, it matters very much to find beauty in the workplace. “It is a great tragedy not to find beauty in the workplace,” he pointed out, because “if you lose an appreciation of beauty, truth and goodness necessarily begin to fade.” That means God’s presence can become more distant, he noted. “Even in its imperfection the beauty we find around us points beyond itself to God — the purest beauty.”
Beauty is often the “gateway” to the true and the good, Kennedy added. “Even unbelievers are often struck by the splendor of a great cathedral, the richness of a work of sacred music or the beauty of religious artwork.”
What about those who don’t work in environments that feature soaring cathedrals, statues by Michaelangelo or Bach concertos? Should they give up on finding Catholic beauty at work?
Many Catholics and others say no, they should not give up. For example, in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, there are engineers who have discovered God’s beauty in steel trusses, bridges and even wastewater treatment plants. There are attorneys who believe God’s beauty radiates through the rough-and-tumble of legal work. And there are businesspeople who seek to create beauty while building a thriving business.
An ‘intuition of beauty’ in a manufacturing business
“The Catholic Church teaches that we are hardwired for beauty, and the absence of beauty in a business can deaden the soul,” observed Kennedy, who also taught for 15 years at the University of St. Thomas School of Business in Minneapolis. When we see beauty in a business, he added, “we know that something is going right inside of it.”
An example is on display at Reell Precision Manufacturing in Vadnais Heights, according to Michael Naughton. Naughton — who directs the Center for Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas and is a parishioner of Holy Spirit and the Cathedral of St. Paul, all in St. Paul — serves as chair of Reell’s board of directors.
Reell, which provides small torque and motion solutions for businesses, was founded on a unique philosophy. It sees profits “as you would view food in your personal life,” explained Naughton, quoting from Reell’s “Message from the Founders.”
“You probably do not define food or eating as the purpose of your life but recognize that it is essential to maintain your health and strength so you can realize your real purpose,” Naughton said. This is a beautiful business philosophy, because it “succinctly captures what our understanding of work should be,” he added.
Reell’s founders put that philosophy into practice when they broke ground for their headquarters and production facility in 1980. “The architect told us we needed to fill in a large pond and remove a number of large pine trees on the building site in order to maximize the property value and make the highest return on our investment,” recalled Bob Wahlstedt, one of the company’s three founders. “We politely but firmly declined to follow this advice,” he said, laughing.
Reell’s founders not only kept the pond and trees but
made them the new facility’s centerpiece. “Our guiding vision for the business was (to) do to others as you would have them do to you,” explained Wahlstedt. “We decided to set aside the profits-over-everything-else approach and instead build a workplace oriented towards the beauty of human dignity.”
Wahlstedt and the other founders approved a design that wrapped their new building around the pond. They placed floor-to-ceiling windows at the center, overlooking the pond and the pine trees.
Today, Reell’s “coworkers” (a term suggesting equality, which management prefers instead of “employees”) use this large, central room that is half the size of a school gymnasium to eat lunch, gather for impromptu conversations, play ping-pong, and enjoy the natural beauty on vivid display outside. Reell also encourages coworkers to spend time during the workday outside in this little slice of nature on the company grounds.
In most manufacturing companies, “sweeping, floor-toceiling windows looking out on nature are reserved for the top executives,” remarked Reell CEO Shari Erdman, “but that’s not something I want.” She enjoys Reell’s approach, which provides all coworkers a reminder of nature’s beauty as they go about their tasks. Her own office has a little window that overlooks an industrial park frontage road, “but I prefer it that way,” she added with a laugh.
The panoramic windows also stretch down a portion of Reell’s production area, where many worktables face the pond and the pines. Recently, Reell coworker Amanda Werling sat at a worktable filling plastic bags with small gears and occasionally looked up from her work to marvel at the drama of nature unfolding outside. She recounted watching a mink, several months ago, as it hunted goldfish in the pond.
“This vantage point gives me moments that add a bit of excitement to my day and also a bit of beauty,” she remarked.
Erdman added that she has never found this view of nature’s beauty to be a distraction from any coworker’s responsibilities. “It’s actually quite the opposite,” she remarked. “It’s always struck me as adding a calming enhancement to the workday and increases job satisfaction.”
A walk through Reell’s building confirms Kennedy’s observation that the appearance of beauty in a business hints at a deeper beauty there.
For example, as Erdman circulated through the production area it was clear she knew almost all the dozens of employees by their first names, and discussed with them their personal interests, joys and challenges. She is constantly on the lookout for their ideas — not only about making the work more efficient, but also about making the workday environment more pleasing for all.
Recently, Reell retained a company consisting of a group of chaplains who are available for conversations with coworkers about family life, personal challenges or even faith, should they wish it. The “Founders Room,” where prospective coworkers are interviewed, has many reminders that Reell’s foundation is in Judeo-Christian principles, which “almost always generates discussion with applicants about what is important to us,” noted Erdman.
What is Reell’s ultimate aim? Wahlstedt noted that the company has coworkers from diverse backgrounds and beliefs, and that all those beliefs are respected in the workplace. But he emphasized that “we want to build up people to recognize that they are made in the likeness and image of God, which is the ultimate beauty. If that means sacrificing some profits, it’s a fair trade-off to make.” Still, the company’s leaders believe their emphasis on beauty and coworker well-being has increased productivity. By focusing on more than profits, “the company has become more profitable,” Wahlstadt quipped with a grin.
Katherine Acton, a professor of engineering, points in her profession to the vivid example of Paris’ Eiffel Tower, built from 1887 to 1889 as a wrought-iron, lattice tower.
“This was pure structural engineering,” observed Acton, who teaches at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. The tower had “no adornments — only girders, steel and trusses-inside-trusses in perfect harmony with the natural elements of wind resistance, gravity and load bearing.” Yet over the years, visitors have come to see “this ‘naked’ piece of undecorated engineering” as a work of art — an “iconic structure of pure beauty” — because of its “perfection of form and function,” Acton said.
Every good engineer seeks — in his or her own work — the perfection of form and structural integrity that the Eiffel Tower exemplifies, according to Acton. For example, an engineer who is designing a bridge must start with a perfect understanding of both the constraints of nature and the client’s goal of spanning a river or valley.
“The design must incorporate just the right kinds and amounts of material, create just the right strength, and must also achieve a ‘lightness of form’ and ‘efficiency,’” Acton said. If the engineer’s design creates this unity, she explained, the design has achieved beauty.
Acton’s description of the potential for beauty in engineering is consistent with the Catholic conception of beauty. It has three elements, according to St. Thomas Aquinas: proportion, perfection and radiance. Proportion means “the parts are in harmony and balanced,” while perfection means “without excess or defect — nothing missing and nothing extra,” Kennedy explained. Radiance means that the beautiful “captures the eye, ear or mind,” and holds our attention with its “proportion and perfection,” Kennedy said.
Acton said she believes that an engineer’s striving for beauty goes beyond the project at hand. “We as engineers
have a yearning to reflect back the perfection we sense in the world around us,” she explained. “This can be seen as a yearning to reflect back God in our work.”
Sam Claassen, a parishioner of St. Peter in Mendota, conceded he never built an Eiffel Tower in his 50 years as a civil engineer. But he said he believes he has regularly encountered “engineering beauty” in his work and daily life.
“When I get up in the morning, I drink and brush my teeth with clean water,” he pointed out. “Then I drive on a road, cross a bridge, pass by a river, enjoy a park, perhaps use a commuter train or the airport.” Each experience, he said, brings him into contact with a “marvel of beautiful civil engineering.”
Claassen sees all three transcendentals — truth, goodness and beauty — as intrinsic to the engineering process. When a project begins, he observed, the engineer must “embrace the ‘true’ — the givens of God’s nature, like the laws of gravity and the condition and slope of land.” At the project’s end is “the hoped-for ‘good’ — the result the client and community desire, like healthy drinking water, an efficient and cost-effective bridge, or a community-friendly park design,” he said.
For Claassen, engineering beauty manifests itself between the “true” of nature’s givens and the “good” of the end desired. “When the engineer takes these givens and applies vision, creativity, balancing, along with a grasp of the whole and its role in human flourishing, I see beauty radiating from my profession.”
Claassen said he believes that beauty of this kind makes a vital contribution to the Catholic ideal of people living in community with dignity. Good sanitation and clean drinking water are necessary for such a life. Engineers design wastewater systems that return water to a river that is cleaner than the original river water. “What could be a better embrace of beauty,” he concluded, “than applying our ingenuity as engineers in a way that enriches nature and allows people to live in community this way. When it all comes together like this, I believe I’m reaching — though imperfectly — for God’s perfect beauty.”
Are law and beauty opposites?
“Law can be very imperfect, messy, and often appears to be the polar opposite of beautiful,” remarked Elizabeth Shiltz, associate dean for Academic Affairs and a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis. Still, she said she believes beauty is possible in a lawyer’s work life.
