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Fr. Dennis

9/24/2018

St. Pope John XXIII wrote this prayer to the Holy Spirit for the opening of the Council:
“Divine Spirit, renew your wonders in our time, as though for a new Pentecost, and grant that the holy church, preserving unanimous and continuous prayer, together with Mary the Mother of Jesus, and also under the guidance of St. Peter, may increase the reign of the Divine Savior, the reign of truth and justice, the reign of love and peace. Amen”

St. Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians (12:7-11,13)
“To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit. To one is given through the Spirit the expression of wisdom; to another the expression of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit; to another mighty deeds; to another prophecy; to another discernment of spirits; to another varieties of tongues; to another interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit produces all of these, distributing them individually to each person as he wishes…. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.”

The Second Vatican Council and in fact the whole history of the Church demonstrates over and over that the
Holy Spirit wants to fill our lives with God’s love, His wisdom and the gifts the Church needs in every age to
proclaim the Gospel.  One of the movements of the Holy Spirit in our time is a reawakening of the role of all the baptized in the work of evangelization and the Church’s ministry of salvation. In the past, most people thought that this was the work of priests and religious. That was never the teaching of the church, but somehow this notion became very common. Many people think that the Council gave the laity something to do at the Mass. But this is not what the council fathers saw as the main reforming work of the council. When you read the documents, you see that the Spirit is helping us to rediscover the importance of all the baptized working together and exercising the gifts of the Holy Spirit – which all of us have received at baptism. Why? So that the Good News of Jesus can be proclaimed to the world, so that the world might be healed and restored to right relationship with God.

Saint John Paul II wrote “I am convinced that... this world is much in need of this action of the Holy Spirit, and
it needs many instruments for this action. I see this movement everywhere.”

Pope Benedict XVI also wrote: “What we learn in the New Testament on charisms (gifts of the Holy Spirit), which appeared as visible signs of the coming of the Holy Spirit, is not an historical event of the past, but a reality ever alive.  It is the same divine Spirit, the soul of the Church, that acts in every age and those mysterious and effective interventions of the Spirit are manifest in our time in a providential way.”

Why do we all need to experience the empowerment of the Holy Spirit? Because God has always called the Church to proclaim the Good News, that Jesus loves us, has died for our sins and has risen so that we might have life in the Spirit, now and forever. The Lord wants all of us to live in the grace and power of the Spirit and to exercise the spiritual gifts that each person has received for the building up of the Body of Christ.
Some of us have been called by the Spirit to exercise generosity and hospitality, some of us are gifted with wisdom and supernatural faith, some of us have been given the gift of healing, some the gift of service, still others the gifts of leadership and teaching, and there are a multitude of other gifts that the Spirit has given to each of us. Why? So that the Church, the Body of Christ can produce the fruits of love, joy, peace and make God’s love and mercy available to everyone.

To welcome the Spirit into our lives involves a certain risk, because although God loves us as we are, He wants us to change, grow and mature into the person He knows we can be. There is always that tendency in us to be afraid of the new, to want to stay in the past because that’s where we’re comfortable. I think that the main reason so many of us are afraid of the new and of change, is because we all have hurts and wounds, and these cause us to put up defense mechanisms, because we want to protect ourselves. But the problem with this is, we only remain bound in our wounds and hurts and never reach our full potential in Christ. God wants us to be free and to be able to walk in confidence.

The Holy Spirit is, if you will, the engine, the power that directs the Christian life.  Jesus tells us in the Gospel of St. John “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.” (John 16:8)

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Andrea Schneider

9/17/2018

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It’s crazy for me to think that I’m entering into my 5th year of work here at the parish. This job has pushed me more outside my comfort zone then I ever would have imagined. It’s been a huge learning experience for me as well. It’s been extremely humbling, because there were times where I felt, “how can I be leading adults when I still have so much to learn myself?”. At times I would feel unqualified for my position, that I didn’t know all the knowledge or teaching ability needed to lead people.

