Blog Archives

Kendra Koenigsknecht

2/26/2018

Hello Everyone! For those of you who do not know me, my name is Kendra Koenigsknecht. For a little bit of background about me, I graduated from Fowler High School in 2016 and am currently attending Baker College. In high school, I was very involved with the church and would attend any offered retreats and events that were offered. Once I graduated and I started to begin my adult life, I found myself drifting further and further away from the Lord. Instead of taking ownership of my faith and acknowledging that I had to take control of my faith and put more effort into my relationship with God, I made excuses. I have to go to work. I have homework to do. I’m going to hang out with my friends. Simply trusting the Lord became harder because I wanted to know how things were going to happen and when. The older we get and more responsibilities we have, the harder it will be to stay on God’s path. As I continue my journey of life, I know that it is not going to slow down.
This past December, I was blessed with opportunity to speak on and attend the annual high school retreat at Camp Roger in Rockford. I had reached out to Corey Luna for some spiritual guidance the winter after I had graduated that allowed me to dive back into my faith. We had discussed my coming to help on a retreat briefly, so when Corey invited me on the retreat it was an easy “yes” for me. I knew that I wanted to dive back into my faith and this was a great starting point. Speaking on the retreat was quite intimidating since I had never shared my testimony to such a large audience. I challenged the high schoolers to quit making excuses and take ownership of their faith. As we grow and mature, there are going to be more challenges and obstacles that try to lead us astray. As this happens, we need to keep our eyes fixed on the Lord because ultimately, His plan is far better than ours.
While on the retreat, I was able to help lead a small group, give my testimony and connect with the youth of our community. It is amazing how seeing others who are filled with the Lord affects you in a contagious way. Seeing the kids full of faith sparked my own desire for the Lord to turn into a full flame. I gave my talk on taking ownership of my faith. Once I did that, it created a chain effect that dipped into all aspects of my life. My relationships strengthened, I found peace in difficult situations and joy in sad ones; overall, I was genuinely happy. While some say that a smile is contagious, I think a strong faith is. Surrounding yourself with others who will lift you up in times of struggle and hold you accountable for your shortcomings will truly make a difference. The kids on the retreat as well as myself, were able to surround ourselves with others who can help build us up. What touched me the most from this retreat was during our time of adoration. I was overwhelmed with gratitude for the retreat, the kids, my family, our church, our community, and so much more. My eyes were opened to the realization that many things that we seek throughout our lives, companionship, purpose, love…it can all be found in the church.
I challenge you to do something with your faith. Make the choice to take ownership of your faith and form a relationship with God. It can all start with a small prayer. Catholic author Dr. Peter Kreeft once said, “I strongly suspect that if we saw all the difference even the tiniest of our prayers to God make, and all the people those little prayers were destined to affect…we would be so in awe that we would be unable to get up off our knees for the rest of our lives.” There are also many opportunities in our parish and local community to grow in your faith; holy hours, week day masses, confession, talks, and more. Do one extra thing to help you grow in your faith today, whether you have a strong relationship with God or not, you will be amazed in the blessings He will pour out upon you. God Bless.

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Kayla Feldpausch

2/19/2018

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Lent rolls around, and out come the Latin Mass parts. These parts can be a huge source of frustration as we blunder through the pronunciation, trying to somehow manage the words and the chant melody, and if you’re like me, you’ve found yourself wondering “what’s the point?”

There are many excellent reasons for singing at least some of the main parts of the Mass in Latin - singing the same words for 2000 years since the Early Christians and the universality of its use across the Catholic Church today, for starters - but experience is what brought Latin to life for me. A couple years ago, I had the opportunity to travel to World Youth Day in Krakow, Poland. Five friends and I joined with an estimated 3-5 million other young adult Catholics to celebrate Mass in a huge field with Pope Francis. Throughout Mass, the readings, intentions, and various prayers were proclaimed in several languages from French to Vietnamese. However, when it came time to sing the Mass parts (Gloria, Holy Holy, etc.), I found I actually knew what to sing because we sang the same Latin parts I’d learned in my tiny hometown of Fowler, MI. It’s hard to describe how, during a week of often frustrating moments of cultural differences and not being able to communicate because of language barriers, that moment of singing the same words, in the same language, of the prayers sung across the church brought beauty and unity.

Perhaps my favorite thing about being Catholic is the very meaning of our name: universal. As a small child, it blew my mind that across the world on Sundays, people were hearing the same scripture readings as me. As a college student, I found refuge in the unwavering teachings of my faith as I watched my nondenominational friends disagree over numerous essential beliefs. Now, whenever I have doubts about the faith or unsettling questions, I take a lot of comfort from the long history of theologians far more intelligent than I’ll ever be who have deliberated about the same questions I struggle with today. The prayers we pray and sing as a Church are an essential mark of that history and universality. It doesn’t matter whether I stumble over how to say “Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus Dominus Deus sabbaoth” because I’ve been singing “Holy holy holy Lord God of hosts” since I could first speak.