She gave the example of a lawyer’s written brief to advance a client’s case. A good brief includes a clear statement of the relevant facts and an accurate recitation of the applicable law, she said, but it can be elevated from “good” to “beautiful” if it is expressed “in a manner attractive to the ear, eye and mind.” This requires “rich, persuasive use of language” in telling a coherent story that “sings and soars.” If it can reach that height of “radiance,” she concluded, it won’t be perfect, but it can “hint at the perfect: hint at God.”
The grounds at Reell Precision Manufacturing feature a pond and trees, which give the company’s coworkers a view of nature.
COURTESY REELL PRECISION MANUFACTURING
Christopher Dietzen, a former Minnesota Supreme Court justice and a parishioner of Nativity of Mary in Bloomington, said he believes that legal work, properly understood and practiced, reflects the beauty and simplicity of God’s law.
“Mirroring the creation story, we in the legal profession should seek to weave a tapestry of law that brings order out of chaos and provides a framework for how we ought to live,” Dietzen said. At the same time, he added, men and women in the law profession should imitate Christ, who condensed the complicated Jewish law to two commandments: love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself. In this way, Dietzen concluded, “we achieve a beautiful simplicity. Good legal writing is like a poet distilling random and divergent thoughts into a beautiful synthesis of rhyme and verse.”
These principles of beauty were the foundation of his work on the Minnesota Supreme Court, Dietzen said. There, he was constantly called upon to distill random and sometimes conflicting facts and principles, he said. In his evaluation of a case, he tried, as an imperfect human being, “to consider human nature and dignity” and then “write an opinion that was comprehensible, logical and concise.” A judge who succeeds in this can produce an opinion that gives “pleasure to the mind,” in St. Thomas Aquinas’ words, and “an intimation of the higher beauty of God’s law.”
Christopher Johnson, an attorney and parishioner at Holy Family in St. Louis Park (no relation to the writer), said he believes a Catholic sense of beauty is embedded in the foundation of American law — the United States Constitution.
“The Constitution disperses power widely,” noted Johnson, which is “a recognition of man’s fallenness, and the inability of any one person or group to consistently govern for the common good.” In this way, it erects “significant barriers against our temptation to be like gods,” Johnson said. The Bill of Rights also reveals the nation’s founders’ deep understanding of what’s required for human flourishing, Johnson remarked, because it “recognizes ‘rights’ that reflect the underpinnings of human dignity.” This careful balancing, “all set in spare but soaring language, makes this foundational law beautiful,” he concluded.
Law and beauty need not be opposites, according to Shiltz, Dietzen and Johnson. St. Thomas Aquinas’ criteria for beauty — proportion, perfection and radiance — are present in both the architecture of good law and its practice by lawyers who understand beauty’s importance and reach for it in their work.
Kennedy said he is not surprised that beauty is found in abundance in engineering, law, business, and elsewhere in places of work. “Beauty comforts the soul and reminds us of the true and the good,” he said. “A poverty of beauty will not kill the body, but it can do great damage to the soul. We need beauty in our homes and communities, but in these times, we especially need to find and nurture it in our workplaces.”
By Christina Capecchi For The Catholic Spirit
Being a good neighbor is paramount to Roy Gutzman — an expression of his faith, a requirement of his job and a reflection of his late father. He does it in quiet ways — shoveling for elderly neighbors, mowing their lawns — and with bright lights, wrapping his house in thousands of Christmas lights at the darkest time of the year. The 48-year-old is a patrol officer for the Burnsville Police Department. He and his wife, Sarah, and their two kids belong to St. Patrick in Inver Grove Heights.
Q What do you like about being “a regular street cop,” as you put it?
A The variety each day brings, and the opportunity to connect with people. Especially working the day, you get a chance for a lot of positive interactions with people, not just arresting people. You can make someone’s day just by being there for them — even if it’s a traffic accident or an animal call. You do what you can to make a negative situation a positive one. Yesterday, I had a gal whose mom was in the hospital, and she needed to get the dog out of the apartment, and the apartment management wasn’t helping her. I was able to go to the management and help her through that.
People are going through different struggles — whether it be mental health or chemical abuse. We’re getting more cases with mental health every year. It doesn’t seem like there’s enough support for people.
Q Where did you learn that compassion?
A My dad. He was known for getting along with everybody. His name was Gary, and they called him “Gary Good Fellow.” He’d do anything for you. Unfortunately, we lost him when I was in college and miss him dearly. I can’t help but wonder if God calls these people to help facilitate things. They’re supporting us from up above. I can see the signs. My dad has something to do with a lot of things that have happened in my life.
The (three) fellows (Burnsville first responders) we lost back in February of last year — I’ve seen a lot of signs from that day on that they’re watching over us.
Q You were friends with Officers Matt Ruge and Paul Elmstrand, who died after that domestic violence call. How did that loss affect you?
A It’s changed life as I know it. Not a day goes by when I don’t think of those guys and what I want to do to help support them and keep their memories alive forever. It doesn’t get more heroic — they put their lives on the line to save those children. For none of those kids to get hurt is a true miracle.
Those were the nicest guys you could imagine. It seems like they were chosen for some reason that we’ll find out one day. That doesn’t necessarily help comfort the family.
I delivered the news to Matt’s mom that morning. When I was delivering a blue line flag to her, I passed by St. Patrick’s cemetery, where an eagle was sitting on top of a powerline pole. As soon as my squad passed, (the eagle) came down right above my squad. I knew it was a sign.
Q At 41, you were diagnosed with colorectal cancer — a high-level Stage 3 that became Stage 4 when a spot appeared on your liver. You kept working as you received treatment.
A There were days it was pretty rough going through the chemo. I had to have a temporary ostomy. But having a reason to get out of the house every day was huge. I kept asking God to keep me alive so I can try to help other people. There’s so much more I want to do. I just need more time.
Q You really leaned on your faith.
A I’d go to the chapel at the hospital all the time. I hit my knees a ton.
I was told doing the Sign of the Cross is a prayer in itself. I often do it when I’m driving around or see
something I’m grateful for — just letting God know I’m praying for all the people who need it. I try to do it subtly. It’s funny — when I was training Matt (Ruge) a few years ago, I was in the passenger seat a lot. After his death, when I was talking to his mom, she said he’d told her, “Roy is the one who prays a lot.” I didn’t think he saw me doing the Sign of the Cross, but apparently, he thought that was cool.
Q Now you’re cancer free!
A The chances for a full cure were kind of nonexistent. But with medical advances and a great team of doctors, I’m very grateful. I still go for scans every four months.
Q What helps you guard your mental health?
A Talking about stressful calls instead of bottling it up. My wife Sarah has been really supportive in listening to me. I like to be physically active. My body just feels better after walking my yellow lab, Drake, and getting that fresh air.
Q Part of it is being open and vulnerable, right?
A That’s huge. Our profession has come a long way with that: It’s OK not to be OK. I have an open conversation with coworkers. I’ve learned that sleep is really important. There have been days when I don’t get enough sleep and I can get really down in the dumps. Things can seem bleak but give it time and they get better. I’ve been a negotiator for 15 years. On (suicide) calls, if someone’s going through something bad, ending their life is not the choice. We try to encourage them. Things can always improve.
I’m thankful whenever I can help someone. It feels good when you help somebody, and you don’t get something in return. God returns it.
Q Your neighborhood is known for its Christmas lights, and you go big.
A I had it in me since I was a young boy. I always wanted to have my own house to be able to decorate. It’s special to my heart. It spreads light. It brings families together. I couldn’t tell you how many people have stopped to thank me for putting them up over the years.
Q When do you put them up?
A I like to find a warmer day, but I don’t like to put it (the lights) out too early because things will blow around. It’s usually before Thanksgiving, but then I don’t turn it on till Thanksgiving night or the day after.
It takes two or three days to put it up. It’s a lot of extension cords. I don’t always have a specific plan. It’s year by year. I try to do some themes of different colors, and I try to add a decoration every year. Some don’t last long enough, especially if the wind comes out and the cords rip out. My favorite was the gigantic dog — a huge yellow lab with a Santa hat. But I just can’t get him to fully inflate any more. I have to find him a new motor.
I used to store it all in the garage attic, but it was getting tough to lift the heavier stuff. I’ve had a couple of Clark Griswold moments over the years. One time my foot went through the floor of the attic. I had to build a second shed.
I just love making other people happy and remembering what Christmas is all about: bringing light into the world, as God did. I always have a manger out there. My neighbor helped me build it.
Q Does stringing all those lights feel prayerful?
A More so now. It might’ve been the novelty at first. But my faith has grown more, going through things, becoming a dad. So, I think about that more now, especially when I’m putting up the manger. The more lights the merrier. It’s a tradition I want to keep going forever.
Q What’s your favorite prayer?
A The Beatitudes. “Blessed are the peacemakers.” That’s close to home with my profession.
Q What do you know for sure?
