NCYC 2009: Christ Reigns (National Catholic Youth Conference - Kansas City)

Men's Renewal - Come Holy Spirit - 2009

Dear Friends,

Last weekend was the Men’s Renewal. The 20 men that made the renewal along with the team are very grateful for the prayers and support of the entire parish. It was a very moving weekend. The team, which has been working together for the last five months, was evidently bonded. Joe Russo, Dave Brown, and Bill Cerha brought belly laughs from their skits of Martha and Mary and Pit Bulz 4 Christ. Frank McGroarty (of Bedford Auto, yeah guys they are sponsoring this tooJ) did a great job leading the men as the lay director. A special thanks to the families and friends of these men who showed their support and were present both in prayer and in spirit. A Thank You to all the team members that donated so many resources to make the Renewal a more meaningful and memorable experience.
And, yes, ladies we certainly couldn’t have done it without you. Thanks for the great dinners and all that you did with helping us plan and put on this weekend. As the weekend came to an end my heart was filled with gratitude. Times like these help me realize how blessed I am to be a parish priest. Formation will begin in two weeks for the next Renewal so please continue to keep these men in your prayers because they are going to help Renew this entire parish.

In the Spirit,

Fr. Michael

Connections Halloween

Dear Friends,

Last week the Connections group had their annual Halloween party. The kids were all dressed up in everything from Hannah Montana to Star Wars Characters, injured sports players to princesses. Although our original plan fell through because of some flu shot side effects we ended up having a great evening right here at the parish. Thanks to Suzanne Carter and Dave Brown for their last minute creativity. It was a beautiful Indian Summer Evening so we got to sit by a bon fire and play hide and seek and ghosts in the graveyard. The kids were also treated to a hay ride thanks to Greg Nied and Don Rambacher. The Connections Group is always open to new married couples. They are a wonderful group of support and friendship. This Friday is the Connections Thanksgiving Celebration. If you are interested in joining the Connections Group contact Tina Cerha at tcerha@roadrunner.com. Thanks Tina for the great pictures! To see more go to our parish website and check out my blog.

This weekend the Men are on their renewal. Please pray for the Renewal Team and for the Men who are making the weekend that this may truly be a time of opening up to the Lord and to the love and support of each other.

God Bless,

Fr. Michael J. Denk

All Saints Day Homily: These are the Ones who have survived the time of great distress.

Fr. Michael Denk

Homily for All Saints Day

November 1, 2009

St. Barnabas 5pm and 7:30 am

It’s interesting the way that we celebrate Halloween before All Saints Day. What makes it possible for us to celebrate, delight in, and laugh at Horror? One of the scariest things that we are facing right now is the Swine Flu and what do you think the number one costume is? Swine Flu. Followed by Michael Jackson, President Obama, Vampires, and Witches. What enables us to laugh at something so scary? It is the realization that we will survive. Sickness and even death is not the end, they are not the final answer.

Revelations declares “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress.” What enables us to go on in life despite it’s horrors is that others have made it through.

Alcoholics Anonymous® is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.

Bill W. began the first support group in 1935 in Akron, OH. In 1997 there were over 114,000 groups and today AA Support Groups can be found all over the world. It is an example of how we can be helped by seeking out those who have survived. Here’s a story from the Big Book: Chapter 3, “Women Suffer Too.”

I went to a meeting to see for myself this group of freaks or bums who had done this thing. To go into a gathering of people was the sort of thing that all my life, from the time I left my private world of books and dreams to meet the real world of people and parties and jobs, had left me feeling an uncomfortable outsider, needing the warming stimulus of drinks to join in. I went trembling into a house in Brooklyn filled with strangers . . . and I found I had come home at last, to my own kind. There is another meaning for the Hebrew word that in the Bible is translated "salvation." It is: "to come home." I had found my salvation. I wasn't alone any more.

