Lend us Your Heart

To consecrate something is to set it aside so that it might become holy. To consecrate is to dedicate something to the worship of God. 

We consecrate churches because they become dedicated spaces for worship. We consecrate sacred vessels and vestments for the same purpose. We also consecrate human beings through Baptism whereby God himself comes to dwell in us as his temple. We also give a special consecration to religious women, men, and priests who dedicate their whole lives in a particular way to the service and worship of God through the vows they take. 

In addition to consecrating places and persons, we also consecrate communities: families, institutions such as schools, and even whole countries. This act of consecration is an act of intercession for this community, asking God to take it as his own and bless it. God has given us everything and when we consecrate something we give it back to him. 

This year as we celebrate the 250th Anniversary, the Bishops of the United States, gathered for their annual assembly in Orlando, Florida, will come together at the Shrine of Our Lady, Queen of the Universe, on Thursday evening June 11, the Vigil of the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart to consecrate the United States to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 

What is devotion to the Sacred Heart? In 1673, Our Lord Jesus Christ appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. He has a human heart like you and me. He feels love and pain as we do, but his heart is also filled with infinite divine love — the love that drove him down from heaven to die for our sins. When he revealed his heart to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, he wanted to reveal his immense love for humanity, a love that is often ignored, rejected, or met with indifference. He asked that people respond to his love with love, gratitude, adoration, and reparation for sins committed against him. 

He called for frequent reception of the Eucharist, especially Holy Communion on the First Fridays, and for time spent with him in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. This was done at a time when many people did not go to Communion frequently. Additionally, he promised abundant graces to those who honor and trust in his Sacred Heart, particularly the grace of perseverance in his friendship. Through devotion to his Sacred Heart, Jesus desired to renew individuals, families, and society by drawing them into the transforming power of his merciful love. 

As he said to St. Margaret Mary: "Behold this Heart which has loved men so much; return My love, trust in My mercy, and help make reparation for the coldness and sin by which My love is rejected." 

Pope Pius XII eventually consecrated the world to the Sacred Heart. In addition, many countries have chosen to consecrate themselves to the Sacred Heart as well. To do so is to place our nation under the love and mercy of Christ and to pray for his love to heal the divisions of our country. 

We want to acknowledge that Christ is our true King and we want our country to be ruled by the love of his heart. His kingdom is “an eternal and universal kingdom, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace,” as we pray on the feast of Christ the King. Pius XI specifically connected national consecration to recognizing the kingship of Christ over peoples and nations. 

Finally, we will ask for God's protection upon our land, that we might remain faithful to the ideals upon which our nation was founded and become ever more a civilization of love. 

Let us join together as a diocese with the bishops of the United States on June 11 and 12. Let us pray that, as we consecrate our country to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, his mercy and love may be poured out upon all people and bring about a deep unity — a unity that comes from repentance, forgiveness, and the saving love of Jesus Christ. 

You can watch the consecration or learn more here. 

You are also invited to view this video “Why Consecrate America to the Sacred Heart” by Archbishop Alexandar Sample, chairman of the US bishops' Committee for Religious Liberty. 

Curious about preparing for the Consecration? See this video from Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend. 

College years are such an important time in the life of a young adult. Recently, I had the chance to visit the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota. Our diocese has many young people who attend the University of Mary, and I was invited to speak at their Vocations Jamboree. At this event, dozens of religious, priests, and other lay apostolates descend on the campus for a few days to allow the young people of the University of Mary to discern a religious vocation or learn about missionary service in the Church for a time. The atmosphere at the college was vibrant and alive with the Catholic faith. I was so impressed with the hundreds of students who attend daily Mass (over half the student body), as well as the numbers who go to confession. I met many young people who were seeking to actively live their faith. 

I, myself, had the privilege of going to a Catholic college, and I would encourage every young person to discern attending a vibrant Catholic college like the University of Mary. In this setting, one can develop virtuous friendships that can sustain a person for their whole life. I attended Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, and certainly the friendships I formed there have been a great help in my life. This weekend, I plan to visit a classmate who is also a priest. A Catholic college like the University of Mary immerses one completely in the life of the Catholic faith — not just our beautiful intellectual tradition, but also the gift of worship, the sacraments, prayer, and fellowship. All of this allows a person to develop into the mature Christian they are called to be. Of course, not everyone can attend a Catholic university, and there are other opportunities to grow in faith while in college. 