A God is real and he’s out there. He gives us signs every day; we just have to be attuned and look for them. I’ve seen too many things in my life — I’d be ignorant not to believe.
We have to do whatever we can to bring light to a dark world. I know you can’t be overbearing — that’s why I do it silently, through example.
“In the Wine Press: Short Stories” by Joshua Hren. Angelico Press. (Brooklyn, New York, 2020). 158 pp., $16.95.
Although this reviewer usually makes an effort to select works for review according to the season, sometimes the appropriate book is not so much chosen as falls into her lap. Such was the case with Joshua Hren’s “In the Wine Press: Short Stories” — an appropriate Lenten read if there ever was one.
Although the image of the wine press never appears in any of the stories, the feeling of being “pressed” — or perhaps oppressed — is the enduring theme of the collection. The characters suffer, and few of Hren’s stories offer them much of a salve. Mass shootings, suicides, joblessness, overwork, euthanasia and a total of three cases of clergy sexual abuse are among topics addressed. Thus, this reviewer gives the book a content advisory warning.
The author doesn’t draw a veil of artful discretion over these scenes of carnage; beautifully written but with stomach-churning frankness, the reader is left cringing but grimly grateful for the honesty. Hren reserves aestheticization for the music of his
language itself, and for the rare instances in which the supernatural world breaks into the natural. Frequently in the latter instances, language seems to break down entirely right at the end of the stories; words and images tumble over each other like water (with the effect of often leaving the reader not quite sure what has just happened).
Until these rare moments of grace or damnation, however, Hren uses his lyricism like beautiful flourishes for a cold iron gate. The final story of the collection, “Proof of the Immortality of the Soul, with Reference to Beeswax Soap,” elevates this to an artform, using a Joycean stream of consciousness to illustrate the fluorescent hell of stopping at a corner store too late at night. The poetry of the author’s writing is in sharp contrast to his extremely prosaic settings, whether a rickety deck, a corporate bank office, a school gym or an old man’s living room. Only rarely do the characters enter into the liminal spaces of church naves, concert venues and the cosmic light shed by falling stars, where the boundaries between Earth and heaven (or hell) wear thin.
illustrative. By forcing the reader to confront the dullness of a modern life from which the supernatural has been stripped away, the stories both demonstrate the value of these brief respites of sacred beauty, as well as drive home the collection’s question: In the wine press of this world, what will be poured out of us? It’s easy to pass along the cliché of “offer it up” when encountering the suffering of others, but much harder to do so ourselves. Yet Hren’s characters embody the stakes: Our suffering can be pressed and sanctified into good wine, or it can be left to sour into bitter vinegar and gall.
Though far from the most cheerful of reads, “In the Wine Press” is an excellent and appropriately penitential read for this season. Like a good wine, its quality is clear from the first taste, and readers will appreciate Hren’s unflinchingly honest study of human pain and the value it can have only when, unified to the cross, it becomes a sacrifice of love for God and others.
The effect of these settings is both oppressive and
Rich tradition u Open minds u Warm hearts
Located one block north of E. Lake Street at 3204 E. 29th Street in Minneapolis 612-724-3643 — Fr. Joseph Gillespie, O.P., Parochial Administrator Fr. Thomas Saucier, O.P., Associate Pastor
u Holy Thursday, March 28 — Soup Supper 5:30 pm Mass of the Lord’s Supper— 7:00 pm
u Good Friday, March 29 — Stations of the Cross at 3:00 pm The Lord’s Passion — 7:00 pm
u Saturday, March 30 — Easter Vigil at 8:00 pm
u Easter Sunday, March 31 — Masses at 9:30 am and 12 pm
We’re more than just great Lenten Fish Dinners! Visit us at www.SaintAlbertTheGreat.org or on Facebook
651.228.1766 cathedralsaintpaul.org
HOLY THURSDAY | April 17
▪ Office of Readings & Morning Prayer at 7:30am
▪ Archdiocesan Chrism Mass at 10am
▪ Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper at 7pm
▪ Adoration at the Altar of Repose until 12 Midnight
GOOD FRIDAY OF THE LORD’S PASSION | April 18
▪ Office of Readings & Morning Prayer at 7:30am
▪ Stations of the Cross at 12 Noon and 7pm
▪ Celebration of the Lord’s Passion at 3pm
HOLY SATURDAY | April 19
▪ Office of Readings & Morning Prayer at 8am
▪ Blessing of Food for the First Meal of Easter at 11:30am
▪ The Easter Vigil in the Holy Night at 8:30pm
EASTER SUNDAY OF THE RESURRECTION OF THE LORD | April 20
▪ Masses at 8am, 10am (Solemn), 12 Noon (No 5pm Mass)
DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY | April 27
▪ 1pm Adoration with Confessions
▪ 3pm Sung Chaplet and Benediction with the Cathedral Schola
Reichert is publications administrative coordinator at The Catholic Spirit. She can be reached at reichertm@archspm org
Holy Thursday
April 17
7:00pm*
Good Friday
April 18
Noon*, 3:00*, 7:00pm*
Holy Saturday
April 19
7:00pm*
Easter Sunday
April 20
7:30am, 9:30*, Noon & 4:00pm
Holy Week and Easter 2025
By Regina Mancilla For The Catholic Spirit
Every year, when Lent arrives, my heart fills with vivid memories of Guatemala. Now that I live in Minnesota, I appreciate even more the richness of having grown up where faith is not only professed but also breathed in every corner.
Experiencing Lent in Guatemala is like walking through a Gospel-made tradition — the streets become pathways of prayer, and every gesture is an offering of love to God. With both my small group and my family in Guatemala, I was a witness and protagonist of this embodied faith. We organized the Stations of the Cross in our neighborhood and walked through the streets with neighbors, feeling how each station brought us closer to God and to one another. I remember Father Carlos Martinez encouraging us to experience the season of Lent on a deeper level — not to merely pass through the season but to truly live it and draw closer to Jesus.
The Stations of the Cross and processions depicting the stations are the heart of Lent in Guatemala. In every neighborhood and parish, people come together to relive Christ’s passion with devotion and dedication. Each year, we eagerly prepared reflections, invited families to set up their altars, and welcomed the image assigned to each station. It was not just a tradition; it was an encounter with Christ, a journey alongside him as we carried our own crosses. It comforted us to know that, by walking those streets in prayer, we were offering our sufferings and hopes, sharing our lives with Jesus.
The processions, monumental in their beauty and significance, reflect the fervor of the Catholic people — a testament of faith that transcends generations. The processional floats are a living catechesis, a message of faith carried on shoulders with devotion. Each sacred image used in the processions has its own story. In my family, my Uncle Carlos Contreras passed down these traditions to me and my cousins. He had a deep devotion to Jesús de los Milagros from San José Church in Guatemala City. María Teresa Contreras, his daughter and my cousin,
learned from him what this liturgical season meant: More than an event, Lent was a school of faith. From a young age, she joined her father to witness the processions. They would see the carefully crafted, intricate carpets of sawdust and flowers; savor the seasonal dishes; and, most importantly, live Lent as a path of conversion.
Now, María Teresa teaches her children and nephews that processions are not just spectacles but moments of personal encounter with Jesus. She recalled the opportunity she had this year to carry the consecrated image of Jesús Nazareno de los Milagros on her shoulders in a special women’s procession. The extraordinary penitential procession held on March 8 was part of the Jubilee Year convened by Pope Francis. It coincided with International Women’s Day and offered a meaningful opportunity to reflect on the essential role of women in passing on the faith and preserving religious traditions. This initiative aimed to honor and dignify
women, highlighting their devotion and commitment to the spirituality and culture of Guatemala.
At first, she said she felt her father’s absence with a mix of nostalgia and gratitude, but as she walked, she experienced an indescribable peace — a certainty that Jesus and her father were with her in that moment. And that is what makes Lent in Guatemala so special: It is not merely an external celebration but a profound experience of faith that connects us with God and with those who have passed this spiritual heritage on to us.
María Teresa described the procession as “an intimate moment of prayer between Jesus and me, or the Virgin Mary and me. For me, it always brings (back) memories of my father. In that instant, I felt his presence, as if he were still walking beside me, just as he did when I was little. It is a moment of communion, of gratitude for every blessing, and of asking for the grace to live this holy time again for another year.”
Processions are a living Gospel. Each carries a message transcending generations — a silent yet powerful call to conversion. As the prophet Isaiah says, “And your ears shall hear a word behind you: ‘This is the way; walk in it,’ when you would turn to the right or the left” (Is 30:21). In the incense rising to heaven, the carpet adorning the streets, and the solemn music in the air, our senses invite us to look inward and connect with Christ’s immense love.
For us who have emigrated from Guatemala, the memories of these processions become treasures of the soul — small flames that continue to burn in our hearts, calling us to share our faith wherever we are. Faith is present in the streets of Guatemala, where those seeking a unique experience during Lent can truly encounter Christ.
