Author: WebDept ParishAdmin

I Know My Sheep

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Our practice is to attend 8:30 Sunday Mass but sometimes that doesn’t work out. One Monday after such a time, I ran into my priest and he asked where we were the preceding day. “I know my sheep,” he said with a smile. I knew he wasn’t chastising me. He cares about his parishioners. It feels good to be noticed and known. And missed.

I love the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. St Therese of Lisieux encourages us to be childlike in our love and trust of Jesus but I often feel more like a sheep than a child. Sheep aren’t really the brain trusts of the barnyard. Left alone, they become overly wooly. Their vision is impaired as is their movement. Recall Baarack, the Australian sheep found with over 75 pounds of wool weighing him down. 

This is a metaphor for the spiritual life. Left alone, my gaze shifts away from Jesus. When I am not diligent in prayer, when I wait too long between confessions, it becomes harder and harder to remember where I should be focusing my vision. It’s easy to get caught up in the issues being played out in the news or on social media. I find I am less patient, less charitable, and less nice. Instead of trying to see Christ in those around me, I see the negatives. My eyes become clouded with the wool of sin.  

I also find I am bearing the weight of my sins and stress.  In times of consolation, I can skip through my busy day of interruptions and tasks, and still feel good. I am energized by my life. Again, when I lose my habit of prayer, the stressors of life grow like uncontrolled wool and weigh me down. Everything is harder. I want to sleep.

Jesus is the shepherd who takes care of me. When I drag my wooly, weighted-down self to him, he shears off the sin and shows me the light again. I know his voice and he never ceases calling me to him. He is waiting patiently to help me. He desires to keep me safe. When I surrender to him, he sleeps at the gate of the sheepfold, protecting me from the wolves prowling outside. 

Jesus came so that we “may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). What a wonderful message! As we journey through this life, we have a shepherd who came for the express purpose of bringing us salvation and abundance. We know his voice. We know he wants us to follow him. It is hard and brings its own set of challenges in a world that has turned away from God, but we may be assured that our shepherd will always be there guiding, protecting, and shearing away the excess that gets in our way.

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Merridith Frediani loves words and is delighted by good sentences. She also loves Lake Michigan, dahlias, the first sip of hot coffee in the morning, millennials, and playing Sheepshead with her husband and three kids. She writes for Catholic Mom, Diocesan.com, and her local Catholic Herald. Her first book Draw Close to Jesus: A Woman’s Guide to Adoration is available at Our Sunday Visitor and Amazon. You can learn more at merridithfrediani.com.

Feature Image Credit: pen_ash, https://pixabay.com/photos/sheep-wool-woolly-livestock-farm-2423165/

St. Pachomius: Saint of the Day for Monday, May 09, 2022

St. Pachomius was born about 292 in the Upeer Thebaid in Egypt and was inducted into the Emperor’s army as a twenty-year-old. The great kindness of Christians at Thebes toward the soldiers became embedded in his mind and led to his conversion after his discharge. After being baptized, he became a disciple of an anchorite, Palemon, and took the habit. The two of them led a life of extreme austerity and total dedication to God; they combined manual labor with unceasing prayer both day and night. …

Prayer for Travelers: Prayer of the Day for Monday, May 09, 2022

O Almighty and merciful God, who hast commissioned Thy angels to guide and protect us, command them to be our assiduous companions from our setting out until our return; to clothe us with their invisible protection; to keep from us all danger of collision, of fire, of explosion, of fall and bruises, and finally, having preserved us from all evil, and especially from sin, to guide us to our heavenly home. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Being a Light to Others

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Do you ever feel like you are in a time of plenty, but simultaneously in a time of drought? We are in the midst of the Easter season, flowers are blooming, the sun is shining, the school year is coming to a close, and yet we are dragging…

My family has been struggling through yet another period of illness. Fevers, incessant coughs, ear infections, pink eye, snotty noses, you name it. We just keep passing germs from one to the other to the other. I just started a new job and have already had to go to the doctor four times. We have missed out on receiving our Lord three weeks in a row because we are hacking up a lung (slight exaggeration).