One of the great good-news stories of the Diocese of Crookston has been the growth in all three of our campus ministry programs over the past couple of years. We are privileged to have four missionaries from FOCUS serving at Bemidji State University. They offer weekly Bible studies, and they help students grow in their faith through one-on-one discipleship. Along with Father Tom Niehaus, the chaplain at Bemidji State University’s Newman Center, they are building a vibrant Catholic life there. We also have Moorhead Catholic Campus Ministries serving Minnesota State University Moorhead, Concordia College, and Minnesota State Community and Technical College. Father Michael Arey is assisted by Courtney Hendricks, and they too have experienced growth in the numbers of students coming to weekly gatherings, as well as Mass. Finally, we have a small but growing group at the University of Minnesota Crookston, led by Hope Bach and some other young women from the Cathedral parish. They have regular gatherings, and they often attend Mass together at the Cathedral. 

In each of these groups, young adults are offered community, friendship, faith, and formation in their life as Catholics. They’re offered retreats and opportunities to encounter the Lord and to grow in friendship with Him. It has been a real delight to see these ministries growing, and I pray they continue to grow. College is a time when many people form the kind of life they will live in the future; having a Catholic presence at these moments is essential. These campus ministries are all supported by our diocesan annual appeal. 

Nationwide, we’re seeing large numbers of young adults expressing interest in and joining the Catholic Church. Although the numbers joining still don’t outweigh those who are leaving the Catholic Church during those years, it’s an encouraging sign that the Holy Spirit is working. Please pray for our college students, both those in the Diocese of Crookston and at excellent Catholic universities nearby, like the University of Mary. May God allow our young people to experience the great gift of living their whole life in relationship with him. 

This time of year, we are mindful of our young people graduating from high school or college and the important moment it is, as well as the transition in their life. We offer our prayers and hopes for them as they launch into new phases of the journey that is each human life. 

Today, I'm aware that we are living through what some call a psychogenic epidemic in our world.  Many young people, even successful ones, struggle with anxiety, fear, loneliness and that their lives are marked by a lack of purpose or meaning. What has often been seen as a time of joy and opportunity, is for many people a difficult moment. Even as young people get launched into their career, they can find adulting quite difficult. 

I recently read an excellent book by Arthur Brooks called The Meaning of Your Life which has been at the top of the New York Times Bestseller list. Arthur Brooks is a professor who teaches at Harvard Business School about happiness, and he names this problem which he sees even in his most successful “strivers” at Harvard. As a sociologist, he points out that many young people are struggling today to find real happiness, and this is because their lives don't have real meaning. He points out that the world today encourages young people to find their meaning through school, career advancement, friends, and entertainment. This is simply a newer version of what St. Thomas Aquinas said most people pursue in their lives: power, pleasure, money or success. These illusory things never satisfy the human heart and often lead to greater symptoms of feeling lost. Many young people are at their wits end. 

Brooks argues that the situation has been complicated by modern technology, especially the smartphone, artificial intelligence, and social media. If you are looking for meaning in your life, you will never find it in AI, as our Holy Father, Pope Leo has been reminding us. The meaning of life is a complex mystery that must be engaged at the level of the heart. In fact, the constant addiction we have to our devices keeps us often from being bored enough to ask big questions, it keeps us from accessing the parts of our soul that need meaning.  

Finding the purpose of your life is not a problem that can be solved, but rather a mystery that must be lived. Anyone in a successful marriage will tell you this. Living marriage successfully requires real sacrifice and growth, but it is not a problem which can be solved. It's a mystery that must be lived one day at time in the unknown of what it will become as an adventure in human and divine love.  

So how do I find the purpose or meaning of my life? You must learn to access your heart and to pray. In the personal love of God one finds meaning, adventure, joy and a mystery to be lived.  

I would like to encourage every Catholic young person to do one thing to help with this: think about spending some time on mission. For myself after I graduated from college, I served as a missionary with the National Evangelization Teams (NET Ministries) for a year. I took a year out of “normal life” and lived in a van with 10 other young adults. In total we were six women and five men travelling through the country in a van. We stayed in parishes and put on retreats for high school students and junior high students. In fact, one of the great ironies of my life is that the first diocese I visited as a NET missionary was the Diocese of Crookston. I did retreats all over the diocese. Of course, I wouldn’t have believed it then if I was told that one day I would be the Bishop of the Diocese of Crookston.  