Mancilla is the small group support member of the archdiocesan Office of Discipleship and Evangelization.
Cada año, cuando la Cuaresma llega, mi corazón se llena de recuerdos vivos de Guatemala.
Ahora que vivo en Minnesota, comprendo aún más la riqueza de haber crecido en un lugar donde la fe no solo se profesa, sino que se respira en cada rincón.
Vivir la Cuaresma en Guatemala es como caminar por una tradición hecha Evangelio: las calles se convierten en caminos de oración y cada gesto es una ofrenda de amor a Dios. Tanto con mi grupo pequeño y como mi familia, fui testigo y protagonista de esta fe encarnada. Organizábamos el Vía Crucis en nuestro vecindario, recorriendo las calles con vecinos, sintiendo cómo cada estación nos acercaba más a Dios y a los demás. Recuerdo que el Padre Carlos, nos animaba a vivir la Cuaresma a un nivel más profundo: no solo pasarla sino vivirla de verdad y acercarnos más a Jesús.
El Vía Crucis y las procesiones que representan las estaciones son el corazón de la Cuaresma en Guatemala. En cada vecindario y parroquia, el pueblo se une para revivir la Pasión de Cristo con devoción
y entrega. Cada año, preparábamos con ilusión reflexiones, invitábamos a las familias a elaborar sus altares y acoger la imagen asignada a cada estación. Nos reconfortaba saber que, al recorrer esas calles en oración, ofrecíamos nuestros sufrimientos y esperanzas, compartiendo nuestras vidas con Jesús. Las procesiones, monumentales por su belleza y significado, reflejan el fervor del pueblo católico, un testamento de fe que trasciende generaciones. Los pasos procesionales son una catequesis viviente, un mensaje de fe llevado en hombros con devoción. Cada imagen sagrada utilizada en las procesiones tiene su propia historia. En mi familia, mi tío Carlos Contreras nos transmitió estas tradiciones a mí y a mis primos. Él tenía una profunda devoción por Jesús de los Milagros de la iglesia de San José en la Ciudad de Guatemala. María Teresa Contreras, su hija, mi prima, aprendió de él lo que significaba este tiempo litúrgico: Más que un acontecimiento, la Cuaresma era una escuela de fe. Desde muy pequeña, acompañaba a su padre a presenciar las procesiones. Contemplaban las intricadas alfombras de aserrín y flores cuidadosamente elaboradas, saboreaban los
platillos de la temporada, y lo más importante, vivían la Cuaresma como un camino de conversión.
Ahora, María Teresa enseña a sus hijos y sobrinos que las procesiones no son sólo espectáculos, sino momentos de encuentro personal con Jesús.
Ella recuerda la oportunidad que tuvo este año de llevar en hombros la imagen consagrada de Jesús de los Milagros en una procesión especial de mujeres. La procesión penitencial extraordinaria celebrada el 8 de marzo se enmarca en el Año Jubilar convocado por el Papa Francisco. Coincidió con el Día Internacional de la Mujer y ofreció una oportunidad significativa para reflexionar sobre el papel esencial de las mujeres en la transmisión de la fe y la preservación de las tradiciones religiosas. Esta iniciativa buscó honrar y dignificar a la mujer, resaltando su devoción y compromiso con la espiritualidad y la cultura de Guatemala.
Al principio, dijo que sintió la ausencia de su padre con una mezcla de nostalgia y gratitud, pero mientras caminaba, experimentó una paz indescriptible: la PLEASE TURN TO LENT
SUNDAY SCRIPTURES
FATHER JOSEPH JEROME BAMBENEK
The past several months, I have been accompanying my adult first cousin once removed, Tara, as she has grown deeper in her Catholic faith through the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults (OCIA) at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul.
It has been inspiring to be part of this process, which until recently was known as RCIA, as Tara’s confirmation sponsor. The Cathedral is collaborating with two other parishes to prepare 61 people to receive one or more of the Sacraments of Initiation. Seeing such a large group of people interact is a beautiful example of the fruit of evangelization and how parishes collaborating with one another can enrich the experience for all.
One of the recent OCIA sessions included a lectio divina prayer on this Sunday’s Gospel passage of the woman caught in adultery. Because the Holy Spirit packed so much into the Bible, one can receive many different insights from any given passage, and when we heard it that night, a new understanding came to me of this event in Jesus’ life that I had reflected upon and studied many times.
FAITH FUNDAMENTALS
FATHER MICHAEL VAN SLOUN
Editor’s note: This is the first of two columns that center on preparation for ordination to the priesthood. Watch for the concluding column in the May 8 edition.
The preparation for ordination to the priesthood is a long journey of seven to eight years. The major points of emphasis are spiritual, human, pastoral and intellectual formation. The four stages are the Propaedeutic Stage, the Discipleship Stage, the Configuration Stage and the Vocational Synthesis Stage. This column addresses the Propaedeutic Stage and the Discipleship Stage.
Sunday, April 6
Fifth Sunday of Lent
Is 43:16-21
Phil 3:8-14 Jn 8:1-11
Monday, April 7
Dan 13:1-9, 15-17, 19-30, 33-62 or 13:41c-62 Jn 8:12-20
Tuesday, April 8
Num 21:4-9 Jn 8:21-30
When we forget that we are a temple of the Holy Spirit ... we give up both God’s power and a degree of our own control to protect ourselves. We can become like an untethered balloon blowing in the wind.
we have the humility to admit our sins, Jesus gives us an undeserved second chance, just like the woman was given, for there was no dispute about the woman’s guilt — she had given herself fully to a man to whom she was not married.
What became clearer to me that recent evening at OCIA is that when we sin, we give away something of ourselves that allows others to use us, to treat us unjustly for their gain, even in ways beyond what we might first realize. The woman caught in adultery was first used by an unidentified man in bed, but then the group of men who brought her before Jesus also used her for their own, different purposes. She became a pawn in their attempt to have Jesus discredited, if not killed with her. But she could only be used as a pawn because she chose to sin in the first place. Yes, it is true that innocent people can be exploited; but it is easier to be taken advantage of when we have cut ourselves off from grace, from the life of God within us, through sin. When we forget that we are a temple of the Holy Spirit, as my cousin and her cohort will become more fully very soon, we give up both God’s power and a degree of our own control to protect ourselves. We can become like an untethered balloon blowing in the wind.
Wednesday, April 9
Dan 3:14-20, 91-92, 95 Jn 8:31-42
Thursday, April 10 Gn 17:3-9 Jn 8:51-59
Friday, April 11 Jer 20:10-13 Jn 10:31-42
Saturday, April 12 Ezek 37:21-28 Jn 11:45-56
We can be tempted to learn a false lesson: that Jesus implies that what the woman did was no big deal or was even OK; that he has a (false) compassion for her, downplaying the seriousness of her sin. Instead, Jesus — like he does every time we seek his forgiveness — acknowledges her guilt, but also says, “I do not condemn you … go and sin no more.” That is the rhythm of the beautiful and healing sacrament of penance that I am privileged to minister with great frequency, especially during this Lenten season. When
The Propaedeutic Stage is a recent addition to the road to the priesthood as stipulated by the Program of Priestly Formation. It is a one-year program of “preseminary” formation in which the men live together in community and focus on spiritual and human growth.
Each man has a spiritual director. There is a daily rhythm of prayer with Mass, a Holy Hour, the Liturgy of the Hours, lectio divina, spiritual reading and private prayer. Human growth is a high priority. Each man meets with the seminary’s staff psychologist two times each week to deal with self-awareness, affective maturity, family of origin issues, anxiety and depression, and the integration of chastity.
The men voluntarily do not use their cellphones, computers, or any electronic devices for six days of the week to eliminate distractions and focus on time with each other to recreate, build fraternity, and establish healthy friendships. Several great books are read and discussed to foster the intellectual life. The men also do chores around the house and venture outside to do apostolic works in the neighborhood.
The Discipleship Stage is the second stage on the road to priesthood. Formerly this stage was called pre-theology. Long ago, these men were called philosophers before they entered the major seminary and were called theologians.
This stage concentrates on the study of philosophy
Sunday, April 13 Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion Lk 19:28-40 Is 50:4-7 Phil 2:6-11 Lk 22:14—23:56
Monday, April 14
Holy Week Is 42:1-7 Jn 12:1-11
Tuesday, April 15
Holy Week Is 49:1-6 Jn 13:21-33, 36-38
In these last days of Lent before the Triduum, may we be open to experiencing the beautiful gift of Jesus’ mercy that the woman received — in our case, through the sacrament of penance. And may we take to heart Jesus’ words, “Go and sin no more,” not only for the sake of our relationship with God, but also for our well-being in this world.