Yet we are Easter people, and Alleluia is our song. We rejoice through the trials because there is always something positive to rejoice over. There are always milestones to celebrate. The baby is getting her first teeth and standing up. The boys are doing well in soccer and scoring goals. My husband is gaining recognition in his video show. 

But above all I am rejoicing because the people and the mission of my new workplace are bringing me closer to God. We pray together each morning, lift up our individual intentions and praise God for His blessings. Then we each go about our day trying to bring Christ to each person we encounter. It is truly beautiful. 

Each day we can imitate the first disciples, like Paul and Barnabas in today’s First Reading who spoke out boldly: “ For so the Lord has commanded us, I have made you a light to the Gentiles, that you may be an instrument of salvation to the ends of the earth.” What a great reminder to us of what we are called to do each and every day! To be Christ’s hands and feet on this earth until He comes again in His glory.

Just as Jesus states: “The Father and I are one” in today’s Gospel, may we also be one with God so as to live with true Easter joy and then share that love and joy with others. 

I leave you with today’s Psalm, that you may rejoice evermore in Him: “Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands; serve the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful song. Know that the LORD is God; he made us, his we are; his people, the flock he tends. The LORD is good: his kindness endures forever, and his faithfulness, to all generations.”

Alleluia!

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Tami Urcia grew up in Western Michigan, a middle child in a large Catholic family. She spent early young adulthood as a missionary in Mexico, studying theology and philosophy, then worked and traveled extensively before finishing her Bachelor’s Degree in Western Kentucky. She loves tackling projects, finding fun ways to keep her little ones occupied, quiet conversation with the hubby and finding unique ways to love. She works at for Christian Healthcare Centers, is a guest blogger on CatholicMom.com and BlessedIsShe.net, runs her own blog at https://togetherandalways.wordpress.com and has been doing Spanish translations on the side for over 20 years.

Feature Image Credit: Tom Podmore, https://unsplash.com/photos/cp-GfZhCXI8

St. Peter of Tarantaise: Saint of the Day for Sunday, May 08, 2022

Cistercian archbishop. Peter was born near Vienne, in Dauphine, France, and joined the Cistercian Order at Bonneveaux at the age of twenty with his two brothers and father. Known for his piety, at age thirty he was sent to serve as the first abbot of Tamie, in the Tarantaise Mountains, between Geneva and Savoy. There he built a hospice for travelers. In 1142, he was named the archbishop of Tarantaise against his wishes, and he devoted much energy to reforming the diocese, purging the clergy of …

The Holy One of God

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The month of May holds much joy in our society. Spring is finally erupting in colors and new life in the majority of the USA. First communions, graduations, baptisms and weddings are being held with a renewed sense of appreciation to gather with family and friends after a long hiatus due to the pandemic.

The seasons of life have continued through the many challenges of the last two years. Personally, I’ve had many members of my family with big life events: a wedding, engagements, surgeries and burials. There are several young adults who have received certificates of study, graduated high school or college, achieved a masters degree and a doctorate (which I look forward to see conferred on this day, woohoo!).

The First Reading today has the apostle Peter performing two healing miracles. His actions, faith prayer, and witness about Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit helped many to believe in the Risen Lord.

The Responsorial Psalm speaks about returning to the Lord, as He has done so much good for me. I believe the journey of my own family is a good example of how much good the Lord has done in my life. I have entrusted all aspects of the family to the Lord, and thanked Him, the Lord God, ahead of time for an answer to prayer as Blessed Solanus Casey was known to do.

In the Gospel, Jesus again tells all who are listening that His words, body and blood are Spirit and life. “No one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.” The apostles say yes,  they believe Jesus is the Holy One of God. The apostles have listened to His teachings, seen the miracles; they know Jesus is the One.

The question that kept coming to me as I prepared to write this: Does the other person know I am an apostle too? Am I a visible face of the invisible God in this world? Does my family, coworker, person in the car next to me, know that I believe Jesus is the One? Do my actions and reactions embody this in my daily life? Do I bear witness that He is the Holy One of God? Do you?