Saint Augustine said “If there are some present who do not understand what is being said or sung, they know at least that all is said and sung to the glory of God, and that is sufficient for them to join in it devoutly.” This means that it doesn’t matter if I know the word-for-word translation and can pronounce it perfectly, the point is that I know what the prayer of the church is, and if I’m singing to worship God, then I’m a part of something beautiful.

This Lent, we’re also going to be learning some new simple chant called the Entrance Antiphons to use as our opening hymn. These are specific scripture verses which actually correspond to the readings for the day, which the Church gives us. They’re another part of that universality of Catholicism, and these antiphons are actually the church’s preference for the entrance because they are fitting for the readings of the day. I do my best to select opening hymns that correspond to the themes in the antiphons and readings, but especially in a season such as Lent, I think there’s a certain weight the antiphons can bring in how they draw our focus to the scriptures.

A novelist whom Pope John Paul II quoted, famously wrote “Beauty will save the world.” I say this because I want to step away from discussing Latin and chant to say that I know these are not the things that are going to save the Church. The Pope didn’t say Latin would save the world, or Gregorian chant, or contemporary bands with drum sets and electric guitars. Beauty will save the world because it is a revelation of who God is, and that beauty can be revealed in music in any form from ancient Latin chant through contemporary worship music. That could mean that during communion at a single Mass, we sing “Pange Lingua” (Latin chant, circa 1250 AD), Gift of Finest Wheat (1977), and Receive (Audrey Assad, 2014). Each of those songs articulates something beautiful about the Eucharist and carries legitimate theological weight, but they’re all in very different styles.

My hope is that singing the Latin Mass parts and the entrance antiphons will increase the impact of what the Lord is revealing to us in scripture every Mass this Lent. We’re not going to sing everything perfectly, so let’s offer our stumblings together to praise God in union with the whole Church.

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Deanna Pung

2/5/2018

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Hello I am Deanna Pung and Andrea asked me to share my retreat experience.

I am married to Randy and we have two sons; Jake who works for DTE, and Jeremy is attending SVSU playing basketball and working on a degree in engineering.  When we started a family we wanted children raised in a faith tradition. With Randy’s family being Catholic, and him a member of MHT the boys were baptized in the church. During Easter Vigil 2002 I was received into the church. Upon reflecting for this article, this is my
greatest blessing.  Years after becoming Catholic I attended a conference with Steve Ray at St. Mary’s and became hooked on conversion stories. With reading conversion stories, my interest in Catholic literature expanded to most all things Catholic. I am just a Catholic nerd seeking out books, CD’s, online resources, radio programs, speaker series, and book studies to expand my knowledge.

I had been invited to attend several retreats before committing to the retreat this past September. I cannot say that I was reluctant in attending. With the boys in high school it seemed retreats started on a football or basketball game night. So once our nest was emptied I was invited to attend the retreat in September. Most of the trepidation was me not having a detailed timeline for the retreat. It was Gods way of him being in control, and for the Holy Spirit to touch me.

Before the retreat I had prayed that God keep my mind open to the experience. I drove down with a new retreat attendee which helped some fear of a new experience. It was a small group, but very diverse in ages. We all ad our own room. The meals were good and had plenty of “down time” to do as we wish. During some individual time after a talk, we were asked to reflect on some questions. The first question the Holy Spirit touched me and showed me in detailed area that I was not living my faith. It was a profound experience and eye opener. There were prayer teams to pray over us. I was reluctant Friday night, and finally took the step the following night. Being prayed over was a profound experience. There were lots of tears, but I just knew God want me to surrender my problems to him. That night we had Adoration, at the end the priest walked around with the Monstrance and paused in front me.  I could feel God reaching out to me and say “Here I am”. I now find Adoration a calming experience and know that God is there in person. All I have to do is remember frequently during the day that God is always with me. I just need to quiet my life to hear and feel him, and offer up my challenges. The whole retreat experience was touched by the Holy Spirit. I have made some new friends from the experience.  Many who explore with me new opportunities to grow in my faith.

So in closing I invite you, as Matthew Kelly has invited us to “do the next right thing, and become the best version of yourself”. Give the control to God. Consider this a personal invitation to attend the next retreat. Turn the technology off and nurture your spiritual life. GOD WILL PROVIDE! You will not regret it.
Deanna

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