Father Bambenek is the associate director of the archdiocesan Office for the Renewal of Structures.
and is designed for those who do not meet the philosophy requirements of the Program of Priestly Formation. This stage is not necessary for those with an undergraduate degree in philosophy or a minor in philosophy with the required courses. This stage usually is two years and consists of 10 philosophy courses in addition to two Latin courses and a semester of Greek.
The stage also includes regular meetings with a spiritual director and a formation director, as well as weekly apostolic work at Mary’s Place or Risen Christ Catholic School, both in Minneapolis.
During the first summer, the options for ministry are FOCUS summer projects, a St. Paul Outreach student missionary internship, Totus Tuus or diocesan summer youth camps. The spiritual emphasis is on intensifying one’s commitment as an intentional disciple of Jesus.
The stage ends with the declaration of one’s intention to become a priest, and upon acceptance, the seminarian enters candidacy. During the summer after this stage, each seminarian is encouraged to participate in the Institute for Priestly Formation’s Summer Program for Diocesan Seminarians in Omaha, Nebraska.
Father Van Sloun is the director of clergy personnel for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
Wednesday, April 16 Holy Week Is 50:4-9a Mt 26:14-25
Thursday, April 17
Mass of the Lord’s Supper Ex 12:1-8, 11-14 1 Cor 11:23-26 Jn 13:1-15
Friday, April 18
Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion Is 52:13—53:12 Heb 4:14-16; 5:7-9 Jn 18:1—19:42
Saturday, April 19
Easter Vigil Gn 1:1—2:2 Gn 22:1-18
Ex 14:15—15:1 Is 54:5-14 Is 55:1-11
Bar 3:9-15, 32—4:4 Ezek 36:16-17a, 18-28 Rom 6:3-11 Lk 24:1-12
Sunday, April 20
Easter Sunday The Resurrection of the Lord Acts 10:34a, 37-43
Col 3:1-4 or Cor 5:6b-8 Jn 20:1-9
TWENTY SOMETHING | CHRISTINA CAPECCHI
This is the story of a tree. An eastern cottonwood soaring 108 feet high, stretching its arms across three yards and anchoring the entire street. It was a defining feature of its St. Paul neighborhood near Nativity of Our Lord.
“Oh, you’re the people with the tree!” locals would say when they met John and Dia Boyle and determined which house was theirs.
Sixty-something empty nesters, John and Dia are both Nativity of Our Lord parishioners. John is a professor of Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, and Dia is a writer. She recently published a book titled “The Thoughtful Home.”
The cottonwood had been part of that equation, one reason Dia loved her little home. She’d write at the table and admire the tree. “We liked the shade and the beautiful craggy bark and the squirrels and nuthatches scurrying up and down and how it filled the view from our library window,” Dia said.
Everyone loved the tree. But it had to go.
Last June a branch fell, knocking out their electrical box, gouging the siding, shattering a window and shredding a corner of the neighbor’s roof.
The tree posed an unmistakable danger.
So, the Boyles hired a tree-removal crew and set a date, a Tuesday in mid-September. The Sunday before, the couple hosted a goodwill party in their backyard so neighbors could toast to the cottonwood. Dia served champagne, beer, cookies
Five years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic locked us down and disrupted much of our lives. We can still see the effects it has had on the social fabric of our communities and wonder what it means going forward.
While it may be easier to remember what was lost during the pandemic, for some it was a time of being found. I remember one young man recalling the pain of not being able to visit his ailing grandfather before he died. And yet, this dark experience became a moment of light and clarity for him in finding his own purpose in life. His loss called him to go beyond himself and toward healing others. He went into medical school. Moments of light and clarity arrive in some of the darkest hours of life. Many biblical figures and saints recalled their own moments of light in times of sickness and sin, war and death, darkness and doubt. The moment of light elevated them beyond their present moment of pain to see God’s call. They could see their lives having eternal value and purpose beyond themselves. This kind of light realigned their priorities and commitments. Some of our most profound spiritual experiences can also begin in the dark. These are the transfigured moments of hope.
When Abram struggled to understand God’s plan for his descendants, God told him to look up into the sky and see if he could count the stars. In that moment, Abram’s life was transfigured and he put his hope in God to fulfill that promise. Abram began to see that his life had value far beyond his
and nuts. It was a chance to do a little PR, to express their regret and review logistics (the street would soon be blocked off and cars had to be moved).
Removal of the cottonwood was the topic of conversation all week. Come Tuesday, spectators gathered for the main event, bringing coffee mugs and lawn chairs. People would walk by and stop to watch the crane and chat. Folks from the other side of the alley were observing from their elevated decks and upper floors. A neighbor invited the Boyles to come watch from his deck. They had never been in his yard before. It was the most they’d ever socialized with their neighbors.
“What I had seen as potentially upsetting to neighbors turned out to be a really good bridge to better connections,” Dia said.
After three days of work, the cottonwood was gone.
Suddenly, Dia could see the sky. Comings and goings of neighbors. Birds fluttering around their feeders. Sunshine. The cottonwood left room to expand Dia’s garden, and this spring, for the first time, she’s planting vegetables that need sun.
The change she had dreaded, it turned out, made her happy.
The tree has become a metaphor. Dia references it when friends face upheaval — a change of mind, of address, of heart. She counsels them lovingly.
When the winds of change blow, look up and lean into the Creator of all. Trust that he is guiding you, protecting you, loving you. Trust in the good being done beneath the surface.
Take stock in our identity as Catholics: We are Eucharistic people. In the midst of uncertainty, we are fed and fortified by the body of Christ. As the word Eucharist suggests — its meaning, a guidepost — we offer our thanksgiving. “In all circumstances, give thanks,” St. Paul urges (1 Thess 5:18).
Be gentle with yourself. Make peace with the peculiar reality of change: that two good things aren’t mutually exclusive. Dia had loved the tree — and she loved its absence. You can love your old house and your new one; you can love your single life and married life — in different ways, for unique reasons.
Allow room in your heart to be surprised. It could work out like the cottonwood. The change you’ve feared just might broaden your view, letting you see more birds and beauty, giving you more space and sunshine, making your garden grow.
Capecchi is a freelance writer from Inver Grove Heights.
Let us be pilgrims of hope. Let us trust that behind the clouds the sun is still shining. Beyond the sun, the stars are still shining. Beyond the stars, heaven is still shining, and we are citizens of heaven called to live in this world. In the Eucharist, Christ’s presence shines through to us as the mystery of faith — Christ dying and rising. We wait in hope till he comes again in glory.
understanding and even his lifetime. He started to live in that hope beyond the stars.
Hope moves us beyond ourselves to trust in God’s word and transform the current moment. I’m reminded of a line from the poem “The Rainy Day” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: “Be still, sad heart! and cease repining; Behind the clouds is the sun still shining.” When we put our hope in the Lord, it means to trust beyond the present darkness to something more.
This was true for the disciples when they saw Jesus transfigured in glory after he predicted his death on the cross. Rejection, suffering and death would come, but they could trust his word that beyond the darkness of the cross the resurrection was sill shining. Hope and patience are often very close to each other because we may not see the glory in our timing. And yet living in hope can reorient and give meaning to our lives in this moment.
One person transfigured by hope who launched a movement was Chiara Lubich. In 1943, Chiara was huddled in a bomb shelter with a few friends as Allied planes bombed her town in Italy. As she prayed in the dark and read the Gospel in candlelight, she reflected on Jesus’ hope that “all may be one” (Jn 17:11). She said it became clear that this was her call: to bring unity through God’s love and healing to the world. She believed she was born
to live this verse of the Bible.
Soon after gathering with others, Lubich had a moment of clarity that God’s love shines brightly through Jesus on the cross forsaken. These young women began to seek out “Jesus forsaken” in the world. “From that moment on,” Lubich later wrote, “we seemed to discover his countenance everywhere.” They saw the forsaken Christ in the wounds of the people they served. They saw him in each other and in themselves.
This transfigured moment launched the Focolare Movement, which is present in 183 countries today. Lubich gave her life to this hope until she died in 2008, and this hope continues beyond her. Her cause for sainthood was opened in 2015.
Let us be pilgrims of hope. Let us trust that behind the clouds the sun is still shining. Beyond the sun, the stars are still shining. Beyond the stars, heaven is still shining, and we are citizens of heaven called to live in this world. In the Eucharist, Christ’s presence shines through to us as the mystery of faith — Christ dying and rising. We wait in hope till he comes again in glory.
Deacon Friesen is director of the Center for Mission, which supports missionary outreach for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. He can be reached at friesenm@archspm org
In his book, “Rescued: The Unexpected and Extraordinary News of the Gospel,” Father John Ricardo explains that faith requires a relationship with God that is so reliant, if we leaned on him and he wasn’t there, we would fall over.
I have a soap dispenser on our kitchen counter that states, “Faith is not believing God is there, it is KNOWING He is!”
The mission of Christians in this era is to guide the culture back to God. We do this through the witness of our lives, based on our faith in the risen Lord. We are called to contribute to the conversion of our culture, so the mystery of Jesus’ resurrection is accepted and believed by all as a truth in their own lives. For this to occur, our faith must become the foundation of our lives.
