Fr. Don’s Weekly Letter ~ 1 November 2026

Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,

This week I found myself having to defend myself to a friend who invited me for a coffee two months ago and that I didn’t respond. Well, I responded, but my response was that I would let him know when that might be. I never did.

Then I began to think. Do you realize all we have done in the past two months? And what is yet to come? Sometimes it is good to pause, take a breath and see how far we have come.

With the beginning of school the middle of August there was a lot as last-minute preparations had to be completed, a lot of back-to-school events, and the parish ministry year’s first gatherings in all areas of parish life came back to full speed. It was that week that I read something about the relics of Saint Bernadette coming to the USA and I called right away and got on the list. We have been preparing all this time.

Interviews of confirmation teams completing their preparation for the sacrament last weekend were happening, and I was meeting all the applicants for our OCIA program, so many good people who are looking for more in their faith and community. I was a week in Wyoming meeting donors for our non-profit Holy Land Christians Society. The middle school lockers were still not here.

The first full week in October, after our Lord of the Miracles festival I was in Birmingham at the Christian Churches Together Forum. There were a lot of meetings on the search committee for the new CEO of Catholic Charities and design development meetings about our new Parish Life Center.

We are now in the midst of one big week after another. After the parish picnic (about 3K people came, I estimate), Confirmation was celebrated last Saturday. Now the diocesan Catholic schools accreditation team is here this week, after our faculty and staff completed a year of preparation.

Then next week, of course, we are the Virginia stop on the national tour of the relics of Saint Bernadette (who even knows how many pilgrims might come?), and the week after that is the meal packing event Rise Against Hunger for three days. The next week Rick and I will be attending the National Workshop on Christian Unity in Chicago. It has been crazy.

If you have contacted me and I haven’t replied please know it hasn’t been intentional. I’d like to say that things after Thanksgiving will be a little slower but, right, that will be Advent! Let’s just say “Happy Easter” now!
___________

We mentioned that Bishop Burbidge asked everyone to fast and pray during October for the election this week. This is so you can clear your minds and put God back into the confusing moments of our todays. I would ask everyone to do two things. As we spoke about conscience formation and Catholic Church teachings, about the reverence we must have for all lives whose dignity is rooted in the image and likeness of God, I hope you have had the chance to really take some peaceful time and pray, and think this through, and then VOTE! Americans all have a right to vote and to a free and fair election and I pray that there isn’t a lot of drama and efforts to do damage to the process.

I was disheartened to see the alleged mani-pulation of our 12 arch/bishops and the photo taken in the oval office. I can’t understand what they were doing there anyway, arranged for a photo whose likeness to the Last Supper was not lost on me. The timing is just too curious right before elections and most bishops have rightly claimed that what happened is wrong, this administration trying to look like (even claiming that) they have the Catholic Church in their back pockets. Try to free yourselves from the blindness of party politics, and just vote for what you believe to be right, not wrong. There is so much deception in the world right now that it is often difficult to discern what is even true. The remedy to finding the truth isn’t fighting, it is prayer asking God to show us the path.

Finally, do what I’ve been trying to do. These fall days have been so beautiful. It is okay to get lost in this beauty that God has given to us. Go for a short walk and allow yourself a clear head and a blameless heart. Imagine God there with you (he is) and listen for his Word in the whisper of blowing leaves. His voice isn’t in the ugliness we hear in the news, it isn’t in all the sadness and suffering we see; it is in the response we notice in our hearts to do something to help those who are sad and suffering. We’re on the right path when we are so busy we don’t know how we will get from this week to next. With God, we do.

The Lord be with you,