Today, there are many organizations with which one can serve as a missionary, whether it's the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) or Saint Paul’s Outreach (SPO) that both evangelize college students. There is Trinity Woods Youth Camp or Damascus that put on camps and retreats for youth. There are even opportunities to serve in South America, or overseas. What's important about these opportunities is they provide excellent formation in the Catholic faith, they offer the basics of how to serve as a missionary, and then they also provide the experience! In each of these circumstances, a person lives in community, learns to pray, learns to know and share faith, and grows incredible ways spiritually and humanly. It gets people off the worldly train of success and gives them an experience of deep meaning in faith. For those who can’t do a whole year, they can then serve on a Totus Tuus team right here in the Diocese of Crookston. 

I think today more than ever young people would benefit from taking a missionary year or two. Get off the train of worldly success and discover your true meaning. Build your relationship with God and the Church through serving as a missionary. It will change you. You will begin to build a life of meaning in the adventure that Christ has for you. 

The Feast of St. Joseph the Worker which we celebrate today was intended not only to raise the dignity of work in our lives but also to put it in the right perspective. This day was also May Day which the communists celebrated as the International Workers Day. Communists elevated work to a religion because they could see that it has the power to create and give meaning. Unfortunately, they did this at the expense of individual dignity and they turned work into an idol. All served the great work of the people, not the great good of the person.

Most people in our society are not communists, thank God. But many people make an idol of work. What I mean is that people take their identity from what they do. Not only do they introduce themselves by their profession but often value themselves by it. We consider ourselves successful if we are recognized as having an important position or making an important contribution. This is a recipe for great unhappiness, as we will never be satisfied in the depths of our hearts by external honors or accolades, or by temporal accomplishments, however great. Many people work for these ephemeral experiences of happiness and end up feeling very empty. They also end up not doing God’s will because they are working with the wrong end in mind.
 
St. Joseph presents to us a very different model. What important position did he fill, or work did he do? Where is the monument he built or the wealth he left behind? St. Joseph’s worth came from his relationship with Jesus and Mary. He worked not for the sake of the work itself or what he would get from it; he worked to provide for his family and to do something beautiful for God. When God required that he change his plans and move to Egypt, he readily obeyed. He was attached to God and not to his accomplishments. He knew his greatest work was to be a husband and a father and most of all a son of God. Sometimes people speak about the difference between resume virtues and obituary virtues. St. Joseph had none of the former and many of the latter.

I often teach a spiritual principal which I explained in the Pastoral Vision for the Diocese of Crookston: New Life through the Tender Compassion of Our God. The principle is three words: Relationship, Identity, Mission. The order is important. We are beings made in God’s image. We are persons capable of being known and loved. We were made for relationship. Our identity should flow from our relationships. First, I come to know who I am as a beloved son or daughter of God. Second, from my other relationships: brother or sister, husband or wife, father or mother. These relationships reveal to us who God made us to be and from these flow our mission, i.e. what I should do. A son should be obedient to his father, and a son who knows he is loved by his father wants to be obedient. This same son will not have trouble saying no to things that are wrong because he will know who he is and that those things don’t accord with the kind of person he is — the son of his father.

Certainly, Jesus lived this principle. Whenever Jesus does anything he explains that he does it not for its impact, or for its influence. He was not led by a desire for popularity. Rather he wanted to do the will of his Father. He taught this to his Apostles on the night before he died when he used the image of the vine and the branches. He said we must live deeply in relationship with him, “Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). We remain in him through prayer and through the sacraments. St. Joseph also lived by this principle. He put his relationship with God and his family first and saw that his work served this. He made room in his life for his relationship with God and became deeply rooted in it. This allowed him to fulfill his mission.

Are you rooted in your relationship with God like St. Joseph? Or do you live for your work instead of letting your work serve your relationships? If you would like to read a great book on this, I recommend Through the Heart of St. Joseph, by Fr. Boniface Hicks, O.S.B. One practical suggestion is to make some time every day for silent prayer. I need this space each day to spend time in relationship. Not just saying prayers, but having a conversation with him each day, spending time each day meditating on his word and speaking to him from the heart. If you want help with this you can watch for free the course I give called The Heart of Prayer. It is available for free on the Manna App of the Eucharistic Congress.
 
