Father Michael's Column

The Christmas lights and decorations have come down. The holiday season has ended. That may be a cause for sadness—or a sigh of relief. In any event, “Happy Ordinary Time”! 



Sometimes a season like Christmas can be a real emotional and spiritual high—or not. Regardless, as the Christmas Season finishes, we can often feel really worn out. At that point, beginning what we call “the season of Ordinary Time" can seem instead like beginning the season of "Down-in-a-Rut Time". 

But that's not the way it should be! Far from being depressing or dull, "ordinary" should refer to the exciting work of the Lord that we are all supposed to ordinarily be doing day-to-day. If we keep focused on what the LORD is asking us to do, rather than on what WE feel we must do or (worse yet) what OTHER PEOPLE tell us we should be doing, we can find ourselves feeling peaceful, even in the midst of chaos. We can find ourselves energized and refreshed. 

The key to this wonderful experience however, is to take time to pray, especially to LISTEN to the Lord during prayer. Prayer is supposed to be a conversation with God. “Conversation” suggests that you’re not supposed to be doing all the talking. 

How important is praying and listening? As we see in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus seemed to think it was pretty important. Please understand that I really like the Gospel of Mark—not just because it’s the shortest—but because it’s an action-packed Gospel! It seems almost breathless as one thing happens right after another. However, in the Gospel reading for last Wednesday it also recounted how Jesus, after a busy, successful, but long day, didn’t just move on into the next active day. Instead, it says that early the next morning Jesus “went off to a lonely place in the desert; there he was absorbed in prayer.” After his companions “managed to track him down,” he told them to move on with him to the neighboring villages to proclaim the Good News there also, because that was what he was sent to do. What gave Jesus the energy and direction to keep going? It was prayer. He was listening to the Father and the Spirit. I think he was teaching his disciples (and us) by example how to keep going and keep doing the work of the Father. 

“Ordinary time” is the right time for doing the ongoing work of disciples. But if we’re going to succeed in hearing and heeding what the Lord wants us to do, we need to pay attention to when, where, and how much time we spend in prayer. Otherwise, we’ll tend to get discouraged, or maybe even overwhelmed. 

Part of the work of a disciple is to call others to the Christ. After developing a deeper relationship with Christ ourselves, we need to share the Lord with others. If you are trying to bring someone [back] to the Christ, without prayer you could easily get discouraged. Instead, keep your efforts focused through prayer. You will be tuned into the Spirit when the time comes to specially witness to that person how Christ has made a difference in your life. Prayer leads us to action, action that will be effective because it will be empowered by the Spirit. 

If your prayer-life seems to be lagging, one way to bolster it is to LEARN something! New insights can do wonders for adding enthusiasm to Mass, private prayer, and day-to-day living. One resource is the high-quality books and electronic recordings that are available in the East Tower Entrance of the church. 

But wait, there’s more! As I’ve mentioned many times, the Parish has purchased access to a tremendous ONLINE resource called FORMED (from Augustine Institute) and it is available FREE to our parishioners! 

 How to access it? Go to our website and click the button named “Browse FORMED”. Once you’ve quickly scanned through what’s there and decide, “I GOTTA have this!” you’ll be asked to set up an account by using your email address and creating a password. (You might want to write down your password somewhere in case you’re asked for it again.) 

Besides the movies, there are a lot of extremely high quality programs with great production values. One that I especially recommend if you know of someone who is starting to come to grips with the meaning of life, is a seven-episode program called THE SEARCH. It’s listed in the group named, “Formed’s Favorites”. 

 Another way to keep your prayer-life (and your learning) in a growth mode is to JOIN A SMALL FAITH SHARING GROUP! Ask a person who has been a member of any such group for years, and he or she can readily witness to the huge benefit their experiences of learning, friendship, prayer, and support have been to their spiritual life. I hope that at some point virtually every parishioner will be involved with one or another small faith-sharing group. It’s becoming evident that this is key to having a parish filled with disciples. It’s often helpful (though not essential) to join a group with which you have an “affinity”, such as “young adults” or “parents with young children” or “recently bereaved”. If you call the rectory, we’ll have someone get back to you to help you find and join a group that works for you. 

Liturgically, we are now in “Ordinary Time”. But far from being dull or boring, if you get involved with one of our small groups, you’ll find that the ordinary life of our parish is actually pretty extraordinary! It’s an exciting time to be a member of St. William Parish. 

Please keep praying—and listening. Together we will accomplish the Mission the Lord has sent us to do. 

In Jesus,
Fr. Michael

P.S. This last week from Wednesday through Friday the priests of our archdiocese met in all-day sessions to discern some of the restructuring steps that will be proposed to the Archbishop. Soon, there will be “listening sessions” at many sites throughout the diocese so that parishioners can also provide input. In my next column I’ll try to share a bit of what happened at the priests’ meeting. Please keep the restructuring process in your prayers!