In reference to helping his parishioners to grow in holiness, a good priest friend of mine says, “I can’t make anyone do anything, all I can do is offer.” He’s correct in saying that a priest can’t make anyone do anything: unlike the government that can make us pay taxes, serve in the military in wartime, force us to send our children to anti-Christian government schools because they won’t let our tax dollars follow our kids to Catholic schools, etc. With that said, my priest friend’s statement would be more accurate if it was: “while I can’t make anyone do anything, God has entrusted to me the responsibility to try; through example, instruction, inspiration, and warning, to help people grow in holiness.” If you know me at all, then you know this is something I take to heart.

October is the month of the Rosary, and so today I submit another pastor’s column on this incredible devotion. I ran this column last year and plan to do so annually, as the mysteries in it release phenomenal graces for those who put them into practice.

While the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary have been around for centuries, it wasn’t until 2002 that Pope Saint John Paul II (St. JPII) introduced the Luminous Mysteries. He got his inspiration from a priest he canonized only the year before, Saint George Preca (1880-1962). St. George was a Maltese priest who founded a society of catechists which endures to this day, yet his greatest contribution to the Church was a set of private mysteries that he would pray the Rosary with. He called these the Mysteries of Light, hence St. JPII’s “Luminous Mysteries.” You can see here how they inspired St. JPII and how closely they paralleled his own Luminous Mysteries

Instead of dressing up your kids for Halloween as a fake superhero, popular cultural figure, or monster, how about dressing them up as a saint or angel? Instead of having your children trick or treat through demonically themed lawns and front doors, how about bringing them to the parish center for Christ- themed fun? This Halloween let’s protect our children and reclaim this festivity from its current godless and even satanic manifestation and return it to its Catholic origins.

On Sunday, October 30th, Holy Redeemer Parish is hosting an “All Hallows Celebration”. Come dressed as your favorite saint. The Knights of Columbus will grill up some hamburgers and hotdogs for a 1pm BBQ and at 1:30pm we’ll Trunk or Treat, play saint-inspired games and eat delicious saintly snacks!

Last summer, The Atlantic magazine published an article entitled: “How the Rosary Became an Extremist Symbol.”  They got enough blowback from that, that they quickly retitled it: “How Extremist Gun Culture Co-Opted the Rosary.”  Still getting criticism, they renamed it a third time to: “How Extremist Gun Culture is Trying to Co-Opt the Rosary.”  However leftists phrase it, one thing is clear, the Rosary is a threat to Satan, anti-Catholics, and the godless.  To us however, the Rosary is simply a gift from God. 

We live in an age unlike any other in the 2000 year history of Christianity.  A spiritual “Dark Age” that has seen the loss of faith in Christ and His Church by family members and the world at large; the breakdown of the Church, marriage, family, and society; as well as a steep climb in the rate of addictions to all things: impurity, screens, internet, video games, alcohol, drugs, overeating, sports, gambling, news, and every other vice.

So many people around the world are frightened or angry at you name it: political leaders, political parties, conservatives, progressives, Christians, the wealthy, constitutions, laws, the weather, etcetera. Since so few are good Christians, Satan is able to fuel this fear and anger and the consequences are people acting like him by lying, accusing, and ultimately murdering.

Examples of this in popular society would be: since the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, abortion advocates have been campaigning against abortion opponents by falsely accusing them of denying women their reproductive rights. Other popular examples of false accusers trying to damage reputations would be people who are not racists being accused of being one; or people who know that gender is determined at conception, being falsely accused of being unscientific and dangerously insensitive.

This week Holy Redeemer will embark upon a new program that teaches and models the virtues for all adults down to middle schoolers. It is called Fraternus for males and Fidelis for females. As long as you are between 12 and 100, you’re welcomed and encouraged to come to our new Parish Night on Wednesdays. The format is simple: we will begin at 6pm with prayer, followed by food, an activity, a message about a virtue, sharing in a small group, and finish with prayer in the church. Men and boys will meet in the parish center, women and girls in the Annex (big green house on the west side of parish parking lot).

From time to time people ask me where they should be getting their Catholic news. That’s a great question for anyone who wants to know the truth about what is going in the Catholic Church, and to be correctly formed and supported in their faith. Too many Catholic news sources ignore or sugar coat important issues of concern, or worse, mislead Catholics into believing falsehoods about the Catholic faith. Non-Catholic news sources intentionally run misleading stories to make the Catholic Church look bad, while championing heretical Catholics and denigrating faithful Catholics.