Let’s ask St. Joseph to intercede for us so we might not make an idol of our work, but live deep relationship with God and others, and so that we might accomplish the mission God gave us.

Every year in May, the Church invites us to remember the gift of Our Lady to our world and to us, for her as our mother, because we know instinctively it is through her that we have received the very life of Jesus. And so we turn to her, not only in gratitude, but also in supplication, entrusting to her our needs and desires for ourselves and for our families, that she who was so close to Jesus would, in her motherly care and concern, intercede for us.

In a special way, Mary teaches us what is, in fact, the true heart of the Christian life: surrender. Surrender is that entrustment of our hearts to another person, knowing that that person will receive us and transform us. Mary was invited to this surrender by the angel Gabriel when she placed her whole life at the service of the mission of Jesus through her surrender, as she said, “Let it be done to me according to your will.”

What would happen if each of us had the freedom each day to be able to make such a surrender? How God’s grace could pour into the world if, through our lives of daily prayer, we would remove the obstacles that keep us focused on ourselves and prevent us from seeing and being Jesus’ light in the world, as Mary was.

This surrender is the most difficult and the most important thing in Christianity, as with Mary, it usually involves saying yes to the crosses of life. It is also the thing that changes the world, because it allows Jesus to come into my life and then, through my life, into the lives of others.

This surrender is something we are meant to choose every day and to renew every time we receive Holy Communion. When I come to receive him in Communion, I should ask Our Lady to help me to open my heart to receive all the love he desires to share and to give my heart to him so he can fill it with his love and use it for his mission.

Our Lady lived this surrender every day, and she will teach us to live it if we stay close to her.

Our Lady also teaches us the importance of motherhood, and it is no accident that in the month of May we give thanks to God for our own human mothers—those who so selflessly and generously gave us life and tended to our own life at all our most vulnerable moments. We owe a great debt of gratitude to our own mothers for the tender love that they shared with us from our infancy. Even with all their failures, they have given us much for which to be grateful.

I often think of how much mothers carry, especially those who have lost a child, either through miscarriage or after birth. I know that the grief of those who experience these tragedies is also fruitful. This is also true of those who experience the pain of infertility. The suffering of their motherly hearts, like Our Lady’s heart, can bring many graces upon the world.

Every woman is called to be a mother in some way, and Our Lady shows us that motherhood happens not only at the Annunciation, but also at the Cross. There, as she says yes to the suffering asked of her by Jesus, she participates in the pouring forth of grace upon the world.

How many people who come to experience the love of Jesus or enter into the Catholic Church will say they had an encounter with Mary? It was her maternal care, as Mother of the Church, that interceded for you and me, that intercedes for you and me at all the various moments of our life, at all the difficult moments of our life.

The Rosary is Mary’s prayer. Through it, we are united with Mary in the contemplation of the life of Jesus and what it means to be a disciple. This month, let us pray the Rosary in thanksgiving for the gift of Mary’s motherhood and the many other mothers who have strengthened us in our life of faith and taught us how to surrender.

Let us ask that each day we might be able, like Mary, to surrender our lives to God.
We have dedicated our own Planning for Mission in the Diocese of Crookston to the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, because she was the great evangelist of our continent. When she appeared, the Aztec people, trusting in her motherhood, were able to receive the gift of Jesus and the new life that he brought.

Let us ask her to intercede for all those in the Diocese of Crookston who do not yet know the love and life that Jesus has for them. And let us ask her to pray that we might become, like her, mothers of souls through our surrender to Jesus.

May Our Lady of Guadalupe pray for us so that many people might come to know the love of God through us.

1. Find your specific caucus location: You can find yours easily by visiting our dedicated webpage (mncatholic.org/caucus).
2. Bring our caucus resolutions (or make your own): Resolutions are statements of policy or issue you can propose for your party to officially adopt. To make it easy, the Minnesota Catholic Conference has created a series of caucus resolutions such as opposing physician-assisted suicide and prohibiting online sports gambling. They also provide blank forms if you prefer to write your own resolutions.
3. Show up: Although the meeting is much less intimidating than you might think, it can be helpful to bring a friend. Have fun and enjoy participating in your civic duty as a Catholic. Your presence truly matters.