To live this way, first we must believe that Jesus’ incarnation — which broke into the fear, doubt and darkness of our humanity — happened exactly as our faith teaches it did. If we harbor speculation and disbelief, the witness we provide will be half-hearted and lukewarm. We must also accept and believe that Jesus died on the cross, was in the tomb for three days, and was raised from the dead. If we do not embrace these truths of our faith, the message we convey won’t
When we celebrate the Holy Thursday liturgy, we’re commemorating that moment 2,000 or so years ago in an Upper Room in Jerusalem when Christ instituted the Eucharist, a mystery that we speak of as the source and summit of the Christian life.
But what does a “Eucharistic life” actually look like? The immediate reaction, at least the one I have, is to think about participating in the sacrament of the Eucharist, perhaps with more frequency, more devotion, or more preparation.
Of course, this is a good place to start. But there’s a sense in which a Eucharistic life is also something even deeper. Or rather, that the Eucharistic sacrament is part of something that can’t be limited to externals. And to understand this, we need to consider the first person to ever live a Eucharistic life: the Son of God.
Jesus offered the Eucharist on the eve of his passion, opening a way for members of his body to participate in his self-gift. In fact, Eucharist comes from the Greek word for thanksgiving. As the Catechism explains, “the Eucharist is a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Father, a blessing by which the Church expresses her gratitude to God for all his benefits, for all that he has accomplished through creation, redemption, and sanctification” (CCC 1360).
But Christ’s thanksgiving, his Eucharist, is not a onetime occasion. As the American theologian Nicholas Healy writes in a recent issue of “Communio,” selfgiving gratitude is the foundational disposition of the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity: “Both as God and as man, Christ receives his existence as a boundless gift from the Father. The form of his life is a
be authentic or genuine. These are difficult and minddefying beliefs, and they require faith to accept them.
Some scholars explain the followers who experienced the risen Christ would never have gone to their deaths proclaiming this truth if it was not real. They saw him. They spoke to him. They ate with him. They touched him. He was alive again. They witnessed him walking amongst themselves, encouraging them with his loving message again.
In 2001, I attended a six-hour seminar given by the late Father Raymond E. Brown. In response to a question from the audience about why the disciples on the road to Emmaus did not recognize Jesus (Lk 24:1335), Father Brown replied, “The disciples were looking for the human body, which is like a seed. He was the resurrected body, which is like a full-grown plant, and they did not know what that looked like. However, they knew it was Jesus when he broke the bread.”
How will others recognize us as Catholic Christians? We may wear a cross necklace, attend Sunday Mass faithfully, and participate in adoration and the sacrament of reconciliation. We may support the Catholic Services Appeal to help others in need. Ideally, they will see and experience more than these outward signs but will be touched by the risen Lord when they meet us.
I was in the sixth grade when I remember hearing the song “By Our Love” for the first time and being moved by the song’s words and music. Will other people know we are Christians by the way we live and how we love? Some people ask: Would there be enough evidence to convict us of being a Catholic Christian? We must ask ourselves, do we believe in the resurrection of our Lord and live the truth of this miracle in our lives each day? If so, that indicates we are so reliant on the Lord for all our needs, that if we leaned on him and he wasn’t there, we would fall over.
Soucheray is a licensed marriage and family therapist emeritus and a member of St. Ambrose in Woodbury.
thanksgiving to the Father and offering of himself back to the Father.”
This is astounding. A constitutive dimension of reality, the relationship between the eternally begotten Son and the eternally begetting Father, is Eucharistic. Furthermore, Healy explains how this gift-andresponse encompasses everything in existence. “Christ receives creation as an expression of the Father’s love. In receiving creation as a gift and offering it back to the Father, Christ discloses the deepest truth of creation. The world was created for him and all things hold together in him.” Jesus — who was like us in all things but sin, living a life of work, friendship, eating, sleeping, etc. — offers all of creation back to the Father.
And this cosmic, primordial, foundational reality is what we enter into when we participate in the Eucharist. In fact, Christ’s Eucharistic life is what is shared with us in the sacrament. This is what it means to say that he is “wholly and entirely present” in the Eucharist, which we in turn receive.
We can think of it this way: The sacrament of the Eucharist, which we participate in at each and every Mass, is like a portal. It puts us into contact with Christ’s sacrificial offering on the cross. But it also allows us to enter into the eternal reality that undergirds that paradigmatic sacrificial act: the Son’s perfect and perpetual self-offering to the Father, within the very heartbeat of the Trinity. And we enter into this place to do what Christ did: to give everything back.
To live a Eucharistic life means to live like Christ. It means that we allow the sacrament to define our entire lives. Everything we have is a gift from God, meant to be offered back to him with unceasing gratitude. As Joseph Ratzinger (who went on to become Pope Benedict XVI) once wrote, “The Eucharist is the genuine reality. This is the yard stick, the heart of things; here we encounter that reality against which we need to learn to measure every other reality.”
May our Lenten journey and Holy Thursday celebration help us each to live this kind of Eucharistic life.
Liedl
March 27, the bishops of the Minnesota Catholic Conference (MCC) gathered at the Minnesota State Capitol for their annual advocacy day. Throughout the day, the bishops engaged in principled, nonpartisan advocacy, discussing a range of legislative issues. Even in areas of disagreement, they upheld the Church’s moral teachings while fostering constructive dialogue and collaboration across political lines. Below, we highlight a few of those issues discussed.
During their visit, the bishops met with Gov. Tim Walz and key legislative leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, House Speaker Lisa Demuth, House Majority Leader Harry Niska, and House DFL Leader Melissa Hortman. They also met with Commissioner of Revenue Paul Marquart.
Beyond these high-level meetings, the bishops made it a priority to connect with lawmakers from their individual dioceses during a morning reception. Throughout the day, the bishops met with more than 25 legislators and engaged in numerous discussions with staff, lobbyists and visitors in the Capitol hallways.
One of the bishops’ primary concerns was Walz’s proposal to eliminate nonpublic pupil aid from the state budget — a move that would strip $50 million in funding for essential services such as transportation, nursing and standardized testing for nonpublic school students.
If enacted, this cut would increase costs for families by over $1,000 per student annually. The bishops emphasized that this funding represents less than one half of 1% of total state government education spending, yet its removal would have a disproportionate impact on thousands of Minnesota families. Lawmakers have already received thousands of emails, calls and meeting requests from constituents urging them to protect this vital funding.
The bishops also advocated for expanding Minnesota’s Child Tax Credit by 20%, enabling more middle-class families to benefit. As of February 2025, the program has positively impacted 566,000 children, and an expansion could reach an additional 200,000. The bishops emphasized that strengthening the Child Tax Credit aligns with the state’s commitment to supporting families and alleviating childhood poverty. There is broad bipartisan support for expanding the credit.
The bishops voiced concerns about proposals to legalize online sports gambling, warning that placing a virtual casino in every pocket via smartphones could have devastating consequences — especially for individuals susceptible to addiction. They urged legislators to consider the long-term social costs before expanding access to gambling.
As the Minnesota Legislature reaches the midpoint of the 2025 session, lawmakers are making critical decisions about which bills will advance and ultimately become law. In this pivotal moment, the bishops of Minnesota are calling on legislators to support policies that serve the common good, strengthen families and protect the most vulnerable.
Visit mncatholic.org/actionalerts to contact your legislators via email, phone or video message.
What is love? Love is willing the good of the other. There’s an element of desire and an element of choice. I must desire good things for the other person. I must be willing to choose (to do) good things for the other person. To fulfill both things, I must know what is good for the other person.
The ultimate good is God. What does God say is good? This was the crux of my deeper conversion. When I really pondered that question, just after moving to Minnesota, the Lord was there, ready to explain the answers to me.
I confronted the toughest questions about our faith and finally found satisfactory answers (there is not a question that a thorough Google search cannot answer), answers that hit me at my core and inspired me to be incredibly cognizant of my actions. Being intentional of even my smallest action showed me how every decision and action leads to or away from the Lord. The Lord clearly tells us what is good through Scripture, which is then clearly explained in the fullness of the Catholic Church. No other denomination or religion has the fullness of the truth. The more I asked these questions, and the more I paid attention to the Lord’s responses and saw his answers in my experiences, the closer I grew to him.
I asked all these questions in prayer, every day. Prayer became not just petitions to the Lord, but time to converse with him, the way I would converse with a close friend. It was even more intimate because I began to tell the Lord things in my heart that I would never be
comfortable telling a friend first. Even after being married to my wife, who understands the reality of God deeply, and with whom I share more than anyone else, my relationship with the Lord is the most intimate. The best part of conversing is listening, and half of prayer is listening to the Lord — or at least trying to quiet my mind enough to listen to the Lord.
