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.