That was the beginning of a new life, a fuller life, a happier life than I had ever known or believed possible. I had found friends, understanding friends who often knew what I was thinking and feeling better than I knew myself, and didn't allow me to retreat into my prison of loneliness and fear over a fancied slight or hurt. Talking things over with them, great floods of enlightenment showed me myself as I really was and I was like them. We all had hundreds of character traits, of fears and phobias, likes and dislikes, in common. Suddenly I could accept myself, faults and all, as I was—for weren't we all like that? And, accepting, I felt a new inner comfort, and the willingness and strength to do something about the traits I couldn't live with.
It didn't stop there. They knew what to do about those black abysses that yawned ready to swallow me when I felt depressed, or nervous.

Sometimes the saints seem like a group of “group of freaks or bums” that we couldn’t possibly relate to. However, when I read the lives of the Saints and their writings and pray with them I discover that they have been through a lot of what I go through. In the Saints I find friends, understanding friends who often know what I’m thinking and feeling better than I know myself. They have faced the struggles and difficulties and temptations… and they have survived! Not only do they give us encouragement but they also are with us to guide us and guard us.

Here are some of my favorite sayings of Saints who have survived the times of great distress…

Julian of Norwich reminds me very simply and strongly:

All shall be well

St. Francis DeSales calms me when I am anxious

"Have no fear for what tomorrow may bring. The same loving God who cares for you today will care for you tomorrow and ever day. God will either shield you from all suffering or give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace, then, and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations"

Faustina couldn’t say it any simpler and more powerful:

Jesus I trust in you

St. Augustine helps me to understand my restless:

My heart is restless until it rests in thee

St. John Vianney reminds me how simple prayer can be:

“I look at the good God and the Good God looks at me.”

St. Therese of Lisieux reminds me that

Nothing is small the eyes of God. Do all things you do with love.

St. Teresa of Avila helps me to be patient on the journey.

Let nothing trouble you

Let nothing frighten you

Everything passes

God never changes

Patience

Obtains all

Whoever has god

Wants for nothing

God alone is enough.

St. Francis de Sales reaffirms the need for patience of which I can’t hear enough:

Have Patience with all things, but first of all with yourself.

St. Ignatius gives me the courage to continue on and work through the distress of life.

Teach us, good Lord, to serve Thee as Though deservest;

To give and not count the cost;

To fight and not to heed the wounds;

To toil and not seek for rest;

To labor and not ask for any reward

Save that of knowing that we do thy will.”

St. Philip Neri reminds me to take it one day at a time and remember what is most important.

The Best way to prepare for death is to spend every day of life as though it were the last.

St. Angela Merici motivates me

Do now; do now, what you will wish to have done when your moment comes to die.

St. Gregory of Nyssa helps me to look beyond the problems and frustrations.

Hope always draws the mind from what is seen to what is beyond.

St. Jerome encourages me to seek friendship with the saints.

A friend is long sought, hardly found, and kept only with difficulty.

He reminds me to seek out these saintly men and women both on heaven and earth who have walked through the difficulties and are there to help and support me.

Revelations declares “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress.” The saints are there for us to help us on the journey and to inspire us. It’s long been in our tradition that we can look to them for inspiration and that they can intercede for us and walk with us on the journey.

Begin by learning about them and getting to know them and their lives. Here are some books from simple to more in depth that can help inspire you:

All Shall Be Well: Hope and Inspiration from Great Catholic Thinkers. Jane Cavolina.

http://www.amazon.com/All-Shall-Be-Well-Inspiration/dp/B000C4SW3G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257016002&sr=1-1

My Life with the Saints. James Martin.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0829420010/ref=s9_simz_gw_s0_p14_t1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=05RS1KBW3KZ1D4K4S8MS&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846

All Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time by Robert Ellsberg

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=all+saints

Butler's Lives of the Saints

http://www.amazon.com/Butlers-Lives-Saints-Concise-Modernized/dp/1557254222/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257016125&sr=1-12

The saints remind us of the victory that Christ has won for us. They help us to laugh in the face of death and embrace the crosses with joy.

