Fr. Don’s Weekly Letter ~ 31 May 2026

Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,

Something remarkable happened last weekend, in case you hadn’t heard. My brother Bob is now Father Bob at 60 years of age. Of course, there were jokes going around about how three time’s (going to seminary) a charm, but I had a lot of time to reflect on Bob’s life and how selfless he has been. There were several opportunities for people to give witness to Bob’s goodness and humility all these years, never speaking about himself or his marvelous career. He faithfully laid priesthood aside until our parents were cared for and at rest. I wrote in his card that he has been a priest all these years and the sacrament finally caught up to him.

Isn’t that exactly what we have been talking about for weeks? The priesthood of the faithful – your priesthood – which gives credibility to the words of consecration. Not the consecration of bread and wine, or even of a priest, but the consecration you received at baptism. Set aside for a sacred purpose.

The other takeaway I got from this past weekend is how we really need to cele-brate each other more than we do. Here was a 60-year-old man who has had a full life of caring for people and being cared for, jumping some pretty high hurdles, incredibly successful, doing most things really well and with integrity. Person after person this weekend spoke about how Bob had touched their lives in really significant ways. It was truly a celebration. It occurred to me that we don’t get around to this kind of community sharing until the person we love has died.

I want to say today that the funeral is too late. We need to be consciously seeking ways to celebrate each other right now. It is in these moments that the glue of community solidifies. Memories are wonderful, even great, but they are in the
past and we need them now to strength-en and deepen our bonds in families and communities. What might be an action in the present moment must not be al-lowed to be reduced to sentimentality. God gives us these moments and, like the rest of his Word of revelation, we need to be paying attention.

What might those celebrations look like? When we were growing up, not a lot of emphasis was placed on birthdays. We would receive presents, and Mom always baked angel food cakes (the kind you blend by hand and cool upside down so they don’t sink). She was pretty impressive in this regard! But there was never a king-for-the-day feeling and certainly a day off school was not at all in the negotiation. (Actually, come to think of it, negotiation wasn’t actually a word when I was young.)

The kind of celebration I’m talking about, I guess, requires a certain amount of life lived, and lived in the context of others. Things remembered that we share in joy and sorrow, and those we can share them with. Bob’s celebration brought together our extended family, so many of his friends from college who came from all over the country, people he worked with all these years, people from his seminary experiences. This kind of context is vital to our identity and our sense of purpose. It is precisely this that Pope Leo and others are defending in the face of artificial intelligence that can’t possibly know who we are, as the product of so many relationships and experiences. There must be time for storytelling and refreshing memories. Rediscovering so many things that need to be rediscovered or risk being lost to future uncertainty. Aren’t these the things that anchor us and bring even more new opportunities?

Maybe those of us from the 60s and 70s should challenge the 80s/90s and early 2000s to themed celebrations that focus on this community and the world at the time? Celebrate where we’ve come from and consider how things might have been different? What have we allowed to slip away that we need to bring forward into the future? The faith250 program is hoping to do this in the context of our country’s 250th anniversary. I wonder what that might look like in the context of Saint Bernadette?

Where have we all come from, and where would we like to go together? What are tools we have learned along the way, and how can we look to each other to make the journey more meaningful, holy, and alive?

The Lord be with you,