Last week, I had the opportunity to visit one of our Catholic grade schools, and I was with the first graders, and one of them asked me, “How long ago was Jesus born?”  

I asked them if they knew what year it was, and after a bit of conversation, the first graders were able to come up with the fact that it's the year 2025. I then let them know that that's how long-ago Jesus’ birth was, and I explained to them that the whole world counts time by Jesus’ birth.

Here you get a sense of the momentous impact on the world because of Jesus’ coming. Jesus is God. He is God who became one of us, and his entering into history changed everything.  

In this light we must see the terrible events of violence that continue to unfold in our society: the antisemitic Bondi Beach attack, the school shooting at Brown University, and even the murder of husband and wife by their own son. This darkness is the history of our world. Ours is a world steeped in great darkness and evil because of sin and as Jesus told us is ruled by the enemy of God, the devil. Sin and the work of the enemy have marked our race since the beginning. This is why Jesus came. He came to save us from this slavery to evil.  

God seeing the pain and sin of our world has entered our darkness and filled it with the light of his own son. He went so far as to take this darkness upon himself and through his cross offer us a way to redemption. He offers us his transforming love that can fill us with his light in this darkness. He wants to fill us with a love and hope that is stronger than the evil which surrounds us.

We live in this great struggle — the struggle that happens in our world and in our hearts: the struggle between darkness and light. But as Christians, we look at everything differently, because God has revealed to us what it means to be a human being. He has conquered this darkness even if it still has power for the time being. And we know that he is so powerful he can bring good out of evil.  

He wants to fill our hearts with a love that knows no measure! He wants to share with us his own divine life. He wants us to become light in the darkness of this world. This is why he came.

Where are you in this struggle between light and darkness? What are you living for? As we ponder the reality of God becoming one of us, especially in the darkness of this world, his coming demands a response from us. It demands that we surrender our lives to this Christ Child, as Mary did, as Joseph did, as John the Baptist did, as all the saints in history have done.  

My mother used to have a sign in our house that said, “If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem.” In reality, there are only two teams, only two ways to live, and only two destinies for all eternity. As Jesus said, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters” (Matthew 12:30).
 
Jesus has come to gather his own to himself and to fill them with his light to become the light for the darkness of this world. The more we fill our hearts with the knowledge and the love of Jesus, the more we allow our minds to be formed by his truth. The more we become like Jesus through his grace in the sacraments, the more we can make him present in our world today.  

The sin and evil of the world are not the only story. The history of the world is also filled with those who said yes to Jesus and brought his light and healing to the world in a profound way. This is our call. May our own lives be transformed by the overwhelming love of the God who came after us, who entered our time and space to reveal himself to us. May he enter our hearts and dwell there. May his presence transform our lives, our families and lead to the transformation of our communities, and ultimately, our world.

The good news of Christmas has changed the world. Let's let it change our hearts.

• If we believe we can overcome it, we become angry.
• If we think we can’t overcome it and want to escape, we become afraid.
• If we feel we can neither overcome nor escape it, we become sad.

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

In union with Archbishop Timothy Broglio, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and our Holy Father Pope Leo, I invite all the faithful of the Diocese of Crookston to join in fervent prayer for peace in the Middle East. Amid ongoing violence and deep suffering, we lift our voices to the Prince of Peace. Let us especially remember the innocent — the children, the elderly, the persecuted, and all displaced by war and terror. In this time of grief and uncertainty, may our prayer be a beacon of hope and a plea for justice and reconciliation. I encourage you, if possible, to pray the Rosary and even fast for a day to be in solidarity with so much suffering. I also encourage you to pray the following prayer originally written by Pope Francis:

Lord God of peace, hear our prayer!

We have tried so many times and over so many years to resolve our conflicts by our own powers and by the force of our arms. How many moments of hostility and darkness have we experienced; how much blood has been shed; how many lives have been shattered; how many hopes have been buried… But our efforts have been in vain.

Now, Lord, come to our aid! Grant us peace, teach us peace; guide our steps in the way of peace. Open our eyes and our hearts, and give us the courage to say: "Never again war!"; "With war everything is lost". Instill in our hearts the courage to take concrete steps to achieve peace.

Lord, God of Abraham, God of the Prophets, God of Love, you created us and you call us to live as brothers and sisters. Give us the strength daily to be instruments of peace; enable us to see everyone who crosses our path as our brother or sister. Make us sensitive to the plea of our citizens who entreat us to turn our weapons of war into implements of peace, our trepidation into confident trust, and our quarreling into forgiveness.

