Father's Notes

I was away this past week at a youth conference called Ignite Northwest and I unfortunately did not have much time to compose a bulletin column. I would however, like to share some wisdom from one of my favorite saints, St. Francis De Sales. Sit with one of these quotes and see which one speaks to you! “Have patience with all things but first with yourself. Never confuse your mistakes with your value as a human being. You are perfectly valuable, creative, worthwhile person si

It was back on January 11th, in my Pastor’s Note, that I proposed that there are five things a parish and its people should put their energies into doing well: 1) cultivating a prayerful environment and helping parishioners to grow in their life of prayer; 2) fostering community among parish members; 3) teaching the faith; 4) evangelization of the faith beyond our parish and parishioners; and 5) caring for and supporting those in need. In that communication, I announced that

As a priest, I can tell you that I greatly appreciate the Church’s teachings on marriage, and yet sometimes find them to be difficult. I’ll explain. I appreciate them because they hold firm to something we still believe important: the unchanging nature of sacraments and of their effects. In the sacraments, we believe that God actually does something within created matter—He transforms it into something new, something greater. Just as bread and wine become something different

Father Ben and I are blessed to be here at Priest Days, the annual convocation of priests, held here in Ocean Shores. Each priest is invited to choose a hotel, otherwise we can choose to organize as group, to rent a house together. I’m staying at a house with three of my good friends, brother priests. The presenter, speaking to us each day is Deacon Tim Lynch, M.S., from the St. John Vianney Center in Philadelphia, a behavioral health facility, functioning to help clergy and

I once had an old black-and-white photo of my great grandfather, Ray Banks, standing in a river somewhere in southern Indiana, up to his waist in the water. Behind him, on the bank were a number of onlookers, watching my great grandfather, who was a Baptist minister, as he baptized one of the faithful. It’s a captivating image. With both my mother and father coming from Baptist traditions, it was left to us, their children, to determine when we wanted to be baptiz

Did you know that the Holy Spirit has a special role when it comes to the bread and wine at Mass becoming the Body and Blood of Jesus? This may surprise some because we tend to think the Eucharist is all about Jesus. Yes, it is His Body and Blood, but it’s not like the other persons of the Trinity are absent. They are at work, albeit in different ways. This is what we see in a special part of the Mass called the epiclesis. This occurs when the priest (depending on the Euchari

This week, we celebrate the memorial of a saint that is beloved by many: St. Thomas More. In his youth he had considered a monastic vocation, but eventually realized he was being called to serve God in the world. At age 51 (1529) Thomas was appointed by King Henry VIII to be chancellor of England, though he had no desire for such a prestigious and influential role. King Henry had always admired More’s intellect and integrity. But his admiration ceased when Henry began to make

As an update regarding our parish website(s), as of now, there are no longer two separate websites for our parishes. Thanks to the generous assistance of a parishioner, we now have one website for both parishes. This is a great step for us as a parish family and will help us to communicate more effectively to our parishioners, and to everyone else. The fact is, so much of the content on the two previous websites is duplicated. As creating one bulletin for both parishes has pr

One of my seminary professors told me something I will never forget: “Matter matters.” What did he mean? God is not a detached reality, but knows that we live in a physical world. He did create it after all! And He desires to share Himself, to communicate on our level through what we experience, so as to be led to greater and more beautiful truths. That is why our sacraments, our religious items, our postures and movements at mass are all important. The visible communicates t

I’m pleased to announce that we will have two seminarians with us for part of the summer: Matthew Dion and Bradley Miller. You may recall that last year, Patrick Gitau was with us. It’s a great gift and sign of life to have seminarians present and among us. As Matthew and Bradley get settled, they’ll have the opportunity to fill in the details of which parish they’re from, what drew them to formally discern priesthood, where they go to seminary and how far along they are in t

Over the (nearly) two years that Father Ben and I have been here, we’ve worked to create consistency in how our liturgical ministers do things between St. Thomas and St. Philomena. Admittedly, some of the adjustments we made were simply a matter of adjusting to my preferences, from those of my predecessors. One ministry was our Altar Server program. I must say, I love working with Altar Servers: training them, interacting with them before Mass, and serving at the altar with t

Anointing of the Sick is a sacrament, commonly misunderstood. Perhaps a brief explanation is helpful. It’s rooted in Jesus’ ministry, Jesus, the divine healer. The Church upholds this sacrament for the purpose of strengthening those tried by illness. The priest anoints in the name and power of Christ himself. There are three principal ritual actions that take place: the prayer of faith (see James 5:15), laying on of hands (see Luke 4:40), and anointing with oil (see Mark 6:13

By the time you read this, it will have been two weeks ago that I was away from the parish on vacation. The purpose was to attend and concelebrate as a priest, at a wedding of a young lady whom I have known for about fifteen years, and whose family is dear to me. When she was in college she studied in Madrid. It was there, having become involved in the young adult activities at the local parish, that she met a young man from Madrid. After college, she sought and found work in

As some of you know, May is dedicated to our Blessed Mother, Mary. It is sad that many do not understand nor see the need for the Blessed Mother. The truth is that while Jesus is the only One worthy of worship and adoration, Mary has a special part in our walk with her Son. How? Jesus desires to share His work with everyone, in a way that shows God’s goodness and glory. What He shared with Mary is a unique intercession based on relationship. It was Mary who bore, fed, protect

As you likely are aware, soon after we began publishing a shared bulletin for our two parishes, we began reevaluating how we report our finances. We wanted to include the same details for each parish, and to make it clear and concise. We believe we can still do better in how we report it to you. Those of you at St. Philomena may recall, back in the fall, I gave a financial update and specifically the woeful state of our parish savings. I explained that it's strongly advised t

Christus Resurrexit! Holy Week was wonderful, although I’m grateful that we’re not doing it again this week! I want to write to you about our communication channels. I meet weekly, with a team with the purpose of discerning what items we believe we need to communicate to our parishioners, but also, discerning which channels of communication (as opposed to communicating everything in every way). Currently, our channels of communication include the 1) Sunday Bulletin; 2) the S

This is my second Easter at St. Thomas and St. Philomena parishes. At long last, Easter has arrived. And I must admit, I am quite ready. As much as I love the arrival of Lent each year and benefit from it, I am happy to have climbed the holy mountain of Easter. As the great Easter Proclamation (the ancient Exsultet ), declares, proclaimed in the warm glow of candlelight, ”O truly blessed night, when things of heaven are wed to those of earth, and divine to the human”. As our

In a few weeks, the church celebrates a special feast called Divine Mercy Sunday. Perhaps you have seen the famous image of Jesus with the two rays emanating from His heart. The image comes from a series of revelation to a Polish nun, Faustina Kowalska. She would become a Saint and these encounters were eventually approved by the church and written in her diary called “Divine Mercy in My Soul”. Divine Mercy Sunday takes place on the Sunday after Easter, but why celebrate this

This is a hard reading to hear, not only because the narration is challenging to follow, but perhaps mostly because it’s about a subject that makes us uncomfortable—death of a loved one. It’s a story full of people who are upset. We’re told that Jesus took his time before going to Bethany and respond to the news of Lazarus’ illness. To them, and perhaps to us, it might seem like he is indifferent to a great concern. By the time he arrived, not only had Lazarus gone from sic