​Praised be Jesus Christ!
 
Happy New Year, and happy feast day, as the Church honors Mary, the Mother of God!  As we begin this New Year, there is much for which to be thankful.  How about a little year-in-review for our three parishes?
 
Throughout much of this past year, we as members of the Church have been observing the Year of Mercy, announced by Pope Francis in late 2015.  I hope you took advantage of the graces and indulgences offered throughout this Holy Year.  As a local Catholic community, we observed the year through three key events: Last Spring, a reflection on the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy was offered to all parishioners.  Then, several parishioners took part in a Work of Mercy Service Day at the new Destiny Point location in Blenker, a home for women in troubled situations.  Finally, many took part in the pilgrimage to La Crosse in which we had the opportunity to walk through the Holy Doors and tour the Cathedral of St. Joseph the Workman and the Shrine Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
 
I, as your pastor, sought to give special attention to offering opportunities for the adults of our parishes to continue to grow in faith and devotional life.  During Lent, I offered an all-parish study entitled “Unlocking the Mysteries of the Bible,” in which we sought to get the “big picture” of the Bible as the story of God revealing himself to us and saving us, and to get a better grasp of how we as Catholics read and interpret the Bible.  Later in the Spring, I offered a Short Course on Prayer, in which we talked about how we can develop a personal and intimate relationship with Jesus Christ through the Scriptures and in the Church.  Finally, in the Fall, I offered a program from the Symbolon Series entitled “Knowing the Faith,” in which we took a fresh look at the core teachings of our Catholic faith and talked about how they affect our everyday life.  Each of these adult faith formation opportunities were well-attended and seemed to bear fruit in the lives of those who took part.
 
Also throughout the year, we have begun some discussion on the possibility of merging our three parishes into one.  Fr. Bill Felix, pastor of All Saints Parish, a merger of the Boyd, Cadott, and Stanley churches, came to speak after Easter on the successful process of merging that his churches went through to become one parish.  Since then, we have formed an Exploratory Committee that met over the course of four months to determine whether a merger would be a good and feasible thing for our parishes.  This year, a Pastoral Leadership Committee and Finance and Administration Committee will be formed to develop a structure and plan of implementation for a merger to present to the parishes.  Please keep this process of discernment for the future of our parishes in your prayers.
 
Also of note, is our Tri-Parish Youth Group.  They have been a new blessing to our community.  These young people have taken on several activities of fun and service, including baking bread for our nursing home and homebound parishioners, bowling, and raking leaves in the community.  Also a blessing is our new Tri-Parish Prayer Chain, a wonderful opportunity to share our special prayer intentions with those in our community and pray for the needs of others.
 
We have also expanded our parishes’ outreach through new media.  Late in 2015 we began launching a new tri-parish website at www.saintsmmk.com.  We also established a Facebook page, and now, each parish has its own app.  Finally, accessible at no cost to all parishioners is the online platform www.formed.org, a great resource of Catholic programs, movies, audios, and books.
These are just some of the things from the past year that include all three of our parishes together.  Next week, I’ll list some things from each parish separately, and set some goals for this year.
 

Praised be Jesus Christ!
 
One of the dangers that we face in hearing from St. Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth is that it can very easily for us today sound like just a cute Christmas story.  We have the cute little town of Bethlehem, the cute shepherds that come to see the infant Messiah, and we have Mary gazing upon her cute little baby in a cute manger scene.  It’s almost like a fairy tale.  But this story is far more than just “cute,” for God is showing us in these details something very profound and meaningful for our lives. 
 
Luke presents us with three themes or images that are worth our careful reflection: Bethlehem, the shepherds, and Mary.  If there is anything that ties all these themes/images together for us, I would say that it is humility – the virtue of humility.  Christmas is first and foremost the feast of God’s great humility.  God steps down to us as a baby in a little unknown town in the ancient Middle East, in a smelly cave with animals, so that we could approach him, and so that he could one day raise us up to where he is in heaven.  We must have humility to recognize that we were made by God and for God, and that we have a hunger that only he can satisfy.
 