Every day, the Lord is speaking to me, inviting me to know new things about him, to love the people in my life in a different way, and to see the world anew. He is speaking directly to me through the daily readings, perhaps the clearest way he speaks, and through my interactions with people, during walks outside, during time in adoration, and in other ways throughout my day.
In the end, I am Catholic because the Lord made me. I sought the Lord, and he let me find him. And finding him opened an entirely new beginning.
Kirsh, 30, is a parishioner at St. Lawrence Catholic Church and Newman Center in Minneapolis. He is a data scientist/statistical programmer in the medical industry and a part of the St. Lawrence Young Adults leadership team. He enjoys adventuring with his wife, MaryPat; reading; cooking; playing cello; rooting for his hometown Chicago sports teams; and playing softball with MaryPat in the Catholic Softball Group.
“Why I am Catholic” is an ongoing series in The Catholic Spirit. Want to share why you are Catholic? Submit your story in 300-500 words to CatholiCSpirit@arChSpm org with subject line “Why I am Catholic.”
Sacred Heart Fish Fry — April 4, 11: 6-8 p.m. at Sacred Heart, parish center, 840 E. Sixth St., St. Paul. Includes pupusas and enchiladas. See tinyurl Com/3Ch3C4ee for updates.
St. Thomas the Apostle Fish Fry — April 4: 4-6:30 p.m. at St. Thomas the Apostle, 20000 County Road 10, Corcoran. Ages 11 and over: $10, ages 4 to 10: $8, ages 3 and under: free. Includes deep-fried cod, mac and cheese, coleslaw, freshly baked bread and beverages. Sit-down, takeout available. Stations of the Cross: 7 p.m ChurChofStthomaS org/eventS-1/fiShfry25
A Passiontide Celebration of Beauty and the Arts — April 5: 7 p.m. at St. Clement, 901 24th Ave. NE, Minneapolis. A multi-faceted celebration featuring music, art, poetry and a theatrical production. ourholyCroSS org
Ham and Cash Bingo — April 6: 2-5 p.m. at Kolbe Hall, Holy Cross, 1630 Fourth St. NE, Minneapolis. Sponsored by Holy Cross CCW Rosary Guild. All are welcome and refreshments will be available. ourholyCroSS org
Ham Bingo — April 12: 6-9:30 pm. at Presentation of Mary, 1725 Kennard St., Maplewood. Food sales start at 6 p.m., bingo will run from 7-9:30 p.m. Sloppy Joes and hot dogs available. 10 ham door prizes given out. For further information, call the parish office at 651-777-8116. preSentationofmary org
Easter Bake Sale and Craft Fair — April 12-13: 11 a.m.-6 p.m. April 12, and 8 a.m.-2 p.m. April 13, at Kolbe Hall, Holy Cross Church, 1630 Fourth St. NE, Minneapolis. Baked goods, handmade crafts and assorted snacks. Free cookie decorating for children Saturday, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Sponsored by the Holy Cross CCW Rosary Guild. All are welcome.
Knights of Columbus Palm Sunday Brunch — April 13: 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. at Epiphany, 1900 111th Ave. NW, Coon Rapids. Enjoy a KC Palm Sunday brunch. Egg bake, pancakes, ham, toast, a fruit cup, coffee, juice and milk. Immediate family: $32 total, ages 12 and over: $10, seniors: $7, ages 6 to 11: $5, ages 5 and under: free. StgabrielhopkinS org
Memory Care Mass (formerly Dementia Friendly Mass) — April 10: 1:30-2:30 p.m. at St. Mary of the Lake, 4741 Bald Eagle Ave., White Bear Lake. A special Mass for people living with dementia, family members and their caregivers. The Mass is shorter in length and held in the chapel for a more comfortable environment. Hospitality and fellowship after Mass allows for important social time. StmaryS-wbl org
Women’s Palm Sunday Retreat — April 11-13: 7 p.m. April 11-12:30 p.m. April 13 at Franciscan Retreats and Spirituality Center, 16385 Saint Francis Lane, Prior Lake. Enter into a time of holy prayer, reflection, and learning. Four conference talks, guided prayer, free time for personal reflection, confession and rest. Palms will be distributed. Silence will be observed on this retreat. 952-447-2182, tinyurl Com/5dew4Czn
Labyrinth Retreat — April 12: 9 a.m.-1 p.m. at St. Paul’s
Monastery, 2675 Benet Road, Maplewood. This half-day retreat will offer time on the indoor canvas labyrinth as well as the opportunity to participate in midday prayer with the sisters, followed by lunch. tinyurl Com/yz344S8z
Men’s Holy Week Retreat: Finding God in Difficult Times — April 17: 7 p.m. April 17-12:30 p.m. April 19 at Franciscan Retreats and Spirituality Center, 16385 Saint Francis Lane, Prior Lake. Silent on Holy Friday. Guided prayer, four conference talks, confession, reflection, and learning. 952-447-2182, tinyurl Com/taz9eafu
Way of the Cross — April 18: 1:15-4 p.m. at Maternity of Mary, 1414 Dale St. N., St. Paul. Join Maternity of Mary and Holy Childhood parishes on Good Friday for a Living Stations of the Cross. Process from Maternity to Holy Childhood through Como Park to remember the path walked by Christ. maternityofmaryChurCh org/way-of-the-CroSS
26th Annual Living Stations of the Cross — April 18: 7-9 p.m. at St. Peter, 2600 N. Margaret St., North St. Paul and at Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 1725 Kennard St., Maplewood. The Servants of the Cross group will re-enact the passion of Jesus Christ; YouTube presentation available for those homebound and more info at ServantSoftheCroSSmn Com. Freewill offering welcomed.
Spring Wine Social — April 5: 5-9 p.m. at Our Lady of Grace, 5071 Eden Ave., Edina. Hosted by St. Lawrence Newman Center, special guests include Auxiliary Bishop Kevin Kenney and keynote speaker Father Mike Schmitz. tinyurl Com/3bfbkj6a
Theology Day at St. Paul’s Monastery with Hansol Goo — April 5: 9-11 a.m. at St. Paul’s Monastery, 2675 Benet Road, Maplewood. Heavenly Queen and Earthly Mother: Typologies of the Virgin Mary in Art from West to East. A lecture by Hansol Goo, assistant professor of liturgical theology at St. John’s University. tinyurl Com/5x5nynu5
Pro-Life Across America Culture of Love Celebration — April 10: 5:30-9 p.m. at Banquets of Minnesota, 6310 Highway 65, Fridley. Dr. Monique Ruberu, an obstetrician gynecologist, will present The Hidden Epidemic: Chemical Abortion. prolifeaCroSSameriCa org/love
Benilde-St. Margaret’s Open House — April 10: 9-11 a.m. at Benilde-St. Margaret’s, 2501 Highway 100, St. Louis Park. BSM is happy to welcome families to campus at our Open House events which include a tour of classrooms and learning settings, meeting with faculty, staff and current students, and an opportunity to ask questions of the BSM admissions team. tinyurl Com/y6e7v7r2
Taizé — April 11: 7-8 p.m. at St. Mary of the Lake, 4741 Bald Eagle Ave., White Bear Lake. All are welcome to this evening prayer which consists of music, Scripture and silence. Taizé will be held in the Notre Dame Chapel.
Calix Society — First and third Sundays: 9-10:30 a.m.,
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hosted by the Cathedral of St. Paul, 239 Selby Ave., St. Paul. In Assembly Hall, Lower Level. Potluck breakfast. Calix is a group of men, women, family and friends supporting the spiritual needs of recovering Catholics with alcohol or other addictions. Questions? Call Jim at 612-383-8232 or Steve at 612-327-4370.
Career Transition Group — Third Thursdays: 7:308:30 a.m. at Holy Name of Jesus, 155 County Road 24, Medina. The Career Transition Group hosts speakers on various topics to help people looking for a job or a change in career and to enhance job skills. The meetings also allow time for networking with others and opportunities for resume review. hnoj org/Career-tranSition-group
Fire on the Hill — Third Saturdays: 5:15 p.m. Mass followed by praise and worship at the Cathedral of St. Paul, 239 Selby Ave, St. Paul, until May 17.
Restorative Support for Victims-Survivors — Monthly: 6:30-8 p.m. via Zoom. Open to all victims-survivors. Victim-survivor support group for those abused by clergy as adults — first Mondays. Support group for relatives or friends of victims of clergy sexual abuse — second Mondays. Victim-survivor support group — third Mondays. Survivor Peace Circle — third Tuesdays. Support group for men who have been sexually abused by clergy/religious — fourth Wednesdays. Support group for present and former employees of faith-based institutions who have experienced abuse in any of its many forms — second Thursdays. Visit arChSpm org/healing or contact Paula Kaempffer, outreach coordinator for restorative justice and abuse prevention, at kaempfferp@arChSpm org or 651-291-4429.