Keep alive within us the flame of hope, so that with patience and perseverance we may opt for dialogue and reconciliation. In this way may peace triumph at last, and may the words "division", "hatred" and "war" be banished from the heart of every man and woman. Lord, defuse the violence of our tongues and our hands. Renew our hearts and minds, so that the word which always brings us together will be "brother", and our way of life will always be that of: Shalom, Peace, Salaam!

Amen.

• Pat Sagsveen, from St. Bernard’s in Thief River Falls, will begin studies at the St. Paul Seminary.
• Philip Hodapp, from St. Philip’s in Bemidji, will enter Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary in Winona.

People who love sports always love the playoffs, because they provide a time of more intensity and importance to the game. People also love it when they work really hard at something, and it succeeds, it provides a sense of important accomplishment. In fact, when we put intense effort into something, it can lead to intense joy. One of the mysteries of human life is that the more we put into something, the more satisfaction we receive from it. For all these reasons, I love the season of Lent.

Lent is a time when we are called to live our Christian life more intensely. It is a time to put in extra effort and discipline, knowing that if we are faithful, it will lead to more intense joy and a more intense experience of the Lord's goodness and love. The Church knows that we can't live intensity all the time, which is why, in her wisdom, she gives us this season to be more dedicated in our practice of the faith in order to prepare ourselves for our annual celebration of the Lord's Death and Resurrection during Holy Week.

As Christians, then, we should relate to Lent as a gift. Yes, it requires effort. Yes, it means self-sacrifice, but we who follow the Lord, who gave everything for us, know the benefits of this effort and self-sacrifice. The 40 days of Lent, which begin on March 6th, are a time to recenter our lives on what is truly important. It's a time to dedicate ourselves to a more intense relationship with Jesus so we can become more like Him.

The Church invites us to different kinds of sacrifice and discipline during Lent. The three major areas we are invited to take up are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. We are invited to make a commitment in each of these areas; to spend more time in daily prayer, to make some sacrifice of fasting each day of Lent by giving up something that we enjoy. And finally, to be extra generous through the giving of alms to the poor or the giving of our time to others in their spiritual or material need.

Every Catholic is invited to think of something to do in each of those areas. There are manifold examples. One could decide to spend a Holy Hour in church before the Blessed Sacrament every week, or to spend 15 minutes reading the daily readings and meditating on them every day. One should certainly find something to give up that might remind them every day that they're living this season of penance. In addition, there are two days of obligatory fasting in Lent, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, where we are asked to only eat the equivalent of one meal during the day. And of course, we're asked to give up meat every Friday during Lent. But you might consider some area of fasting that will help you remember it's Lent each day.

Finally, is the area of almsgiving. It's good to remember the admonition of Scripture, to not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, and to just try to be generous with giving away your time and your money more frequently during Lent. Perhaps there's someone in a nursing home who needs to be visited every week, or there's some charity that you want to support by giving up extra stops at the coffee shop. Whatever it is, almsgiving helps to purify the heart and strengthens our prayer and fasting. 

I always say that if you don't fail at your Lenten penances, then you probably didn't pick a penance that's difficult enough. It should be something that stretches us and reminds us of the penance of the Lord who spent 40 days in the desert. In this way, we can keep Christ more frequently before our mind and heart, remembering that it's a special season. We can also live more with his Word in our mind and heart, and we can practice more charity towards those around us. Those who take lent more seriously experience more joy when Easter comes.

Finally, it's a very important time to make use of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, or Confession. I would recommend, in fact, that you go to Confession more than once during Lent. It's a great time to take advantage of that sacrament, which offers us very concrete grace to become the Christians we want to be. My experience is that the more you go to confession, the more clearly you see your need for forgiveness, because the light of Jesus's love shines more deeply in your heart and you see where you need to grow. The Sacrament becomes a great occasion for growth during Lent.

We're all called to offer special prayers for those who are preparing to join the Church at Easter. We have a large number of people in the diocese who will be joining the Church this Easter, and we want to pray for them, as these last weeks in preparation for this life changing event, can be a time of trial and temptation for them. In fact, this is the origin of Lent, the whole Church does prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to pray for those who are joining the Church or coming back to it.

