St. Pius Catholic Church

Hello Everyone,

Happy belated 4th of July.  It is the Monday after the 4th and it is quiet in the rectory as the offices are closed for the observance of Independence Day.  This makes for a good day to sit here and catch up on office work and other things that need to get done.  It’s been three weeks since my last post, and man has it been a busy three weeks.  I was gone on continuing education classes, made my first Cursillo retreat as a candidate, and have been busy anointing the sick and burying the dead, especially last week. 

Let’s start at the top of the list I just gave, continuing education.  I do not know if the readers of this blog know or not, but diocese of Peoria mandates that all priests ordained 10 years or less attend continuing education classes for a week at Nazareth House (our diocesan retreat center) in Henry, Illinois.  Our presenter this year was an Opus Dei priest from Chicago, who spoke to us about the spirituality of the priesthood, this was done of course in honor of the Year For Priests, which just ended two weeks ago.  I am happy to report that our presenter did a fine job and spoke well about the importance of prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and other facets of priestly spirituality that can sometimes be taken for granted or assumed.  Out of all the years, I have been attending continuing education, this is the presenter I have enjoyed listening to the most.  So it was a good trip to Henry after all for these continuing education classes.

Two weeks, the Cursillo program here in the Quad Cities, held a first for the diocese; a Cursillo renewal weekend.  It essentially was a renewal retreat for those who had made Cursillo previously, but had fallen away from the program and wanted a refresher so that they could jump back into the program full time.  I made a promise that if I were assigned to the Quad Cities for one more year, I would make the effort to participate in a Cursillo weekend as a candidate.  Well when looking at the dates of the upcoming Cursillo schedule, the only one that fit my crazy calendar was this Cursillo renewal weekend.  And so a friend made some phone calls on my behalf and an exception was made to allow me onto the weekend, as the only first time candidate on the renewal weekend.  Well after doing the program for the first time as a candidate and finally seeing what all the fuss is about for myself.  I must admit that I had a good time on the weekend, met some wonderful and interesting people from all over the greater Quad Cities area, and did not realize how many people knew about my costumes and gags that I pull on TEC weekends around the teens.  It was a great learning experience to say the least.

As soon as I came home from Cursillo, Father Schaab took off to Amarillo, Texas to teach a series of classes for one week.  And shortly after he left, we had a couple of deaths in the parish: Colleen McGovern Flores and Velma Doyle.  Both of these kind, humble, and sincere women will be missed.  Please pray for them and for their families during this difficult time. 

I would like to continue to invite everyone to continue praying about joining the pilgrimage that I will be spiritual director for coming up in October.  This trip is coming up quite quickly, register before its too late.  Your not going to want to miss this trip, we again are going to: Portugal, Spain, and France, with stops in: Fatima, Lisbon, Santarem, Salamanca, Avila, Burgos, Loyola & Lourdes from October 9-19, 2010.  Then there is also a post-trip excursion, for four more days in France, available for an extra fee to: Nevers (This is where St. Bernadette's incorrupt body is), Lisieux (To see the Carmelite Monastery where Saint Therese of Lisieux was a nun), Rouen, and Paris.  All the details and information, as well as, registration are available at: www.pilgrimages.com/frzorjan

For those who listen to the Christian Music Station K-Love here in the Quad Cities.  There are a couple of great Christian concerts coming up at the Adler Theater.  First on Friday night July 16th,  at 7:30pm Casting Crowns is coming to town with an opening act yet to be named.  My brother and I plan on attending the concert that night.  Also coming to town, in October on Sunday October 24th, to Adler is Steven Curtis Chapman.  I have seen both acts before live in concert and both put on a great show.  Tickets can be purchased through Ticketmaster.

Otherwise than that there is not a whole lot else to report at this time.  Unless if something comes up unexpectedly, I will not be leaving the parish again until the pilgrimage, mentioned above, in October comes.  This week in the little lesson section I will post my homily from this past weekend, that I gave in church about being prepared to face rejection and failures in this life, and not to be afraid of them when they do occur. 

Until next week.

In Christ,

Father Peter Zorjan
Assistant Pastor at Saint Pius X
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(This Homily was given for the 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time, yesterday.  Gospel Passage read: The Commissioning and Sending Forth of the 72)

I do not know about all of you present here today at Holy Mass, but what a rich Gospel passage we have been given to meditate on.  Jesus makes so many statements that each one could be a homily in it and of itself.  For example, Jesus tells us to pray for laborers who are willing to go out and work in the Lord’s vineyard because the harvest is ready.  Then Jesus warns his disciples to be ready for difficulties, because there are wolves out there.  Jesus also asks his disciples to put their confidence in God, and not in money or in their own strength.  All of these make for great individual points of reflection and as I said could be the basis for many different homilies.  However, today I want to focus on the last point Jesus makes to His disciples before sending them out on their mission.  Jesus finishes his discourse by telling his disciples how to react when they are rejected, when their efforts appear fruitless, when they seem to fail in their attempts to win people over to Christ.  He warns them that there will be people out who reject what they are teaching and will want nothing to do with them or with God and His Church.  When that happens, they are simply to shake the dust from their feet and move on.  Jesus is telling his disciples, and that includes all of us, to expect failures as we try to live out and spread the Gospel, and not to let it bother us.
   
