June 2025 In June, we celebrate the fullness of the mystery of God through pivotal feasts and solemnities: the Ascension of the Lord, Pentecost, Holy Trinity, Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Each invites us to focus on who God is and who we are called to be as God’s people. This month’s issue of Impact includes a reflection on the Holy Spirit, ever-present and yet often-hard-to-understand as well as one on the Body of Christ. I pray this month in a particular way for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon you and all in your community as you grow in communion with Christ and one another.
May 2025
May 2025 As is always the case during Easter, we ponder readings from the Acts of the Apostles each Sunday of the season. In a moment in which many people are weighed down by the effects of scandal and polarization in the Church and the growing secularization and pressure to leave active practice of the faith behind, the stories of the early communities of believers may rouse our commitments to be Church in our time. The Easter season is a perfect time to reflect on the incredible love of God and our call to steward the love and hope we have in Christ. May the Lord’s peace and love be with you and all in your community.
April 2025
We enter into April with hearts that are full — filled with the grace of God, which we have witnessed and experienced in the season of Lent, and which now leads us to ponder the fullness of Christ’s Paschal Mystery in the sacred Triduum and the Easter season to come. In order to bring faith to life this month, we must hear the story again, for the first time. May we hear the Good News of the passion, death, and resurrection of our Lord, invite the Holy Spirit to dispel any doubts we may have, and bring peace to our lives and world. May you and all in your community be filled with grace and peace in this holy season.
March 2025
March 2025 As we enter into Lent, we invite people to make the season one that will have lasting impact on their life and faith. We place ourselves alongside Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem, and take up the practices of prayer, fasting, and sharing with renewed commitment. We pray you and your people find meaning at the foot of the cross in this holy season within the Jubilee Year 2025.
A pastoral note about Impact this March and April: since Easter falls in the middle of April, the March issue focuses on Lent, while the April issue will focus on Triduum and Easter joy.
February 2025
February 2025 This month, we focus on the grace of God who is always with us, in times when we must wait for something, in times when we are called to share hope, in times when we are mindful of the call to live as Christ’s people in the world. May you and your people find hope and strength in God’s grace in all of the circumstances of your life as individuals and in community.
January 2025
January 2025 Blessings in this new year of our Lord 2025! As we begin this year, we reflect on the difference in our lives that might be experienced in living each day with the commitment to make this the “year of our Lord,” entrusting our hearts and lives to the Lord. With this commitment, we vow to “do whatever he tells us,” and to share love and care as a sign of Christ’s love for all. As we enter into a Jubilee year, may we place our hope in the Lord!
December 2024
We begin a new liturgical year and enter into the season of Advent this month. Many of our parishioners, and perhaps we ourselves, will find it difficult to focus on the waiting and anticipation of the season in the midst of the shopping, social gatherings, and celebration preparations that consume much of our attention during December. This month’s issue of Impact reminds us of the incredible Good News of the incarnation and our call to share Christ’s light and love as good stewards who pray, serve, and share. Page 1 of Impact focuses on Advent; page 2 on Christmas. May your Advent be richly blessed with God’s grace and goodness.
November 2024
This month, we find ourselves nearing the end of another liturgical year, and as is always the case in these latter weeks of the season, the readings begin to encourage us to reflect on the ultimate meaning of our faith in Jesus Christ and call to live as his disciples. November is also when we mark our civic celebration of Thanksgiving, which always feels a bit like a national stewardship day, in which we give thanks for the many blessings of our lives. This month’s issue of Impact focuses on the command to love God and neighbor and includes a reflection on the gospel narrative of the widow who gave all she had. May your season be blessed with grace and peace.
October 2024
The readings this month invite us to ask ourselves important questions: Do we often turn to God in prayer, confident that the Lord looks at us with love? Do material possessions or the desire for wealth weigh us down? Are we attentive to the deepest desires of our hearts, and recognize God’s call through them? This month’s issue of Impact invites all in your community to ask themselves these questions, and to shape their lives accordingly.
September 2024
This month, we hear familiar passages that carry key aspects of Jesus’ life and teaching. We are to be the last and to serve, to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow the Lord. It is good for us to take these challenging words to heart in the weeks of Ordinary Time in the autumn, to think about who we are as Christ’s people, and the way in which faith directs, or does not direct our lives.
