Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Hello! It’s really good to be home and to see everyone again! The trip with my family was awesome and we had a great time exploring “the Old Country”. Please know that I prayed for each of you at all of our stops. We had a particularly beautiful Mass as the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, Italy, and I prayed for the whole Parish there. But as Dorothy said in the “Wizard of Oz”, “There’s no place like home.”

This past week, we celebrated the Feast Day of the little Holy man from Assisi. St. Francis was such a wonderful example of the joy and the love of the Lord. He rejoiced in everything. He saw everything as coming from God. He looked at life as all being a part of God’s great plan. And he was happy, and content, and full of joy. His joy was contagious. In the Thirteenth century, a strange thing happed to the young people of Assisi. All of a sudden, they began to find their joy, their happiness, and their fulfillment in Jesus, in prayer, and in the Church. They changed their lives. They changed their little town. And they changed the Church forever. Nearly eight hundred years later, we pray to have that same joy and peace in our Faith. An enthusiastic and joy-filled Faith is unstoppable. The Franciscan movement, and eventually the Franciscan Order, would spread like wild fire throughout the Church. It was Christianity in it’s most zealous and sincere form. The early Franciscans challenged the whole Church because their Faith was so enthusiastic and joy-filled. A Catholic Christian with a smile on their face and a real zeal in their heart for Jesus can do so much for our Lord, than a Catholic Christian who wants to sit around and wait for God to zap them. Today we need the message of St. Francis of Assisi. Today we too need to be enthusiastically living out our Faith in true joy. I’m not talking about the Tammy Fae Baker kind of, paint-a-smile-on-your-face, false joy. I’m talking about the kind of joy that can only come from deep inner peace and the knowledge that you are loved by God.

What would it take for you to have that kind of joy in your life? What would God have to do? What would we as His Church have to do? What would you have to do? The world should know that we are Christians, because it should be written all over our faces with joy and peace. Is it? Are we joy-filled people? Sometimes when you look at Catholics, they don’t look so “joy-filled”. St. Francis would probably laugh at us and tell us to “lighten up”. We are the most blessed people in the whole world. We are headed towards Heaven. We have a God who loves us beyond our wildest dreaming. We have been given extraordinary people in our lives to love and support us. How can we not be grateful? How can we not be joyful in recognition of what God has done.

I pray that this community would ALWAYS be filled with the joy, and the peace, and the happiness of being true followers of Jesus Christ. Even today, joy, Faith, and love are contagious! May the community of St. Maria Goretti be infected with these things always. May we be joyful and happy for one another.

Like the early Franciscans, we are creating something new here at St. Maria Goretti. Working with God through His Holy Spirit, with love and enthusiasm, we get to build a new community. We’ve been working at this now for nearly ten years, but there is so much more to do. We need everybody’s gifts and talents. We need everybody’s help. We need everyone to be joy-filled and enthusiastic about what we believe in. This is great stuff, guys. It is our privilege to be here working for the Lord.

We pray this weekend for the guys of Christ Renews His Parish Team #11 who are making their weekend. May God be with all involved! It’s the women’s turn next weekend, as Women’s Christ Renews His Parish Team #11 make their weekend. Let us keep all of these brothers and sisters in our prayers.

Have a great week! Don’t you love the Fall in Indiana? I think that this is my favorite season. God bless you and your family!

In Christ,

Fr. Kevin

God will never make you more holy than you want to be.