Inform yourself. Every week, or at least monthly, read news on what’s going on in the Catholic Church from the lens of God. Be responsible and get your news from Catholic organizations that will tell you the whole story without the need for a splashy and misleading headline. Below are some that I recommend and a few I don’t.

About five years ago I met Brian Willis, a parishioner at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Portland. In 2007 Brian started a non-profit called Global Health Promise to help prostitutes and their children. His work has been covered in the Catholic Sentinel, the Archdiocese of Portland’s Catholic paper. Here’s the problem that Global Health Promise (GHP) is trying to alleviate.

Prostitutes are arguably the most desperate and threatened women in the world. Women who prostitute themselves are trapped in that hellish profession mentally, materially, and frequently physically. As Catholic Christians we are called to love all people and to help those in need. Prostitutes are in great need of help on many levels. Helping prostitutes doesn’t mean that we condone evil, rather we are loving the sinner while hating the sin, a sin that men pay and enslave women for. GHP helps prostitutes survive and in some cases, find their way out.

Holy Redeemer Parish is blessed to have religious vocations. In the narthex we have a vocations board with pictures of men and women from our parish who have entered religious life. More pictures will go up over time, yet realistically, some of the pictures that go up will come down too.

Some people mistakenly assume that when a man or woman enters the seminary or religious life, they will now live happily ever after. Entering religious life is seen as getting married, or at least a serious engagement, and quality engagements and good marriages are rarely called off. More accurately though, reaching solemn vows or being ordained, takes many years and is an arduous journey for everyone who tries. This is how a vocation to religious life works.

I was a seminarian in 2002 when the priest sex abuse scandal broke. I’ve spent the past 20 years dealing with the results. Abusing people, especially children, is a grave evil. Jesus says “that he who abuses one of these little ones, it would be better to tie a mill stone around his neck and cast him into the sea.” (Mt 18:6; Mk 9:42; Lk 17:2) Furthermore, most of the priests who have been accused of abusing a child have in fact abused a child. So there is very good reason to seek a zero tolerance policy for this behavior, hear out any accuser, and investigate no matter how long ago the abuse was supposed to have happened. And finally, it is critical to give victims the love and support they need to heal as much as they can in this life.

Inflation is a tax on everyone, the rich and poor alike, but it is the poor who suffer most. How did we get here? An answer: there was a breakdown in the international supply chain as a result of covid. That raises the question: why are we having foreign nations make everything for us in the first place? Answer: because it’s cheaper to have lower paid employees in other countries make everything and ship it over to us. Of course this means that we become dependent upon those nations for everything. When they can’t make our stuff anymore, or the international supply chain breaks down, or they become our enemy, then we lose those goods. Then our demand for those goods exceeds supply and inflation takes off.

In our first reading at Mass today we heard about the infamous cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. They were two cities in ancient Israel that gave themselves over to sexual sins (know any countries like that?). We get the words sodomy and sodomitical, or unnatural sexual acts, from the ancient city of Sodom. God destroyed them with fire and brimstone for their sins—a real warning for us today. It wasn’t just that the cities inhabitants thought that men having sex with men was just great, it’s that they insisted that everyone participate—even the angels that God sent to rescue Lot and his family. That whole participation thing should sound familiar with our contemporary world-wide LGBTQ+ and abortion indoctrination/shaming phenomenon. There’s nothing that says that what God did to Sodom and Gomorrah won’t happen in this country.

In his apostolic exhortation The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis writes, “The parish is not an outdated institution; precisely because it possesses great flexibility, it can assume quite different contours depending on the openness and missionary creativity of the pastor and the community.” As we look to the future in the Archdiocese of Seattle, the Lord is calling us to this openness and creativity.

We face immediate and long-term challenges that call us to move beyond the familiar and the comfortable. These challenges also provide an opportunity for us to grow in our life in Jesus Christ, to accompany one another on the journey of faith, and to live the joy of the Gospel each day.

