Weekly insight and thoughts from Fr. Damian Zuerlein
Pastor’s Letter 1.9.22
Dear Friends, After my letter explaining the octave of Christmas, several people asked about the origin of the idea that there are 12 days to Christmas. In the traditional Christmas calendar, January 6th is Epiphany or Theophany. The 6th of January would be the 12th...
Pastor’s Letter 1.2.22
Dear Friends, If all has gone well, then I am on retreat this week. Priests are required to take a retreat every year and 2021 had slipped by me without a retreat – so I am sneaking it in under the wire. I will be back soon. As a letter, I am giving you a little story...
Pastor’s Letter 1.26.21
Merry Christmas!!! The Church thinks this is such a special feast that one day is not sufficient. Christmas is not a day, Christmas has an “octave”. An octave has a unique meaning in music and math. Pythagoras, the ancient Greek mathematician, discovered that notes...
Pastor’s Letter 12.19.21
Dear Friends, We have arrived at our last week of Advent. Just a bit more time to prepare. If you have been doing any shopping out and about, then you have been hearing the melodies of Christmas carols being played ahead of Christmas. If we focused on the words of the...
Pastor’s Letter 12.12.21
Dear Friends, Did you hear the amazing words in today’s first reading? It is the last line of a beautiful reading from the prophet Zephaniah: “The LORD, your God, is in your midst, a mighty savior; he will rejoice...
Pastor’s Letter 12.5.21
Dear Friends, December 6th is the feast of St. Nicholas. Do you know his story? Saint Nicholas lived between 260 and 343, born in Patara, a Lycian port town, an area that is part of present-day Turkey. He lost both of his parents as a young man and reportedly used his...
Pastor’s Letter 11.28.21
Dear Friends, I am ending our reading about the synod today – at least for now – after all, Advent has begun. However, before we leave the synod preparation materials, Pope Francis has several questions for you to be thinking about. Here he introduces the questions:...
Pastor’s Letter 11.21.21
Dear Friends, We continue our reflections and readings about the two-year Synod process that was begun last month. What follows are further reflections from the preparation documents to help us understand what the Synod is hoping for. Those of you who follow Church...
Pastor’s Letter 11.14.21
Dear Friends, Some of you may be asking, why is Pope Francis calling a Synod about the church as a whole? Certainly, Pope Francis has called Synods to discuss families or young people or the challenges in South America, but why do we need one for the whole Church to...
Pastor’s Letter 11.7.21
Dear Friends, As I mentioned last week, the Church has begun a Synodal process to listen, pray and decide together where the Spirit of God is leading the Church. Here is the statement about the process from our local Archdiocese: On March 7, 2021, Pope Francis...
Pastor’s Letter 10.31.21
Dear Friends, You may not be aware of it, but a historical step in the history of the church began this month. AND, Pope Francis wants you to be a part of it. Let me give you some information from the preparatory Vatican documents so you may have a better...
Pastor’s Letter 10.24.21
Dear Friends, Thanks so much for the wonderful work done by so many of you in preparing for and executing the Spaghetti Dinner last Sunday. Our attendance numbers were lower (as expected) because of Covid19, but we still did a huge amount of takeout dinners and had a...