June 2024
We return to Ordinary Time this month, and also enter into the summer season, with its longer days, gatherings, and vacations. This month’s issue of Impact focuses on faith and our call to give of self in response to the presence of Christ with and for us. May this month be filled with every blessing for you and your people.
August 2024
In these weeks of Ordinary Time Cycle B, we hear the bread of life discourse from the Gospel of John, and we sing Psalm 34 with its refrain “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.” In this month’s issue of Impact, we encourage readers to see and respond to the abundant goodness of the Lord in their lives. The disciples who were with Jesus chose to remain with him even when others returned to their previous way of life. Joshua and his house declared their commitment to serve the Lord. I pray you and your people will be richly blessed with God’s abundant grace and goodness as you commit again to love and serve the Lord.
July 2024
As many people take time in the summer for vacations and family gatherings, the Sunday readings this month provide many opportunities to help people recognize the abundance of God’s life and love in their midst and our call to respond to the abundance by giving gratefully to all who need. We pray that you will find blessing and God’s providential love.
May 2024
May 2024 As we continue to journey through Easter season, we begin to anticipate, and celebrate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. In Impact this month, we reflect on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit’s presence within us as a gift, which we are called to steward. We reflect on the gift of the Holy Spirit who empowers us to live Christ’s mission in the world. The month concludes with the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity. I pray that God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit will be with you and your people in this season of grace.
April 2024
Good news! The Lord is risen! Nothing will ever be the same. This month’s issue of Impact focuses on the joy and hope of the resurrection, the infinite mercy of God, and the Good News of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We ponder together the hope of Jesus’ victory over fear, death, and darkness and reflect on the call to share the good news through our words and deeds and good stewards of the mysteries of God.
March 2024
This month in Impact, we explore darkness and light, and the life that is found in following Jesus’ call to sacrificial love. With this light in our hearts and minds, we stand at the foot of the cross, ready to give ourselves away in imitation of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. As we continue to journey through this Lenten season, we pray for you and all in your faith community. May you be filled with the grace of God who created us in love, for love.
Note: While Easter Sunday is March 31, we will focus on the resurrection in the April issue of Impact.
February 2024
This month, we prepare for and enter into Lent. The Sunday readings lead us to consider what it means to put our trust in God, and to rely on God’s goodness and mercy, healing and forgiveness. This month’s issue of Impact invites all of us to walk in faith, even when (especially when) life is hard. I pray that you and all you lead and serve will have a most blessed Lenten season in which to repent, change, and grow in faith.
PDF. Jpeg 1. Jpeg 2. Impact Leaders Please note: The Gray PDF file is too large to link here. Email me for the gray file if needed.
January 2024
Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Blessings in this new year of our Lord, 2024. This month’s issue of Impact invites people to resolve to surrender their hearts and lives to the Lord in the coming year, and to do so by looking, listening, and responding to the light of God’s love. Our opening article this month was written by Amberly and brings a fresh perspective to the process of making new year’s resolutions. Page 2 reminds people that we continue to celebrate the Christmas season, and to move into Ordinary Time by hearing the stories of people who saw God’s glory, heard the Lord’s voice, and responded with their lives. We pray your Christmas and the start of this new year will be filled with grace, light and peace for you and your people.
December 2023
We begin the new liturgical year with the season of Advent, and also recognize that many people’s lives will be filled with shopping, social gatherings, and preparation for family time at Christmas. We also recognize that as people look back at 2023, many will do so through the experience and recognition of natural disasters, terror and violence, and tension in civic discourse at the local and national levels. With this in mind, the focus of Impact this month invites readers to reflect on God’s enduring love, the hope we have in Christ, and the call to watch, wait, and prepare the way of the Lord. We pray your Advent will be filled with light, peace, and hope.
November 2023
As in every liturgical year, November marks a turning point. We think more intentionally about the end of our lives and the end of time, and focus on what really matters — meaning, purpose, and eternity. Our civic celebration of Thanksgiving is a pivotal moment as well, as we focus on all for which we have to be grateful. This month’s Impact follows the rhythm of this pivotal time, as we prepare to close the liturgical year at the end of this month. I pray that you and all in your community will find God’s abundant grace and blessing throughout this month.
