Fr. Don’s Weekly Letter ~ 1 June 2025

Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,

This past week, after spending a week at my home parish in Kansas for my brother Bob’s ordination celebration, I have had time for a thoughtful reflection of community and its value.

Being home was a powerful experience of community and memory. Wea, Kansas is a very small farming community, though it is growing quickly with development as the city comes closer and closer. Many of the families that were there 50 years ago are still there, most of the parishioners of my parents’ generation are gone. My contemporaries are, many of them, still going to church at Queen of the Holy Rosary church.

I think the sense of community, of putting down roots, family and familiar faces that I rediscovered in Wea is what our parish families largely are missing today. We live in such a transitional culture unrooted in place that we have to work with intentionality to create the place where we feel deep belonging, where we know we can always return and feel at home.

I think this unrootedness is something that influences the crisis of unbelonging that we see in all religions today. If religion is truly the ritual expression of spirituality, that ritual has to take place in a context where all feel at home and valued. I don’t think this necessarily describes the world we live in today. Things happen in isolation in a virtual unreality and replace rootedness and commitment. I wonder what a community without real origins will look like in maturity. We’re starting to see it.

To have memories – especially communal memories – requires people to take time and make many attempts at showing up and creating them. Only after many experiences does something become familiar. “Familiar,” in the sense of “like family,” to whom we belong.

My family put down roots that have lasted even though we have been there only occasionally in recent years, and we made a difference. It was my dad’s vision to replace the old Catholic school that had been closed and unsafe for years (except for the gym), even though the pastor at the time didn’t care for the idea. Dad planned and promoted it, putting in endless hours, and ultimately oversaw the construction of a new school that today is still growing and expanding.

When I was in high school Fr. Brink asked me to design a coat of arms for the parish and paint a double-sided sign for the front lawn of the church. It is still there today when you come to church.

We always visit the graves of Mom and Dad in the cemetery behind the church when we are there.

As I said last week, it is uncommon for three brothers to be priests, but I think Wea had a lot to do with it. It was the community. We were the family who always stayed to the end and put away the chairs and tables when events ended.

Is it possible that a vocation might be a calling heard through your community? Certainly, a vocation needs a context where you can imagine yourself serving, hopefully with satisfaction making an impact on that community who shares your life and supports you.

Community is a precious thing, and we need to work at building it every day. Blessings follow.

The Lord be with you.