Brothers and sisters, let us live the season of Lent well so we can experience more deeply the joy of resurrected life at Easter. I'm confident that if we do that as individuals and as groups, it will call down many graces upon the diocese, not only those who are preparing to join the Church, but many others. God bless you.

Why does the Church exist?  Why do we have Church buildings, priests, the Holy Mass and the Sacraments, the Bible, religious education classes?  In 1975, Pope Saint Paul VI answered this question with a simple phrase: The Church exists to evangelize.  He said:
 
“Evangelizing is in fact the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelize, that is to say, in order to preach and teach, to be the channel of the gift of grace, to reconcile sinners with God, and to perpetuate Christ's sacrifice in the Mass, which is the memorial of His death and glorious resurrection” (Evangelii Nuntiandi, 14).
 
The Church is the place where sinners like us are made one with God, and where we are able to offer him fitting worship through his sacrificial death which is made present in every Mass.  Of course the Mass is the highest and the most important thing we do in our lives, since it is the place of true worship, but the Mass is not just for us. Jesus wants the whole world to be reconciled to him through his Church.
 
Which is why Jesus so clearly commanded us at his ascension: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt 28:19-20). Evangelization is carrying out this command of Jesus, it is inviting others to discover new life in Jesus Christ and his Church.
 
If this is true, then our parish does not exist only for those who regularly come to church, we exist for those who don’t yet come. Is this the way we view our parishes?  Unfortunately, most of our parishes are operating in a maintenance mode. We are trying to maintain our parish communities, even as they gradually dwindle. Many people are beautifully trying to live their faith, but not many people see themselves as missionaries and their parish as a mission center.   
 
People around us are literally dying in emotional, spiritual, and even physical ways because they do not know that the God of the universe knows them and loves them. Do we feel an urgency to share the love of Jesus Christ with them? In my pastoral letter I quoted a homily that Pope Francis gave to the Diocese of Rome early in his pontificate. He commented on the parable where Jesus says he would leave the 99 sheep to go after the one that was lost. Pope Francis said, “Brothers and sisters, we have one sheep. We have lost the other 99! We must go out; we must go out to them! In this culture — let us tell the truth — we only have one, we are a minority! And do we feel the fervor, the apostolic zeal to go out and find the other 99?” (Pope Francis, June 17, 2013). 
 
Brothers and sisters do your parish council meeting agendas, your budget, your parish activities reflect this priority on evangelization?  Or is it the case that most of your meeting, your budget and your parish activities are designed to care for those who are already in the Church?  This is the examination of conscience we must commit ourselves to in our parishes and personally.
 
When I truly encounter the living Jesus, it turns my world upside down. The things that used to matter to me are changed and I begin to want to live for him first and foremost. I want to do everything to please him, because he has given everything for me. He has saved me from a life of emptiness and despair. If you know this truth about Jesus, then you want everyone to know it. You may not be fully equipped, but you desire to share the truth of his love with everyone.
 
This is the reason we are embarking on parish planning in the Diocese of Crookston. We have begun a process of parish planning and hired a director, Jim Remer, so we can evaluate all our resources in light of this missionary call. How do we use our staff, our buildings, our priests, our money? How do we do our religious education classes? How do we collaborate with other parishes so that we can become centers of mission?  This is the goal of parish planning. It will involve change and sacrifice on our parts. We cannot just keep doing what we have been doing. We have limited resources and God is calling us to channel those resources for the good of evangelization.  
 
Let us be courageous together to pray and think about how we can transform the culture of our parishes into centers of mission. Our neighbors, our children, our friends need us to do this. Jesus needs us to do it.

Mission Centered Parishes

Why does the Church exist?  Why do we have Church buildings, priests, the Holy Mass and the Sacraments, the Bible, religious education classes?  In 1975, Pope Saint Paul VI answered this question with a simple phrase: The Church exists to evangelize.  He said:

“Evangelizing is in fact the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelize, that is to say, in order to preach and teach, to be the channel of the gift of grace, to reconcile sinners with God, and to perpetuate Christ’s sacrifice in the Mass, which is the memorial of His death and glorious resurrection” (Evangelii Nuntiandi, 14).

The Church is the place where sinners like us are made one with God, and where we are able to offer him fitting worship through his sacrificial death which is made present in every Mass.  Of course the Mass is the highest and the most important thing we do in our lives, since it is the place of true worship, but the Mass is not just for us. Jesus wants the whole world to be reconciled to him through his Church.