"Spark the Flame" 8th Grade Retreat Class of 2010

"Spark the Flame" 8th Grade Retreat Class of 2010 (More)

Immaculee at Walsh University

I was blessed to meet Immaculee and hear her story in person. It was
an amazing evening. If you haven't read her book "Left to Tell" it is a
must read.

Priesthood Sunday

Fr. Michael Denk

Priesthood Sunday Homily

St. Barnabas – noon and 5pm NYV

October 25, 2009

 

Every once in a while someone will ask me how I got to where I am.  Every priest has his own story, but the similarity is God calling.  This is indeed a mysterious calling.  Priesthood is not a job or a career choice.  It is a vocation… a calling that comes from God and not from us.  To tell my story, I’m going to reflect on today’s second reading from Paul to the Hebrews.

 

Brothers and sisters:
Every high priest is taken from among men

 

I have been taken out from my “normal” life.  Anyone who has known me for a long time or has heard some of the stories of my past knows that my life is very different than it used to be.  And I love my life now.  The times when I least liked my life just so happened to be the times when I was saying no to God’s call.  God called me numerous times during my life to the priesthood beginning with my childhood.  Though he called me from my mother’s womb, one of the earliest memories I have is after my first communion when a good friend of the family came up to me, bent down, looked me in the eyes and said “Michael, you look like you’d be a great priest one day.”  I never forgot that phrase.  One of the clearest times he called me was when my older brother Bob was on his way to a retreat to discern the priesthood.  I was with a friend and we were getting ready to head down to the “flats” with some of my other, once high-school, now adult and working buddies.  Bobby called me to tell me he was on his way to the retreat, and forgot to tell me the date (It must run in the family), but it was tonight.  “Do I still want to go?” he asked.  I told him I don’t know… then I paced around the house and finally went to the deck in the back of my house, looked up into the sky and asked God.  I knew in my heart that He wanted me to finally say yes to this call.  God can take us at any moment, especially if we are open to the call.  If we can see him at work and recognize him like the blind man Bartimaeus in today’s gospel.  Right now, God is here.  Ask him to help you to know your vocation.  God has taken me out of the normal life and lifted me to this life of priesthood. 

and made their representative before God,

 

As a priest I have this special privilege of being a part of your lives especially at significant times.  Just this week a very kind and elderly man came up to me and said “Father, my wife is dying and we both want you to do her funeral.”  What an honor.  I told him that I would love to come and pray with her and spend some time with them.  He offered to take me out to lunch with her this week, but I just got a call that she is now with hospice and is dying so would I please come and see her and hear her last confession.  What a privilege.  In some way I become a bridge to God.  I hear your confessions and concerns and requests for prayers and all day long I am praying for you making your requests known to God.  One of my purposes of being a priest is to pray for you.  I go before God every day when I say mass, and throughout the day when I pray and I reflect on all the lives and all the people that God has placed into my life that day.  And then I bring your prayers before God.  People ask me to pray for them all the time and I do, morning, noon, and night.  In a special way your struggles become mine, I carry your burdens to the heart of the Father. 

to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.

 

The gifts I offer are bread and wine.  I also offer my life, my whole self to God, and all of you.  Each and every morning I lie down before the crucifix and ask God to take me and to use me.  And yes, there is sacrifice.  I lay my life down for all of you that you may know the forgiveness of your sins.  I said to someone the other day, I have a small glimpse of what it must be like to be a mother, to constantly give and give and give and then give some more.  We give because God has been so good to us.  I give because God has given me so much in this life and I have come to know his love in such a deep and personal way and I want for all of you to know that and experience that same love. 

He is able to deal patiently with the ignorant and erring, for he himself is beset by weakness

 

Patience is not one of my virtues, but by God’s grace I can see all of you with compassion.  The more that I am aware of my own weakness and the more I know that I myself am ignorant and err, and the more patient I realize that God is with me, the more patient I am with all of you.  I myself mess up and do the things that I don’t want to do.  When I become impatient it is because I haven’t myself been vulnerable to God.  And I’m sorry for that.  His Love is patient, His love is kind.  It’s only when I admit my weakness and go before God in confession or humbly approach this altar and ask forgiveness that I am much more gentle and patient with all of you. 

and so, for this reason, must make sin offerings for himself
as well as for the people.