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Beth Price is part of the customer care team at Diocesan. She is a Secular Franciscan (OFS) and a practicing spiritual director. Beth shares smiles, prayers, laughter, a listening ear and her heart with all of creation. Reach her here bprice@diocesan.com.

Feature Image Credit: Bruno Nascimento, https://unsplash.com/photos/eo11MS0FSnk

St. Rose Venerini: Saint of the Day for Saturday, May 07, 2022

Blessed Rose was born at Viterbo in 1656, the daughter of Godfrey Venerini, a physician. Upon the death of a young man who had been paying court to her, she entered a convent, but after a few months had to return home to look after her widowed mother. Rose use to gather the women and girls of the neighborhood to say the rosary together in the evenings, and when she found how ignorant many of them were of their religion, she began to instruct them. She was directed by Father Ignatius Martinelli, …

Blessing of a New House: Prayer of the Day for Saturday, May 07, 2022

O heavenly Father, Almighty God, we humbly beseech Thee to bless and sanctify this house and all who dwell therein and everything else in it, and do Thou vouchsafe to fill it with all good things; grant to them, O Lord, the abundance of heavenly blessings and from the richness of the earth every substance necessary for life, and finally direct their desires to the fruits of Thy mercy. At our entrance, therefore, deign to bless and sanctify this house as Thou didst deign to bless the house of …

Child of God

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My wife, Nathalie, and I welcomed our first child, Gabriel Michael Shultz, into the world on April 4th. As I write this we are in the throes of Gabe finding his personality, watching him grow every day, sleep deprivation, and all the highs and lows that come with this absolutely beautiful blessing of new life. 

Of course, as Catholics, one of the milestones in the Christian life is the sacrament of baptism, which we were able to celebrate last weekend. Father Adams, who also was the witness to our wedding, gave a wonderful reflection about what it means to be a child of God. He asked a few simple questions to the congregation that I want to ask you to reflect on today. When you are a child of a dog, what are you? You’re a dog. When you are a child of a giraffe, what are you? You’re a giraffe. When you are a child of a mongoose, what are you? You’re a mongoose. When you are a child of God, what are you?

It’s an interesting question to reflect on isn’t it? Naturally we want to say God but then we feel weird that we might be heretical in speaking about a human person as God. The Catechism, however, doesn’t have a problem with this strong language, in fact, it’s kind of the basis of our faith. What I am talking about is the idea of divinization, where we participate in the divine nature of God. If this all seems strange or foreign to you, the Catechism affirms it in saying, “The Word became flesh to make us ‘partakers of the divine nature’: ‘For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.’ ‘For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.’ ‘The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.’” -CCC 460

This process of divinization starts here on this earth, specifically through the sacraments, and continues on until we receive the full participation of the divine life in heaven. We got to witness our son on Sunday beginning this process. His smile immediately after the water was poured said it all, that he is a child of God and that his destiny, same as yours and mine, is to participate fully and completely in the divinity of God himself. 

So, of course, we all know that baptism makes us children of God, but what is next? How do we continue in this process of divinization here on this earth? We see the answer in today’s Gospel. Jesus tells us that, “Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.”

The sacraments are the physical signs of God’s love that are so real they literally infuse us with God himself. This should be the teaching we are shouting from the rooftops. If we want more people in the Church, let’s bring them in by sharing the truth that all of this exists in order that we might become partakers in the divine life. We saw it with our own eyes this past weekend. I encourage you to look up the date of your baptism and celebrate this date every year with your family and friends as a sign of what God is doing in your life and how he became man so that you might become God. 

From all of us here at Diocesan, God bless!

Tommy Shultz is a Business Development Representative for Diocesan. In this role he is committed to bringing the best software to dioceses and parishes while helping them evangelize on the digital continent. Tommy has worked in various diocese and parish roles since his graduation from Franciscan University with a Theology degree. He hopes to use his skills in evangelization, marketing, and communications, to serve the Church and bring the Good News to all. His favorite quote comes from St. John Paul II, who said, “A person is an entity of a sort to which the only proper and adequate way to relate is love.”

Feature Image Credit: Christian Bowen, https://unsplash.com/photos/I0ItPtIsVEE