The famous Bishop Fulton Sheen once remarked that only two classes of people found the baby Jesus: the shepherds and the wise men – the simple and the learned – those who knew that they knew nothing, and those who knew that they did not know everything.  Sheen would go on to say that God is never found by the man of one book – by the man who thinks he knows.  “Not even God can tell the proud anything!  Only the humble can find God!”
 
And Mary is the perfect model of humility.  Her humility gave her the simple desire to do God’s will.  While she was invited to take part in God’s greatest work of love in the world, she probably did not understand or see at the time how it would all happen, and much of her earthly life would be very ordinary and filled with grief and sadness.  In humility she was faithful and obedient to God’s will, and for that, she has a special place in the glory of heaven.
 
I hope this Christmas might be an occasion for us to grow in humility – a humility that recognizes within ourselves a hunger that only God can satisfy – a humility that receives the Gospel message and wants to share that with the rest of the world – a humility that contemplates and reflects on the work of God in our life and therefore enables us to say yes to God and do his will in all things.  Merry Christmas!
 

Responses to Parish Merging Questions and Concerns Part II
 
As I mentioned in last weekend’s column, I received very few responses from parishioners regarding the merging process in the question boxes in the back of our churches.  While I feel I addressed the biggest question last week, here are just a few more things:
 
Q:            How would regular expenses be divided in a merged parish (e.g., priest salary)? 
R:             Currently, the priest’s salary, for example, is split three ways between each parish.  Because St. Mary’s provides the rectory residence and food for the priest, St. Michael’s and St. Kilian’s split the cost of the priest’s business miles reimbursement, as well as the cost of rectory utilities (heat and light). 
In a merged parish however, there is no such division of expenses between congregations.  The congregations/parishes become one parish community, but with three church locations.  While pre-existing buildings and grounds maintenance accounts for each church are kept separate for each church, there is one overall budget and one general fund from which general regular operating expenses are paid.  We would all be one parish, and we would all be responsible as one parish for determining how to best utilize our resources. 
A finance and administration leadership committee consisting of members from each original parish’s finance council would be formed (following our January Joint Finance Councils meeting) to work together on establishing a proposed budget for a single merged parish, as well as many other financial and administrative details.  If a merger occurs, a new single finance council would be established with representation from each original parish.
 
C: Based on the comments I received from three out of the four persons who made question box submissions, there still appears to be a preconceived notion that, in the event of a merger, one of our churches (namely, St. Kilian’s) would close, and that everything would be moved to St. Mary’s in Auburndale.  Therefore, I would like to reiterate once again that closing a church would not be part of the merger plan.  As Fr. Felix stated when he spoke to our parishes in his presentation last March, closing a church does not happen unless we as a parish decide to close one.  I believe that if, as part of the merger process, we develop a program for renewed and increased stewardship (which would be needed even if there was no merger), maintaining our three church buildings would be possible.  If parishioners desire to generously support their parish community and maintain their church buildings, I see no reason to close a church.
I have also heard numerous comments about parishioners stating they would leave their parish and go elsewhere in the event of a merger.  I’m not sure if such persons understand that a merger doesn’t necessarily involve the closing of a church or the changing of a Mass time.  What concerns me most, however, in hearing such comments, is that there seems to be an inadequate sense among us of what it means to be Catholic and to be part of a parish community of faith.  These are things I would like to speak about more in future columns and in other contexts.
 

​Praised be Jesus Christ!
 
Response to Parish Merging Questions and Comments
 
To my surprise, I have received very few comments and questions in the question boxes placed at the back of each of our churches… only four to be exact!  Still, there were points raised in each that I thought would be good to address.  While there are a few other questions, I will take up one big one for now.
 
Q:        Where did the idea of merging our parishes come from?
 
R:        The short answer to that question is that it came from me, your pastor.  That said, I think it is fair that parishioners hear my reasons for exploring this as a possibility for our communities.  First of all, I invite you to try to see things from my perspective – the perspective of a pastor.  As the pastor of these three parishes, it is my duty to seek the greatest (spiritual) good for ALL of my parishioners. 
 