I would ask myself, why would God call me to ministry. There are plenty of other people more qualified or fit for the position. God uses ordinary people all the time to do extraordinary things. But we don’t expect God to use us. How easy do we believe the lie that we are too broken for God to love, or that God could never use me because I’m not good enough. But God doesn’t need us to perfect. He desires our openness and our friendship. Jesus’s closest friends and disciples were ordinary people; fishermen and tax collectors. His disciples weren’t that different than you and I. They had doubts, they betrayed Jesus. They struggled with anger, being self absorbed, and judging others. They were flawed, they made mistakes, they were far from perfect. But God still used them. Jesus invited them to have a personal relationship with him. He brought them into his life. He taught them, formed them, and shared his ministry with them. They didn’t just witness God’ miracles, they got to partake in building up the kingdom of God. So why are his disciples any different than you and me?

Recently I had one of those I’m not qualified or good enough moments. Just before our last healing service in June I was struggling with doubts and wondering “what do I have to offer? Can God really use me in a powerful way?” I was talking with my husband as we were driving to the healing service about my doubts. How I wasn’t sure I was in the right place to lead people in prayer tonight, and maybe I should sit this one out. I knew I was buying into lies from the evil one, believing that I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t think that God could use me because I felt so broken, or not holy enough. As soon as we got there I grabbed a friend and asked for her to pray with me.

During this time of prayer I was able to take ground back from the devil. I was able to pray through those areas I was feeling so weak in and ask for the Holy Spirit to enter into those areas. I prayed for openness and that I could step aside and allow God in to use me how he felt fit. If God wants to use me tonight for someone's healing, great, if not, great! I really just wanted to be a vessel and to be able to share God’s love with those who came.

I felt much better after praying with her, but I still felt I was lacking in boldness, thankfully God does all the work, I just need to show up! So I focused on that. I tried to step out of the way and let the Lord do his thing. And he did. It was a beautiful night.

God doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called. I had this all wrong. I remember how nervous I was to lead our first adult retreat. I was second guessing myself and I kept thinking I needed to be more qualified to do my job. As I plan for our upcoming adult retreat in September, I’m amazed to see how the Lord has been working in my life. How I’ve slowly been able to recognize lies I was believing about myself and I’ve been able to grow through that process. God has been building me up over the last 5 years, but that has required me to step outside my comfort zone! And like at the healing service, when I step aside and open myself up to the Lord, I’ve been able to experience his love and share that with others. And through those experiences, I’ve been able to grow in confidence because it’s less about what I have, and more about what I’m willing to give.

“Each time we acknowledge our brokenness and bring it to God for healing we have a new opportunity to experience God’s love and power.” -Dynamic Catholic Daily Devotion

God Bless,
Andrea

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Kayla Feldpausch

9/10/2018

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Hello everyone! I’m writing to talk not only about some changes to children’s choir this year, but also revisiting the vision for music ministry. As I’ve written before, music has been one of the primary ways I talk to God and receive his love in prayer. It’s been a respite for me from stress. In college, I pushed myself as hard or harder than I had in high school to keep top-notch grades and maintain a diverse resume, but I had one wonderful hour a day where I could just enter the choir room and sing with 70 other talented students. Parents know that their children are busier now than ever with demanding academics, sports travel teams, and 5000 extracurriculars. As a result, we’re raising one of the most anxious generations yet. Everything is a performance, a competition, and from a young age we’re pushed to be the best we can possibly be at everything.

I’ve spent a lot of time considering children's’ choir in light of this performance culture. As a music director, it’s most important to me that those involved in music ministry really encounter God and learn to pray through the music. As I evaluated the children’s choir program, it became apparent that working with such a wide variety of ages together at once and pushing them through preparations for regular Masses was not accomplishing that fundamental goal. As I looked at what had been successful, where the students came away the most excited and thoughtful, the time of adoration we had during Lent last year came to mind. We didn’t end up singing for a Mass during Lent, so I was free to just select music to learn for the sake of singing and praying it, not in preparation for any event. Those were the songs the students loved the most and begged to sing again in later rehearsals. We had a relaxed time of Eucharistic adoration where we sang the music we’d been able to learn in the last few weeks, and it ended up being one of the highlights of the choir year.