 

Every day the priest celebrates the Eucharist, before he begins that Eucharistic Prayer and transforms the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.  The priest washes his hands and says silently to himself: “Lord, wash away my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sins.”  I say these words, realizing my own sinfulness sometimes more acutely than others.  But I celebrate this Eucharist not only to be cleansed of my own sins, but for yours as well.  We all struggle with sin and are all in need of this sin offering.

No one takes this honor upon himself
but only when called by God,

 

Becoming a priest wasn’t my idea.  Believe me I had other ideas for my life.  It wasn’t an honor that I grasped at or even understood.  God called.  What is this call like?  We can experience the call to the priesthood in three ways: from another person of the church (like my brother or that moment after my first communion or the priest saying it to us), from God Himself, and in the Depths of our Heart.  It is not something that we decide like a hobby or a career, it is a call and it is God who initiates the call.  And guess what?  He doesn’t stop calling.  He is persistent.  He won’t give up on you. 

just as Aaron was.

 

Just as Aaron was, and I was, God is calling some of you young men to the priesthood.  He loves you so much and wants you to know this love and share this love with others.  Maybe he is speaking to your heart right now.  Maybe someone has said this to you before.  Maybe in the depths of your heart you will hear his voice.  If you don’t see him working in your life… if you are not sure of the call, then like Bartimaeus, ask him to help you to see.  Ask him to help you to know if you are called to the priesthood. 

 

In the same way,
it was not Christ who glorified himself in becoming high priest,
but rather the one who said to him:
You are my son:
this day I have begotten you;

 

There are moments along the journey when our call is confirmed.  When we here God say “You are my son: this day I have begotten you.”  For me it was glimpses along the way where I would have an experience of priesthood.  A lady that I visited in the hospital who was away from the faith, but opened herself up to me.  Another was one evening after the reception for a good friend of mine – Mike Snider.  I was his best man.  It was a great night of dancing and celebration.  And as I walked out to my car that night I noticed that all of my other friends were walking out with their dates arm in arm… and I walked out alone.  But I wasn’t sad.  I realized I was OK.  I was happy even leaving alone because I loved my life and I was not alone.    There were moments of realizing the good people that God placed in my life to love and support me.  I have more good friends than I ever did.  People that have made me feel part of their family.  People that have treated me like their own son.  I have heard the voice of the father saying to me “You are my son.” 

just as he says in another place:
You are a priest forever
according to the order of Melchizedek.

 

I am so blessed to be called to this life.  I know it is forever because God continues to support me with good friends and families and good priests to bless me and walk with me.  This is not a life that I walk alone.  I walk it with all of you, in the company of my brother priests, and in this long line of priests that God has given us to bless us and guide us.  This priesthood Sunday we pray for all of our priests that they may know and cherish their call to the priesthood.  From Melchizedek to St. John Vianney to the priests who have served you at St. Barnabas: Fr. Bedell, Fr. DeCrane, Fr. Norm, Fr. David, Fr. Charlie, Fr. Bob, Fr. Ralph and myself.  And If God is calling you to the priesthood open your heart to him this Priesthood Sunday.  This priesthood Sunday please pray for each of us priests that we may remain “a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” 

 

 

 

Follow the Lamb - St. Barnabas - Women's Renewal 2009

Click to Download the pictures from the Women's Renewal (St. Barnabas, Christ Renews His Parish "2009 Follow Me").

Sign the Petition

I've been informed that International Planned Parenthood
Federation has launched a new petition drive in favor of a right to
abortion and that their petition has already been signed by 150,000
people. Quite frankly, we must bury their petition with hundreds of
thousands of prolife voices and names!

http://www.c-fam.org/campaigns/lid.2/default.asp