For the past two and a half years, I have been observing the workings of our three parishes, and I have often felt a discomfort about how we were using our resources.  Our volunteer, personnel, and financial resources are in many ways maxed out in an effort to operate and maintain three small and completely separate parishes with three separate pastoral and finance councils, three separate religious education programs, and three separate campuses.  At one time, the number of practicing Catholics in our area sustained all of this, but as the years go by, this is becoming less and less the case.  Looking at the declining number of baptisms and marriages in each parish, these challenges are likely only to increase in all three of our communities as the years go by.  Also, the simple fact that we already share things like one priest, our administrative assistant staff, a common bulletin, and the fact that there is relatively little distance between our churches, with only one Mass at each church on the weekend, leads me to ask: why aren’t we one parish already?
 
The good I desire for my parishioners is that they belong to a community of faith that is structured so that it is capable of thriving, and not constantly struggle to merely survive.  While a merger will not likely solve all our challenges immediately, I, along with the members of the Exploratory Committee believe it may be a step in the right direction.  As a pastor, I do not wish to see a parish over which I have pastoral care fizzle out and be forced to close due to a lack of resources.  For when that happens there is greater hurt, and we fail to reach out with the Gospel, and we risk losing souls.  If we are able to pool our resources and work together as one community of faith with a common goal, we can determine how best to use our resources together and more responsibly.  Working together and developing our sense of being part of a parish community, and developing a greater sense of stewardship, I believe it is possible that we can also continue to maintain our three church buildings.
 

​Praised be Jesus Christ!
 
As we know, Advent is the season to prepare our hearts for the coming of the Lord, not only as a child at his birth in the world, but also at the end of time – the Second Coming.  The frustrating irony of this time of year dedicated to greater spiritual practice is that it is also one of the busiest and most distracting times of the year.  Here are some suggestions to keep in mind as we continue to move through the season:
 
1. Simplify.  Try to keep things as simple as possible.  Try not to do too much shopping, or too much baking, or too much… whatever seems to consume you and your family that isn’t centered on the Lord.  Cut down on media time throughout the day.  Be sure that you are taking time for daily prayer and to be with family.
 
2. Keep an Advent Wreath at home.  All you need are four candles and some greens from around the yard.  The greens, which retain their color, signify eternal life.  The circle of the wreath signifies the eternity of God, the immortality of our souls, and the eternal life won for us by Christ’s death and resurrection.  The four candles not only represent the four weeks of anticipation of Advent, but also the 4,000 years between the time of Adam and Eve and the birth of Christ.  The light of the candles points to the light that Christ brings to a world in darkness.  The purple candles signify penance – the sacrifices and works of charity we perform to purify and change our hearts.  The rose candle, lit on the third week, reminds us that we have reached the halfway point in our waiting and preparation.  Light your Advent wreath as a family, perhaps at dinnertime, when you say grace.
 
3. Do some spiritual reading.  Read the Sunday Mass readings ahead of time to help you focus and allow God’s word to speak to you more clearly.  Find some other spiritual read – perhaps the life of a saint, something from the Lighthouse Media kiosk at St. Mary’s, etc.
 
4. Do some singing as a family – perhaps at mealtime or before going to bed.  There are many traditional Advent hymns that are beautiful and rich in meaning: O Come, O Come Emmanuel; O Come, Divine Messiah; On Jordan’s Bank; Lo, How a Rose Ere Blooming; Creator of the Stars of Night.  If family singing does not fit your situation, take a few moments to read and reflect on the words of these songs.  You can find the lyrics and tunes easily online.  While we hear lots of Christmas music at this time of year, these beautiful hymns help us to keep our focus on the preparation of Advent.
 
5. Examine your conscience and get to confession.  The more regularly we do, the more we open our hearts to the Lord and are changed by his grace.  See the confession times in the bulletin.  There are also ample confession opportunities in the Marshfield parishes.
 
Look at the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy and be intentional about performing them as a family throughout this season.