Blessed Carlo Acutis was beatified on October 10,2020.  He is known as the Apostle to the Internet, since as a teenager he cataloged all the reported  Eucharistic Miracles in the history of our Church.  He made a website so that all can see those miracles.  During our Corpus Christi celebration, we had numerous Eucharistic Miracle panels displayed in the gathering space of the St. Francis campus. With his mother, Carlo would walk the streets and help the homeless when he was about 14 years old.  He will be canonized a saint in the near future.  
 
We have many saints in our Church that give us an example of holiness.  Last month I wrote about Michelle Duppong, who hopefully will be the next American Saint.  What these two have in common, is they realized that God was calling them to have a relationship with Him. 
 
As we are trying to define what our vision and mission of Our Lady of Light Family of Parishes.  Our staff and had a team building morning. I spoke with our Family Pastoral Council, and other groups and asked them what does it mean to be a parishioner of Our Lady of Light Family of Parishes.  I also asked them what habits does a missionary disciple have?
 
It was interesting because many people didn’t really know how to define a missionary disciple (and I must admit that I have learned over the past few years as well).  It is a term that we use today to describe someone who is seeking a greater relationship with Jesus in their life and a greater relationship being in communion with those around them.  A disciple seeks prayer, time with scripture, connecting to a small prayer group or connection group, normal reception of the sacraments, acts of service to name a few.  
 
These are all traits that we want to see in our people.  Yet, at the same time we have to realize that we are not the ones who are initiating the relationships.  It is God first who is initiating and inspiring us to have a greater relationship with Him in Jesus, and a greater relationship with those around them.  
 
That is why we realized that we have to help people understand and realize that God wants a relationship with every single person.  He never stops reaching out to us and share His life and love with us.
 
God makes His life present to us in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, and especially in Jesus’ true presence in the Eucharist.  We make heaven present to others with things like acts of service, showing forgiveness, and great worship of God.
 
We are called to help others come to know God personally, because we already know him personally.  He wants a relationship with all His children and wants to walk with us in our every day life.
 
Our Lady of Light Family of parishes has a new vision and mission statement:
Vision: We are called to make heaven present here and now.
 
What this means is that when we go to Mass, heaven is made present to us in the Eucharist. When Jesus said “Do this in memory of me,” God brings the action of Jesus’ Passover with apostles 2,000 years ago present to us today. We are sitting in the upper room with them, and all of the heavenly court of angels and saints.
 
God’s life is communicated to us in the Eucharist. We are called to take this reception of God’s greatest gift to humanity, the true presence of the resurrected Christ, and make that present for others.  What we receive fuels our zeal to serve others around us, walk with each other in the journey of faith, serve the poor, be volunteers to help with youth programming, and live our faith wherever we are: at work, at home, and show Christ to all we meet.
 
Our Mission then is to help people walk with God in their every day life.  This could mean something different to every person or family since we all have different situations.  
 
As we move toward our parish picnic, we will be highlighting saints that were not priests, nuns, or other types of religious.  We will be highlighting saints that lived as “lay people”, or people that lived the vocations of marriage or single life.  These are two great vocations that bring love and fruitfulness to the Church.  St. Gianna Molla, St. Pier Giorgio Frassati, Sts. Zelie and Louis Martin, St. Thomas More, Blessed (soon to be Saint) Carlo Acutis, Blessed Chiara Bodano.  These are all saints who were parents, sons or daughters, doctors, merchants, in politics.  They all lived lives of families and sought to live the life of heaven here and now.  
 
In Christ,
Fr. Brian  

Last week I watched two documentaries.  The first was the documentary on Ulysses S. Grant called Grant.  The second was the documentary on Abraham Lincoln called Lincoln.  They could have been more imaginative about naming them.
 
Grant and Lincoln are polar opposites of each other.  Both came from poor backgrounds but one was an academic and one was a hard worker and confident in his skills and courage.  Lincoln read Shakespeare, the King James Bible, and all the great English literature.  He also read Euclid and Greek philosophers.  He taught himself to read by reading these books. U.S. Grant read what he had to read.
 
Yet, they both learned whatever they could to perfect their craft and their careers.  Lincoln was about politics, and Grant was about war.  Yet, they both knew that they must apply themselves in order to understand their craft and careers.
 
Faith is no different.  We must apply ourselves to learn about our faith. We also must apply ourselves to journey to the heart of God.  
 
St. Anselm of Canterbury said “Fides quarens intellectum.”  This means "Faith seeking understanding.”  This means that faith is the gift given to us by God so that we may come to understand the truth of God.  
 
St. Augustine once said “Credo ut intelligam.”  This means “I believe so that I may understand.”  This means that my belief in God helps me to understand the truth of God and what He has created. 
 
Both St. Anselm and St. Augustine hit at the very center of our struggle of faith.  We struggle to understand because God is greater than what we can ever imagine.  We must learn about our faith and be knowledgeable about our faith.  God gives us the gift of faith not to find the depths of all the dogmas of our faith first, but to know the heart of God first.
 
It is most important to know the heart of God first.  The greatest theologians of the Church were not always the best educated, they were the ones who understood the heart God most personally.  St. Catherine of Siena was the greatest theologian of her time and was not educated.  She knew God so well because of how she prayed, and answered God’s voice.  Popes listened to her and she greatly influenced many because of how well she knew the heart of God.  St. Thomas Aquinas was visited by Jesus towards the end of his life and he said that all his writings were merely straw compared to the love of Jesus Christ standing in front of him.  
 