Administrative support to attorneys and paralegals. In addition, a paralegal or legal assistant is also needed with similar duties but expanded to include research and composition of documents and other related duties. QuickBooks experience preferred. Contact John Trojack 651-451-9696 or complete “Contact” on our website: TrojackLaw.com
Part-Time Registered Nurse – Options for Women East: We’re hiring a compassionate RN with experience in Obstetrics (a plus) to join our team. Paid position with flexible hours. Contact Jennifer Meyer at 651-776-2328 or edjm@optionsforwomeneast.com.
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certeza de que Jesús y su padre estaban con ella en ese momento. Y es que eso es lo que hace tan especial la Cuaresma en Guatemala: no es solo una celebración externa, sino una profunda experiencia de fe que nos conecta con Dios y con quienes nos han transmitido esta herencia espiritual.
María Teresa describió la procesión como “un momento íntimo de oración entre Jesús y yo, o la Virgen María y yo. A mí siempre me trae recuerdos de mi padre. En ese instante, sentí su presencia, como si siguiera caminando a mi lado, como lo hacía cuando yo era pequeña. Es un momento de comunión, de gratitud por todas las bendiciones y de pedir la gracia de volver a vivir este tiempo santo un año más”.
Las procesiones son un Evangelio vivo. Cada una lleva un mensaje que trasciende generaciones — una silenciosa pero poderosa llamada a la conversión. Como dice el profeta Isaías: “Cuando te desvíes a derecha o izquierda oirás con tus oídos una palabra a la espalda: Este es el camino, síganlo” (Isaías 30:21). En el incienso que sube al cielo, en la alfombra que adorna las calles y la música solemne en el aire, nuestros sentidos nos invitan a mirar hacia dentro y conectar con el gran amor de Cristo.
Para los que hemos emigrado de Guatemala, los recuerdos de estas procesiones se convierten en tesoros del alma, en pequeñas llamas que siguen ardiendo en nuestros corazones y nos llaman a compartir nuestra fe allí donde estemos. La fe está presente en las calles de Guatemala, donde aquellos que buscan una experiencia única durante la Cuaresma pueden encontrarse verdaderamente con Cristo.
Mancilla es el miembro de apoyo a grupos pequeños de la Oficina de Discipulado y Evangelización de la arquidiócesis.
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By Josh McGovern The Catholic Spirit
At Station 10, a gathering space above A-Side Public House in St. Paul, young adults in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis gathered to hear Edward Sri, a theologian, author and Catholic speaker, present “A Biblical Walk Through the Mass.”
The March 21 event, hosted by the archdiocese, was fitting as the archdiocese continues to provide tools to parishes — including workshops and a Mass video series — to help educate the faithful on the form and meaning of the Mass, with emphasis on the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
Gizella Miko, the small groups facilitator for the archdiocese, said that during the archdiocesan synodal process that began between 2019 and 2020 — during which Archbishop Bernard Hebda held prayer and listening events across the archdiocese — propositions highly requested regional cooperation in young adult ministry and the formation of youth.
“What better way to respond to the movement of the Holy Spirit than to have a cooperative young adult event on the Mass?” Miko said at the beginning of the event March 21.
Station 10 overflowed with attendees, who filled every seat. People stood in the back of the event space, along the walls and off to the side in a room near the entrance. The presentation was preceded by a social cocktail hour. Archbishop Hebda attended the presentation as well.
Sri began his talk by explaining that the first prayer in Mass is the Sign of the Cross.
“The words, ‘in the name of the Father’ invoke his holy presence, to invite his presence into my midst,” Sri said. “What we’re doing is saying, ‘Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, come down and be here with us now’ and then we trace the cross over our bodies.”
This prayer, he said, can be traced back to Ezekiel 9:4: “Pass through the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and mark an X on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the abominations practiced within it. … But do not touch anyone marked with the X.”
“The faithful ones, the ones who didn’t go along with the corrupt culture, they’re going to get a spiritual mark on their foreheads as a sign of their faithfulness,” Sri said, “but also a sign of protection. They’ll be protected from the judgment. Protected. And the spiritual mark that’s on their forehead is the shape of the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which kind of looks like a cross. … When we’re making the sign of the cross, we’re saying, ‘I want to follow God’s ways, not the ways of corruption.’” Prayer continues during Mass with “The Lord be with you. … And with your spirit.” These words are used when God is calling someone on a sacred mission, Sri said.
“They’re going to be stretched like never before,” Sri said. “They’re going to rely on God like never before. … Are we really prepared? The words, ‘The Lord be with you’ is meant to wake you up. Get ready. You’re being called on a sacred mission to encounter God in the liturgy.”
Each Mass, Sri said, God dwells among the faithful again in the Eucharist. This is why Catholics proclaim the Gloria at Mass. During the recitation of the Apostles Creed, Catholics reaffirm their beliefs by acknowledging the foundation of their lives.
“There (are) two aspects of belief,” Sri said. “Too often we think about just the first intellectual aspect. … I put it this way: The two aspects of belief are like the difference between marriage and a math equation. I can say I believe that two plus two is four. That’s the intellectual part, but if I look my wife in the eyes and I say, ‘I believe you,’ I’m not just saying, ‘Oh, I believe that’s true.’ I’m saying I believe you. I trust you, I trust my heart to you, and that’s what I’m called to do with God.”
When the priest asks the faithful to lift up their hearts, they are meant to turn their attention to the most important part of the Mass, which is holy Communion, Sri said. In a deep analysis of the consecration, Sri said
that during the Last Supper, Jesus was acknowledging his role as the new Passover lamb. The Mass itself is done, as Jesus commanded, in memory of him.
“But what he’s saying is, ‘Make this present,’” Sri said. “That’s what memorial means: make the past present. Make what present? Make this offering of my body, the pouring out of my blood, make it present so future ages and generations can enter into my sacrifice. … Every time you go to Mass, it’s as if you go to Calvary. Calvary is made present to you. The sacrifice of Jesus that happened one time, 2,000 years ago is mystically, sacramentally made present so that we can enter into it.”
The moment in which a priest says, “Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb,” Sri said, is like a wedding invitation. And when Catholics process down the aisle for Communion, Sri said, they are not ordinary wedding guests.
“You’re a part of the Church,” Sri said. Being a part of the Church means Catholics process down the aisle as the bride. “Your divine bridegroom is coming to you to meet as intimately as possible.”
Charis Johnson, a member of St. Clement in Minneapolis, attended the young adult event. Having seen Sri’s recorded presentations before, she didn’t expect to get much out of the talk. “But he got going and it was a great reminder to enter the beauty of the Mass,” she said. “The moment after the reception of the Eucharist is a moment to linger with him (Jesus). Dr. Sri’s talk helped to take me out of autopilot.”
all of the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul, listen to Ed Sri give a talk on the Mass March 21 at a gathering of young adults at Station 10
at Station 10 in St. Paul.
The day after young adults gathered in St. Paul to listen to Edward Sri — a theologian, author and Catholic speaker — speak about the Mass, Sri was the keynote speaker at the Archdiocesan Men’s Conference hosted by Epiphany in Coon Rapids. Over 500 men attended the “Men of Christ: Strengthened by His Real Presence” conference spearheaded by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ Office of Discipleship and Evangelization and the archdiocesan Catholic Watchmen movement.
Sri gave two talks at the conference March 22: the “Art of Living,” which was based on the four cardinal virtues, and “The Vibrant Life,” on relativism and being courageous with the Catholic faith. The conference began with a Mass celebrated by Archbishop Bernard Hebda. In his opening remarks, the archbishop said that he was encouraged to see so many cars in Epiphany’s parking lot, and that many men came to the conference “to offer their very best to our God and to be able to support one another.”
To start the morning with Mass, Archbishop Hebda said, was a great privilege and that there is no better place to be than “in our Father’s house.”
“He’s always calling us to leave behind those times when we put our needs first,” Archbishop Hebda said. “We continue to be in this period of Eucharistic revival, in our archdiocese and in our country. How significant it is that we would begin this day with this Eucharistic sacrifice and to have the opportunity to be nourished, to be open for all of the graces that God intends to bestow upon us this day.”
Bishop Kevin Kenney led Eucharistic adoration and opportunities for confession were available during the conference. Throughout the day, several local Catholic vendors had tables set up in Epiphany’s hallways.
Johnson admired the many young adult groups present. The event was held in partnership with Catholic Softball Group, the Center for Evangelization and Discipleship (CEND), Cathedral Young Adults, Ale Mary’s and Twin Cities Catholic Singles.
“The people were great. The food was great. The speaker was great. Hopefully there is another event like this one soon,” Johnson said.
Miko said of the night, “It was amazing to see so many young adults gathered in unity, eager to learn about the Mass and enjoy each other’s company. ... I think it was a huge encouragement to the youthfulness of our local Church, and I can’t wait to see what this age group continues to do into the future. I think this is just the beginning, as there is so much momentum among our young adults, and I can’t wait to see what is to come.”