Dear Friends, The church begins its greatest feast today. A feast that lasts a week. This week we remember and celebrate the Paschal Mystery. This week we recall all that Jesus did out of love for us and the work that redeems us. This week we remember the event from...

Dear Friends, For the last seven weeks Pope Francis’ book, The Name of God is Mercy, has been on the New York Times Best Seller List. In the introduction to the book, Andrea Tornelli recounts a homily by Pope Francis on the woman caught in adultery: “Their only...

Dear Friends, Our Lenten journey is half over. How are you doing? Have you kept your commitment or your fast or your extra prayer or your good deeds? If not, now is the time to ask God to help you work toward whatever Lenten Penance you have chosen to do. Like the fig...

Dear Friends, Last Sunday evening, Channel 7 (KETV) did a story about the original Cathedral bells that hang in our bell tower and our desire to restore them to get them ringing again. If you saw it, I hope you enjoyed the attention the story brought to the parish. We...

Dear Friends, We were honored this past week to have a powerful presentation by Deacon James Keating to kick-off our Lenten Thursday series. He reminded us to see each person as precious rather than the way our culture tends to look at people – as useful. He also...

Dear Friends, Easter is early this year. Which means…Lent is upon us! This Wednesday, we begin our Lenten Season with Ash Wednesday Masses. Then, we start our Lenten reflection series on Mercy with a talk by Dr. James Keating on Thursday evening at 7:00 pm in the...

4th Sunday in Ordinary Time “Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, it is not pompous.” (1 Corinthians 13:4) Do you get jealous? Do you focus more on the things that other people have than on the gifts that God has given you? Are you pompous? Do you acquire...

Dear Friends, As we continue to celebrate this Holy Year of Mercy, I thought you might want to better understand the meaning of a “Holy Year.” This is from the Vatican website: WHAT IS A HOLY YEAR? “In the Roman Catholic tradition, a Holy Year, or Jubilee is a great...

Dear Friends, I recently gave a talk to the employees of the Archdiocese of Omaha about the Jubilee Year of Mercy and what the word love means as it used in sacred scripture. A great resource for that presentation was the first encyclical letter of Pope Benedict, Deus...

Dear Friends, You may have noticed a few weeks ago a news report from Pew Research Center that said the share of adults living in middle income households fell to just under 50 percent last year from 61 percent in 1970. Upper income families rose to 21 percent of the...

Dear Friends, My deepest thanks for the many thoughtful gifts and cards and “goodies” you sent to me for Christmas. Now, I must start the dieting in anticipation of Lent! I will be taking a short winter vacation in mid-January with Fr. Boes. We have done an annual...