Last Monday, July 4th, we celebrated Independence Day, a night of dread for those of us who want to get a good nights’ sleep . Of course, the day is meant to commemorate and celebrate our birth as a nation and to take stock of the exceptional nature of our country, for it is truly exceptional in many ways. This year however, many Americans used the holiday to mourn America for not being supportive enough of legal abortion and the LGBTQ+ agenda. When I say many Americans, I mean the Catholic President of the United States and one of our two major political parties, who try to shame Americans at home and abroad for not championing things that only 60 and 30 years ago were near universally held as evil. How did we get to a place where Disney champions abortion and sodomy and shames you if you don’t? The answer to that and many other societal evils is a decline in religious belief and practice.

At the Easter Vigil the priest begins with the above words, while all are gathered outside in the dark of night awaiting the saving event of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The thing is, at the first Easter no one (outside of the Blessed Virgin Mary) knew that Jesus would rise from the dead. Everyone, from Thursday night until Sunday morning, thought that Jesus was defeated and so were they. Then the Lord of all creation rose from the dead fulfilling His promises, defeating sin, death, and Satan, and opening heaven. Why? Because Jesus loves us. How? Because Jesus is invincible. I’ll circle back to this at the end of this column, please read on.

It is Pride month, where every year in this country we are supposed to celebrate and promote LGBTQ-ism. It has been my intention for years to write a pastor’s column on various aspects of this global agenda, especially with practical ideas for addressing it between family members and friends. That pastor’s column has to be very carefully written and might well be pages long. Hence, I’ve haven’t found the time to write it. But I want you to know that you’re not crazy if you think this is contrary to God’s will, and thus harmful, and rightfully frightened of the consequences of speaking out in any way against it. I attach here an article from a woman from England (so bear with slight differences of wording), about her own perspective on transgenderism. I had to cut about half of the article out to make space, you can read the whole thing by going to the website below.

This Sunday we celebrate Corpus Christi, a Solemnity of the Church in which we focus in a special way on the true presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. Admittedly, this is something I feel I don’t do enough of. I reference the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist enough for regular Mass goers to hear from time to time, but only on this Sunday every year do I make my homily about the Eucharist or Mass. By comparison, I know a priest, and of priests, who reference the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist in almost every Sunday homily.

In reflecting on this, I ask myself the question “why don’t I speak more often about the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist or the sacrifice of the Mass?” I suppose for me it is more of a catechetical topic, along the lines of the Holy Trinity, or Incarnation, or Communion of Saints, etc. – very important but not a preoccupation.

In my homily last Sunday, June 5th, I spoke about knowing and being in God’s Truth. In case you missed it, you can listen to it by selecting the “Resource” tab on our website and clicking on “Homilies.” At the end of the homily, I referenced the consequences of living as if God and His Truths don’t matter. One of those consequences is a very depressing life, and even suicidal thoughts, which are dangerous for all people but especially for young people. Please tell your children and grandchildren why they exist – to know, love, and serve Jesus Christ in this life; so as to be happy with Him forever in the next life. Teach them everything you can about God, His love for us, Jesus Christ, the Church, the Four Last Things, etc. These “things” are real and inescapable; thus they are life giving, loving, affirming, fulfilling, and peace giving.

Today we celebrate Pentecost, the day in which the Holy Spirit descended upon the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Apostles, and by extension, the whole Church. This happened so that the Church may persevere in the faith of Jesus Christ and share that faith with others. Jesus Christ is God, and He wants the whole world to have faith in Him and to join the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church that He established, regardless of one’s existing religious beliefs, nation, or race. This costs something: relationships, employment, reputation, perhaps even one’s life. Many saints lost their lives for this, starting with those 12 Apostles Jesus was speaking to.

Here I have attached an article about the Ugandan martyrs St. Charles Lwanga and companions, whose feast day we celebrated on Friday.

Last Saturday, May 21st, for only the second time in our 22 year history, we had the rare opportunity to host the ordination to the transitional diaconate, of Holy Redeemer seminarian, John Paul Tomassi.  It was a beautiful ordination Mass and all who attended were gratified in their faith.  Deacon John Paul will be in Longview this summer before heading back to Mundelein seminary (outside of Chicago) for his final year.  God willing, he’ll be ordained in June 2023 to the Priesthood.

This Sunday we do something we’ve never done before, introduce a permanent deacon to the ministry of Holy Redeemer Parish.