Twenty Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dear family, 

Wow! What a joy it was to see so many of our young people and so many of their parents at our first day of Religious Education (CCD)! While I still have to iron out a few wrinkles in my presentation skills (my internet died before I could show a final video as part of my talk to the adults), everybody else did their part wonderfully to make the opening day a success. I’m already looking forward to our next faith formation evening, October 4 (the feast of St. Francis of Assisi) being even more awesome, including a special guest musician at the 4 p.m. Sunday Family Mass, and hopefully a special guest speaker for the adult session (fingers crossed)! I’m very grateful to our catechists who make this all possible. A special thanks to Julie Richard-Spencer, who has really stepped up to help coordinate our religious education program this school year, after the retirement of Suzanne Remondet. She has been a huge help to me!! 

I am also very blessed to be able to attend the beatification of Archbishop Fulton Sheen this Thursday in St. Louis, and I’m pumped about it! Yes, that’s St. Louis, Missouri, not St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. If you’ve never heard of Fulton Sheen, look him up! This man was one of my priest-heroes when I was growing up. Through the miracle of tele vision, I could watch the preaching of a holy archbishop who died a decade before I was even born… and not just any recordings of him, but his very own TV show from the 1950s! Now, if you’re used to today’s TV production standards, you might find his show hard to watch. It seems we need everything to be fast, flashy, and tightly edited nowadays; but back then, the power of Archbishop Sheen’s delivery, and the even greater power of the Truth of the message he was preaching, made his show at times the most watched show during primetime. According to a recent article by journalist Matthew McDonald, “Sheen’s show rivaled comedian Milton Berle’s popular Tuesday night variety show on NBC in the ratings and may have driven Frank Sinatra’s singing and comedy show on CBS off the air. (All three aired at the same time during the early 1950s.)” Before there was Fr. David Michael Moses on TikTok, there was Archbishop Sheen on TV, often getting more views than Milton Berle and Frank Sinatra! What a great patron saint he will be for all those involved in TV and radio, in visual and audio media! Personally, I have benefited from those of his books or re cordings of his retreat talks directed at priests. I am nowhere near being the priest God’s people need me to be, but soon-to-be-Blessed Fulton Sheen’s words will help me get there! I look forward to telling you all about the beatifica tion when I get back. In the meantime, please give a warm welcome next weekend to our visiting priest from Cross Catholic Outreach, Fr. Anthony Aarons. I am very grateful to him for making it possible for me to attend the beatification of one of my heroes.     

Yours truly in Christ,