St. Augustine tried to understand God so much that he gave us the beginning of the teachings on grace, sacraments, mercy, the Trinity to name a few.  Yet, his greatest desire was to know God so well that he said “O Lord, my heart is restless until it rests in you (Confessions of Augustine).”
 
We struggle to understand the dogmas of our faith.  Dogmas are the revealed truth that God has revealed to us to be true.  Yet, we will never know the depths of them fully.  God desires that we know the depth of His love, mercy, and His loving heart.  The pinnacle of this relationship is at Mass receiving the Eucharist due to how Jesus Christ poured his heart out for us on the cross.  Through His heart we come to know the depths of the dogmas of the Church.
 
When we pray the Our Father, we pray “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” This is the heart of God.  Our journey is coming to know that heart of God who pours His love and mercy out for us.

​In Christ,
Fr. Brian

I remember the first time I went to a place that a true canonized saint walked in the United States.  At the end of my internship year, I went on a mission trip to Winnebago, NE to the reservation of the Winnebago Tribe.  There was a parish out there that had a mission that was started by St. Katherine Drexel.  She began the mission as part of her ministry to Native American and African Americans.  

She went to see Pope Leo XIII and told him of the plight of the peoples in the United States.  She asked who will you send to minister to these people.  Pope Leo XIII said why don’t you become a missionary.  Well, after much prayer she did. She formed the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament to minister to the the African American and Native American peoples.  

Today, there is a woman that was a FOCUS Missionary whose cause is up for sainthood.  Servant of God Michelle Duppong passed away on December 25, 2015 at the age of 31 from cancer when she was the Director of Adult Faith Formation for the diocese of Bismarck, ND.  She was a FOCUS Missionary for 6 years before her work for the diocese.

She was described as a young woman of great faith, compassion, prayer, and always walked with college students with great love.  She could walk with college students and speak with them in a very real way about their lives and faith.

After her death, “people have attributed miraculous healings and personal consolations to Duppong’s intercession, or have claimed to hear her voice giving them courage, her mother told OSV News. 

This shows us that saints are from all walks of life, and God is still inspiring us to holiness.  This past Sunday was Pentecost where we celebrated the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles.  Today we still see the movement of the Holy Spirit in people like Michelle Duppong.  

How do we see the Holy Spirit moving in our family of parishes? How has the Holy Spirit moved in your life and and inspiring you to live your faith?  How has the Holy Spirit renewed your faith?  How has the Holy Spirit shown you how to help you to live a greater life of love and seek holiness?  Holiness is our participation with God by allowing God to guide us to be the people he created us to be.  

In Christ,
Fr. Brian

In high school we had to take one art class.  We could choose from theatre, art, or band.  Well I was horrible in all three of those, so I chose the lesser of three evils and chose art.  When we got there, we were told that the lowest grade anyone will ever get is an 85.   You can guess what my final grade was for the class, an 85.

One assignment we had to draw a self portrait of our face.  We had to look at ourselves in the mirror, and then then draw what we saw.  I did the best I could but at the end I got tired of looking at myself in the mirror.  The drawing got an 85, but it also helped me to appreciate my family.  I take after the Italian side of the family.  It made me think of my dad, my grandma, my uncles.  It also made me think of my grandfather whom I never met because he died right before I was born, and my middle name is named after him: William.

Just looking at my face made me think of all of that.  

This past Lent and Easter, the Holy Face of Jesus has been a place of prayer for me.  It is a devotion that many saints have cultivated, especially St. Therese of Lisieux.  Her name is St. Therese of the Holy Face of Jesus.  

What struck me was that the Holy Face of Jesus is always shown very serene, asleep in death before the resurrection.

This past year, though, there was another word that came to me in my prayer.  That word was calmness.  In the Holy Face of Jesus we see the calmness of Christ.  Jesus faced the agony and the terror of his passion and death.  Yet, we see him walk that path with great calmness.  He always had control over the situation and reminded Pilate that any power that seemed to be his, was given to him by God the Father. Jesus was in total control through his life, death, and resurrection.  

We too can lean on that calmness of Christ.  Really, calmness is a sign strength.  We do not need to face things with our own calmness and strength because we don't always have that in us, but that Jesus' calmness can permeate our lives.

It is very human of us to worry, be anxious or allow things around to rob us of our joy, peace, and grace.  What Christ shows us is that we can turn to him and he can calm those storms in our lives as he did in the Gospels.  He has total control and wants us to turn to him. 

Whenever we have a time of needing our Lord to calm the storms in our lives, he wants us to say a simple prayer of "Lord I give these things to you.  Show me the way to your peace and help me walk that path."

That is why he sent the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, so that we may always be connected to him through the Holy Spirit. We are given all of the gifts we need.  The Holy Spirit purifies our prayers, and the Holy Spirit guides us on the path to holiness. Let us take some time to look at the face of Jesus and sees the calmness of his face and know it in our own lives.

This image is a body of Jesus that was cast from the Shroud of Turin.  They were able to make this from a holographic image of the Shroud.  Just notice his face is not a face of terror or horror, but the face of calmness knowing that his mission is now complete.  He can send us the Holy Spirit to give us what we need. All we need to do is ask.

We also see his face here in the Eucharist.  We can sit in front of Him and we can see his loving, calm face.