The one-two punch of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross and Our Lady of Sorrows always hits home for me. This year is the twentieth anniversary of the death of my classmates Matty Molnar and Jared Cheek - every year me and my classmates remember them in a particular way. I offered Mass for them this morning, as well as for their families & loved ones. There has been a great many things to grieve recently. These last several weeks I've spent a lot of time at Olympic Medical Center - our local hospital - ministering to folks facing the end of their lives, or the end of the life of someone dear to them. The stories are legion and heartbreaking, but suffice to say that there are a lot of folks needing prayers right here in our backyard....

A late pastor's post as this week draws to a close. I encourage you to join me in prayer for peace in our world, in our country, and most especially, in our own hearts: Lord, make me an instrument of your peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. September 8 - One of the delights within the Catholic liturgical calendar...

Foremost, thank you for your support and prayers for Father Ed. He is doing well and continues to be in good spirits. I am grateful for his self-awareness and proactivity in checking himself into the hospital upon realizing signs of potential issues. He was given a clean bill of health & discharged on Tuesday - and promptly got on a plane to Italy for the canonization of Blessed Carlo Acutis! Last I heard, he landed and was enjoying what I imagine will be an exciting (but hopefully also restful) time abroad. Thanks as well are due to everyone who quickly leapt into action to help implement our contingency Mass schedule, particularly Father Gali, our staff, and some key parishioners who made sure that word got out quickly &...

A quote from The Fellowship of the Ring has been ringing in my head lately. Speaking to Gandalf about his plans, Bilbo tells him that "Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: Like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can’t be right. I need a change, or something." Though I do not plan on anything as dramatic as a dragon-based fireworks show - or disappearing from sight, for that matter! - I have recently found myself re-energized after discussing & discerning some changes that I think will be helpful for myself (on both a pastoral and personal level). I'll have a blog post about that sometime soon (tm), as well as something in the bulletin this weekend. All that to say, however, that I have...

Though summer is not yet over, I find myself casting my mind forward to September. Parishioners will hear more about it in the coming weekends (likely starting next Sunday!), but it will come as little surprise to know that we are putting the final touches on plans for our faith formation programs. The one thing we yet need are volunteers to join in the work - and joyful work at that! - of sharing the faith with our children preparing for First Holy Communion and our youth anticipating Confirmation. We also welcome Catholics of all stripes to join in our OCIA sessions, sharing their experience & knowledge of the faith with adult inquirers considering joining the Church. As fall approaches, I encourage you to consider how you might...

In preparing for this week's pastor's post, I learned about a neat Christian holiday: Lammas Day or 'Loaf Mass Day'. Traditionally celebrated on August 1, it marks the blessing of the first fruits of harvest with the bringing of a loaf of bread to church. Though much of the details of this day have been lost to history, the character of the day is indisputably tied to the Eucharist. Catholic Culture has a neat write-up on the day and traditions around it. Closer to home, the middle of summer means looking down the calendar towards the fall. This last week our central region OCIA team met to plan out the coming year's program. Our Confirmation and First Holy Communion teams are also working to create - or re-create, as the case may be -...

After the better part of the last two weeks being spent away from my parishes, re-entry into parish life has been a bit overwhelming. There are so. many. things needing planned for the coming sacramental year, as well as behind-the-scenes leadership work for the current parish councils, the formation of an all-new Parish Family Advisory Council, and the capital campaign to pay off the new roof in Port Townsend. It is likely no coincidence that the Lord presented me with an opportunity at Ignite NW to give a talk on how parishioners can create or build up things in their own parishes. The engagement of Catholics in parishioners has been on the minds of many of us - clergy and laity alike - as we continue forward in both recovering from the...