Welcome to this week’s Realign Resources for Mission Weekly Update. Happy Feast of Saint Juan Diego! As ever, this week we are exploring another of the principles, developed through prayer and study, which underpin the vision for realigning resources for mission across the Diocese of Lansing. Today:
"A healthy parish in the Diocese of Lansing is led by a pastor who is striving for health and holiness; has the charism of leadership; and has a parish leadership team," Realign Resources for Mission Principle 1.6
Read: Read an article by Father Joe Krupp, Pastor of Holy Family in Grand Blanc and Saint Mark in Goodrich;
Watch: Watch a video by Father Mathias Thelen, Pastor of Saint Patrick in Brighton and Chairman of the Realign Resources for Mission Committee;
Pray: Pray for our beloved priests: That Our Lady, Queen of the Clergy, accompanies them daily as they strive for ever greater health and holiness.
This week's Realign Resources for Mission Principle:
"A healthy parish in the Diocese of Lansing is led by a pastor who is striving for health and holiness; has the charism of leadership; and has a parish leadership team," Realign Resources for Mission Principle 1.6
With Father Joe Krupp,
Pastor of Holy Family in Grand Blanc
& Saint Mark in Goodrich
Thursday, December 9, 2021
Feast of Saint Juan Diego
Dear Friend,
Greetings in Christ! There was one line in the RRM handout that immediately struck me as the best and most important challenge for me: A healthy parish is led by priests striving for health and holiness.
I remember in 2010, I was struggling with my responsibilities as a priest. I was overwhelmed with the duties of personnel, insurance, the tons and tons of administrative obligations, all coupled with the intense requirements for the proper sharing of sacraments. In my grief, I went to the cathedral to pray and ended up talking with a holy priest who told me what I consider to be among the most important things I've ever been told: "Joe, your 'job' is to be holy. That's it. You can get everything else wrong and Jesus will still move and work. You need to walk with Christ first and trust that he will give you men and women who will help you be faithful to the rest. You simply have to be holy."
This changed me. I began to see the struggles of other priests as they dealt with an overwhelming amount of responsibilities rarely related to the reason they became a priest. I saw that often, the easiest thing was to simply become a dictator; making decisions based on what is easiest, quickest or most desirable personally. This kind of unchecked power is corrosive to the holiness of a priest, no matter how noble his intentions.
Artwork from 1954 poster for the Robert Bresson film, Diary of a Country Priest
In the end, I learned (and am learning!) that one of the best ways for me to respond to the challenge of too many responsibilities and too much power was to be a part of a team. I needed to make sure that I wasn't doing the thing where I was so busy being a CEO, CFO, COO that the sacraments and prayer became negotiable. I simply had to flip the model and make sure that the business function of the parish was formed by the sacramental life of the priest, not the other way around.
To that end, the most exciting part of this amazing RRM plan is the call for a pastor to cultivate leadership within his parish staff and create a leadership team that will help him where he is weak and spread the power and responsibility over more people. This accomplishes the good of allowing the priest to focus on holiness and to keep him from the spiritual cancer of having too much power.
As the People of God, I invite you to help the priest by adjusting your expectations. Recognize that the priest is the only one who can do the sacraments and as a result, that should be the focus of his life. I find that one of the struggles of this model is that, at core, we more or less want the "old model" where we go to Father for everything, no matter how big or small and even sometimes, act resentful of the people the priest leans on to guide him. We have to put this aside and see what happens when our priests are holy and totally focused on the sacraments and the spiritual growth of his Parish Family.
In the end, we can have a pastor with great business acumen, good theology and fine time management, but if he is not holy, it's all for naught.
My heart is filled with joy for the future of our diocese. I believe with all my heart that this RRM offers us the chance to be who God calls us to be, to refocus our energies away from survival to sainthood. I pray we all have the courage to joyfully embrace this plan, trusting that "He, who started this good work in [us], will see it to completion."
Yours in Christ,
Father Joe Krupp
Watch: Watch this great video by Father Mathias Thelen, Pastor of Saint Patrick in Brighton and Chairman of the Realign Resources for Mission Committee on today's principle: "A healthy parish in the Diocese of Lansing is led by a pastor who is striving for health and holiness; has the charism of leadership; and has a parish leadership team," Realign Resources for Mission Principle 1.6
This Week's Friday Prayer Intention:
Pray for our beloved priests: That Our Lady, Queen of the Clergy, accompanies them daily as they strive for ever greater health and holiness.
Guidelines for Friday Prayer:
Prayer: At three o’clock each Friday afternoon pray the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary. To help with prayer, Eucharistic Adoration from Saint Mary Cathedral in Lansing will be live-streamed on YouTube and Facebook. If you can’t manage to pray at 3pm? Just say the Holy Rosary whenever you can.
Fasting: The present norms for fasting suggest that we eat no more than one full meal, as well as two smaller meals that together are not equal to a full meal. It is also permissible to attempt a strict fast. A penitent’s age and health should always be taken into consideration before fasting.
Almsgiving: Giving alms is a “work of justice pleasing to God” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2462). Hence, each Friday we should donate money or goods to the poor or perform another act of charity. Let’s not reach sundown on a Friday without having poured out some of the content of our heart or our wallet or both during the day.
Catch Up: On Thursday, November 18, the Feast of the Dedication of the Basilicas of Saints Peter and Paul, the Diocese of Lansing's Realign Resources for Mission Committee published their key findings and recommendations.
In this video, above, Father Mathias Thelen, Chairman of the Realign Resources for Mission Committee, gives his overview of the publication. The committee's key findings and recommendations are now with Bishop Earl Boyea for prayerful consideration. You too can read them by clicking the link here:
Invitation: As the report above states, one of those who has influenced the thinking of the Realign Resources for Mission process is Father John Riccardo, below, Founder and Executive Director of ACTS XXIX, a non-profit apostolate that aims to equip clergy and laity for the challenges of the apostolic age in which we live.
The parish of Saint Martha in Okemos are hosting a talk by Father Riccardo on Monday and you are cordially invited to join them. The details:
7pm on Monday, December 13, 2021
Saint Martha Parish, 1100 W Grand River Rd,
Okemos, MI 48864,
All very welcome.