Based on those moments, I decided to move the focus away from constantly preparing for a Mass to sing, and instead toward facilitating encounter and prayer. We had the most fruitful rehearsals last year when there wasn’t a stressful agenda to maintain. Students are already pressured all the time to be on a schedule and do something for the sake of the grade, win, or award rather than for the sake of the thing itself. Therefore, I’m restructuring children’s choir to revolve around prayer and music at a simpler pace. For the Fall, I’ve structured three basic units where we’ll learn music in two separate age groups relevant to encountering God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit uniquely. For the first two units, we’ll have a third week where we’ll come together for Eucharistic adoration or simply prayer and music. During December, we’ll be preparing for the Christmas Eve Mass.

In summary, the children’s choir will still sing for 3 major Masses this year: Christmas, Easter, and First Communion. The other months will be centered more simply around learning music that helps the students understand God and learn to communicate with Him through music. The sessions will run October-December and February - April (plus the first weekend in May for 1st Holy Communion). I’m hoping this allows for greater flexibility for families, as I know how busy the various times of the year can get, and that it makes choir less of another task students have to accomplish and more a place where they can just come and sing for the sake of doing it.

In light of the whole vision for music ministry, it is essential that we don’t lose sight of the ultimate goal: to give glory to God through the music we sing and play. I don’t ever want our program to become too wrapped up in a performance mentality. Music should give people a breath of freedom from the chaos of life, whether that is experienced by having an hour a week away from it all to sing in one of the choirs or to simply close your eyes and take in the music as a member of the congregation.

As always, contact me at kayla.mhtmusic@gmail.com with any questions or feedback. I’m excited to be in the midst of my third year here, and ask that you keep me and the whole music ministry in your prayers.

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Adam Halfman

9/4/2018

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As I think about the upcoming Diocesan Assembly, “Made for Happiness,” there’s a lot that I’m excited about. The thought of 15,000 people coming together for a Eucharistic Procession from the State Capital to one of our state’s largest sports arenas is pretty cool! It’s also amazing that Bishop Boyea has asked every parish in the Diocese to cancel their Saturday evening Mass in order to have one large Mass with as many people from the Diocese together as possible! What an awesome opportunity for us all to experience what it means to be a community of Catholics!

I can remember my first experience attending an event like this back in 2005 when I went to World Youth Day in Germany. The World Youth Day events themselves are really large with millions of people so they really don’t compare, but this was the week before all of that craziness when we were staying in a small village of Kunzell. That day, the local diocese hosted an event for all of the people in the area to come as a sort of send off for all of us that were going to the World Youth Day event. I’ll never forget joining a group of people from the village and walking in the rain for probably a half hour to the city of Fulda. As the group of maybe 50 people walked together along the road, we sang songs and prayed the rosary together. There was even a group of parishioners who brought their musical instruments along to play as we made our way. I remember thinking that what was such a new experience for me seemed so normal to all of them, like it was something that they did somewhat regularly. It was just such a cool atmosphere to see so many people showing their faith in such a public way!

That type of atmosphere is what I envision when I think about “Made for Happiness” on September 22nd. It’s really an event that’s difficult to describe because I don’t think we’ve had anything like this in our area in a long time. Similar to last year when we were advertising the beatification of Fr. Solanus Casey, we knew it was going to be a huge event with a lot of people coming together to celebrate a very holy man. But we didn’t anticipate how powerful the atmosphere was. That was probably the biggest comment afterwards for people was how incredible it was to be at a Mass with that big of a crowd. One person even mentioned that it took like 20 minutes for everyone to go to Communion since we all had to process to the concourse to receive and then make our way back to our seats. Many commented that this event really opened their eyes to see how big the church really is.

I really hope that this event can have the same type of effect on people that the above two trips had for me and many others. There are a lot of times where we hear about declining numbers of people who practice the faith and can feel discouraged. Or you can watch the news or hear a conversation somewhere and feel alone in valuing our Catholic faith. Events like these can really help move us out of our current situation to see the bigger picture of what the Lord is doing. That even though there are things happening in the world that disappoint us, the Lord is still bringing people to Him and there are still people who are trying to live holy lives.

I get excited to think about what sort of impact this could have on our parish, as people from here get an opportunity to experience the church in a way that’s different from what they have previously seen. So if you haven’t already signed up for the “Made for Happiness” Diocesan Assembly on September 22nd at the Breslin Center, please consider doing so by going to our parish website at www.mhtparish.com. Let’s pray that this event will be an opportunity for many people to encounter the Lord in a new way and a witness to the beauty of our Catholic church!
Adam

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