From the Pastor - 1st Sunday in Lent

March 5, 2022

And so, it begins — the holy and, for some, daunting, season of Lent.  This is the season in our liturgical year when the Church encourages us to increase our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to help us enter more deeply into the mystery of our Lord’s Passion and Death and to celebrate more fully His Resurrection.


Jesus, by His own example in today’s Gospel, demonstrates the necessity of setting aside a period devoted especially to prayer and fasting as a means of strengthening our spiritual muscles. Just before the launch of His public ministry, He is “led by the Holy Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil.” In imitation of Jesus, we should ask the Holy Spirit to lead us into the desert, too — the desert of our interior lives where our thoughts and desires reside.


While our Lord was strong enough to withstand the temptations of the devil on His own, we most certainly are not! We must turn to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to show us where we need to grow, and then rely on the Holy Spirit for strength and guidance throughout these 40 days of growth. Perhaps we will be led to take on a spiritual reading program, or a daily time of meditation on the Scriptures.  Maybe we’ll be inspired to fast from our favorite food or social media fix and find a project that serves the poor in this community.


If these spiritual exercises hurt a little, that means we are doing them right! At the end of this season, we will be prepared to enter into the grace-filled days of the Triduum and we will, through the power of the Holy Spirit, be resurrected as a new creation with our Lord come Easter. Let us begin! © Catholic Stewardship Consultants, 2022


Pastoral Pondering

As I noted last week, the US Bishops have called for a time of Eucharistic renewal. As a help to all of us as we seek to deepen our appreciation for the Eucharist, I will address each of the pillars that are seen as central to aiding this renewal to take place. As noted last week the three include: kerygma, liturgy and diakonia or service. In order to understand the Eucharistic Kerygma, it is helpful to consider the foundational Kerygma of our faith.


In 1 Corinthians 1:23 St. Paul says: “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” This is the fundamental content of the Kerygma. In an address for World Marriage Day in 2012, Pope Benedict described it as follows: “the Kerygma of Christ who died and rose for the world’s salvation, the Kerygma of God’s absolute and total love for every man and woman, which culminates in his sending the eternal and only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus, who did not scorn to take on the poverty of our human nature, loving it and redeeming it from sin and death through the offering of Himself on the Cross.”


In Evangelium Gaudium Pope Francis notes that the Kerygma must be “the center of all evangelizing activity and all efforts of Church renewal.” In other words, we cannot recapture a true sense of the Eucharistic mystery unless and until we understand how that mystery is connected to and a manifestation of the Cross of Christ. Ultimately embracing the Kerygma is about embracing a life of repentance and conversion; both of which depend on the grace of God which He gives so generously. Hence, the proclamation of the Kerygma, the expression of God’s saving love, has to precede a catechesis on religious and moral life. It is imperative that we understand that “God loved us first” as St. John reminds us in his first letter (4:19).



The Lenten season affords us ample opportunity to meditate upon the Christian mystery. The stations of the Cross, for example, can help us move closer to and embrace Christ crucified. The fruitful celebration of the sacrament of penance can assist us to understand more deeply the reality of God’s love that was manifested so clearly on Calvary. And in developing this deeper understanding of the Kerygma, we more effectively dispose ourselves to a deeper understanding of what the Mass truly is and what Eucharistic communion demands.

Each one of us is called to evangelize the world in which we live. It is a world desperately in need of the proclamation of the God who loves. We cannot fulfill this common mission unless we ourselves come to understand the basis of our faith. For, in truth, we cannot give what we do not have.”


From the Pastor

From the Pastor - First Sunday of Advent

By John Putnam • December 2, 2025
Today we begin the beautiful season of Advent — a season of preparation. For what are we preparing? The celebration of the birth of our Savior, and the anticipation of His second coming. These are weighty tasks with eternal consequences. So, let us as Christian stewards make the words of the Prophet Isaiah our motto for the season: “Come, let us climb the Lord’s mountain to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may instruct us in his ways and we may walk in his paths.” In the weeks leading up to Christmas, it seems everywhere we turn we are pushed to spend more, do more, entertain more, and generally rush around at a frantic pace — all to create a “perfect” Christmas day. In contrast to this worldly pressure, the Church’s guidance to use these weeks as a time to focus on our spiritual lives can indeed seem like a mountain climb. But the intentional and wise use of the gift of time is exactly what the Christian steward is called to do, and with even greater intensity during Advent. How can we use our time to prepare for a holy celebration of Jesus’ birth on Dec. 25 and for his second coming at a date we do not know? We can push back against the world’s pressure to have the “perfect Christmas.” Scale back on the material kind of gift-giving, the complicated menus, the unessential trappings of the season so that we have more time for the spiritual preparations: Confession, weekday Mass, adoration, family prayer time, lighting the Advent wreath, acts of kindness. It may feel like a mountain climb, but in the end, we will be prepared to celebrate a truly meaningful Christmas, we will have become more like our Savior, and we will be ready for Him to come again. Let’s go climb the Lord’s mountain! © Catholic Stewardship Consultants, 2025 From the Pastor Advent brings a time of new beginning. A new liturgical year is upon us, but it is also a time to prepare our hearts for something – for the coming of the Lord. The first weeks of Advent focus on the Lord’s coming at the end of time, and the latter weeks of Advent focus on preparing to celebrate His coming at the Nativity. Both, however, are interconnected. The first coming of the Lord facilitates His coming into our hearts, which, in the end, facilitates His second coming to judge the living and the dead. The “in between” of these two comings is where time and eternity come together. We are called to live each day in expectation of His coming. We are called to hope for His coming and to expect it even when it seems long delayed. It is in this expectation that we must learn to live our lives. Daily life is messy and unpredictable. We must deal with disappointments, sickness and loss. Yet, we do so as people of hope who know that in these crosses, there lies ultimate joy because of the love of the Father who sent his Son to love us to the end. As we begin a new journey in a new liturgical year, let us do so with joyful expectation. Knowing that the end of the journey, if we are faithful, is paradise.

From the Pastor - Solemnity of Christ the King

By John Putnam • November 21, 2025
On this Feast of Christ the King, our readings show us that we serve the greatest of Kings, who is at the same time the humblest of Kings. Christ is the perfect model of servant leadership. And what an indescribable privilege that He has called us to be servant leaders — stewards in the work of advancing His Kingdom. In our second reading, from St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians, Paul describes the great power and dignity that characterize Christ the King. “All things were created through him and for him. He is before all things and in him all things hold together.” It makes you want to stand up and cheer. That’s our King! Yet, what a contrasting description of the same King we find in our Gospel passage, from Luke. Now we see our King nailed to the Cross. Everyone from rulers to soldiers, to the criminals on either side of Christ is mocking, sneering, and reviling him. They tauntingly urge him to prove His kingship by coming down from the Cross to end his suffering with a great show of power. “if you are the King of the Jews, save yourself.” But He does not. Amazingly, it is in this moment of seeming-weakness and humiliation, when all appears hopeless and lost, that the full breadth of his greatness as king is displayed. Though all things were created through and for Him — Christ chooses to live entirely for others, for us! What does this mean for us as his followers and stewards of His kingdom? It is precisely that our lives are not about us. They are about Christ and others. And we will advance his kingdom to the extent that we embrace this mindset: my life is not about me; it is about serving the King of kings. © Catholic Stewardship Consultants, 2025