We need to reflect on this lesson carefully.  Everyone remains free to accept or reject God’s grace through our free will choices.  Think about it for just a moment, Christ Himself could not convince the Pharisees to follow him and Judas one of his closest friends betrayed Him as well.  Should we expect anything different?  Saint Paul certainly did not.  This is why he lays so much emphasis on the cross in the Second Reading.  He writes, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  We might be asking ourselves, why the cross?  Remember Christ’s greatest glory was the cross, because on the cross he showed that his love for us and for the Father has no limits.  But at the same time, the cross was a sign of the stark reality of sin, of people’s free will rejection of the Gospel.  Are we ready to face rejection for Christ’s sake?  Jesus wants us to be ready and today tells His disciples to know that rejection is certain as His followers.
   

Many of the saints learned this lesson and knew first hand about what Jesus was talking about today, especially in the death of the martyrs.  In their apparent failures, they achieved their greatest successes.  While non-believers believed that the martyrs died in vain, God was able to use the story and witness of the martyrs to be able to advance the witness of the kingdom.  Saint Sebastian, the patron saint of athletes, was one of these, whose story is still told today and continues to inspire.  He was a Christian soldier serving in the Roman army late in the third century.  He was a member of the Imperial Guards who lived in Rome and took care of the Emperor and the Palace.  During the many persecutions of Christians, Saint Sebastian would secretly encourage the Christians whom he was supposed to be persecuting.  He would visit them in prison, protect them, provide for them, and he even harbored the pope and some other converts inside the imperial palace itself under the emperor’s nose.
   
Eventually, though, his moment of trial came and he was found out.  He was denounced and condemned to death by arrows.  As they tied him to a pillar, Saint Sebastian exhorted his executioners to believe in Christ.  Then a dispatch of soldiers shot him full of arrows and left him for dead.  At that point, a Roman noblewoman who was also an undercover Christian took custody of his body.  When she realized that he was still breathing, she had him brought to her residence and nursed him back to life.  As soon as he was strong again, she encouraged him to escape into the countryside.  But instead, Saint Sebastian went back into the imperial palace and took up his old guard post.  As the Emperor passed him by, the saint once again encouraged him to abandon his idolatry and to believe in Christ.  The enraged Emperor ordered the other soldiers to club him to death immediately.
   

It was apparent failures like these that ended up converting the entire Roman Empire to Christianity.  After all, Tertullian was right when he said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christianity.”  In fact, the whole history of the Church has followed a similar pattern: a cross and a struggle, followed then by resurrection.  So we should not be surprised when we find ourselves on the same path.  If we think about it, our culture today, in many ways, is equally hostile to Christ and the Christian way of life.  When we try to live out Christ’s teachings, defend our faith, and build up the Church, we often run into resistance, mockery, and humiliation.  Jesus ran into it Himself and He knew that we would as well; but He wants us to be his courageous ambassadors anyway.  He told us that we will sometimes be rejected because of our faith.  And that’s OK.  We just need to learn how to shake the dust from our feet and move on, trusting that He can turn rejection and failures into successes in His time and in His way.
   

This is the secret to dodging discouragement, one of the Christian disciple’s greatest enemies.  When we try to follow Christ conscientiously, and obstacles spring up, and failures plague us, the first temptation we face is discouragement.  We think we have done something wrong.  We think we are good for nothing.  We ask why should I keep fighting?  We think Jesus is disappointed with us.  When we let these evil thoughts take root in our hearts, they stifle us.  They make us settle for comfortable mediocrity.  The devil loves that.  He loves filling Christian hearts with paralyzing discouragement.  But the truth is that discouragement is just the result of unfulfilled expectations.  And Christ has now reminded us of which expectations we should have as we strive to follow Him.
   
In the end, we too should expect to face rejection, persecution, and obstacles, just as Jesus did.  Remember, Jesus said no slave is greater than his master, in short in saying this, Jesus was telling us, if that is how He was treated, we should expect to be treated in the same way.  Now that we know this, we do not have to be discouraged anymore.  We can be humble, trust in Christ, wipe the dust from our feet, and move forward.  As we continue with today’s Mass, let us reflect on the moments when we tend to give in to this temptation of discouragement, and let us put them in Christ’s hands, shaking the dust from our feet and trusting in the power of his grace.  Let go and let God, stay focused on doing what you know God is calling you to do and He will take care of the rest.  Never let anyone discourage you from fulfilling your God given mission.