Which is why Jesus so clearly commanded us at his ascension: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt 28:19-20). Evangelization is carrying out this command of Jesus, it is inviting others to discover new life in Jesus Christ and his Church.

If this is true, then our parish does not exist only for those who regularly come to church, we exist for those who don’t yet come. Is this the way we view our parishes?  Unfortunately, most of our parishes are operating in a maintenance mode. We are trying to maintain our parish communities, even as they gradually dwindle. Many people are beautifully trying to live their faith, but not many people see themselves as missionaries and their parish as a mission center.   

People around us are literally dying in emotional, spiritual, and even physical ways because they do not know that the God of the universe knows them and loves them. Do we feel an urgency to share the love of Jesus Christ with them? In my pastoral letter I quoted a homily that Pope Francis gave to the Diocese of Rome early in his pontificate. He commented on the parable where Jesus says he would leave the 99 sheep to go after the one that was lost. Pope Francis said, “Brothers and sisters, we have one sheep. We have lost the other 99! We must go out; we must go out to them! In this culture — let us tell the truth — we only have one, we are a minority! And do we feel the fervor, the apostolic zeal to go out and find the other 99?” (Pope Francis, June 17, 2013). 
 
Brothers and sisters, do your parish council meeting agendas, your budget, your parish activities reflect this priority on evangelization?  Or is it the case that most of your meetings, your budget and your parish activities are designed to care for those who are already in the Church?  This is the examination of conscience we must commit ourselves to in our parishes and personally.

When I truly encounter the living Jesus, it turns my world upside down. The things that used to matter to me are changed and I begin to want to live for him first and foremost. I want to do everything to please him, because he has given everything for me. He has saved me from a life of emptiness and despair. If you know this truth about Jesus, then you want everyone to know it. You may not be fully equipped, but you desire to share the truth of his love with everyone.

This is the reason we are embarking on parish planning in the Diocese of Crookston. We have begun a process of parish planning and hired a director, Jim Remer, so we can evaluate all our resources in light of this missionary call. How do we use our staff, our buildings, our priests, our money? How do we do our religious education classes? How do we collaborate with other parishes so that we can become centers of mission?  This is the goal of parish planning. It will involve change and sacrifice on our parts. We cannot just keep doing what we have been doing. We have limited resources and God is calling us to channel those resources for the good of evangelization.  

Let us be courageous together to pray and think about how we can transform the culture of our parishes into centers of mission. Our neighbors, our children, our friends need us to do this. Jesus needs us to do it.

• the dialogues between the priest and people (the Lord be with you – and with your spirit), 
• the collects (the opening prayer, the offertory prayer, the prayer after communion which collect our common prayers and present them to God), 
• the proper antiphons which are given in the missal each day for the entrance and communion, 
• the ordinary (the Kyrie, the Gloria, the Holy Holy, the Memorial Acclamation, the great Amen, the Lamb of God, and the Lord’s Prayer). 

On March 9, we will celebrate an annual, very important event in the life of the Church. Always on the first Sunday of Lent, all those who are preparing to enter the Church come together at the Cathedral of the diocese to have their names enrolled and to enter the time of immediate preparation for reception into the Church or for baptism itself. This is an ancient tradition dating back to the earliest centuries of the church.

It's a beautiful reminder of the fact that when we are enrolled as catechumens, those who are preparing to enter the Church, our names are actually written in the book of life in heaven, and we are counted among God's elect. It is the bishop who welcomes the candidates and the catechumens to the time of immediate preparation, and the whole church accompanies them as we pray with them for the season of Lent.

In fact, many people do not know that this is the beginning, or the origin of the season of Lent. Lent began as a time of proximate preparation for those who were preparing to become Catholic. They were invited to a special time of fasting and penance, as they were turning from their old ways of sin to embrace a new way of life in Christ. Eventually, the whole church decided to accompany them by taking on ourselves, a way of fasting and penance so that we could be renewed in our life in Christ each year, alongside those who are entering the Church.

Although I do not have any actual statistics, anecdotally, it seems like people entering the Church is up this year. Certainly, that is our experience in the diocese as I have been listening to the numbers, and I am hearing that this trend is happening all over the country. In fact, last year, people entering the Church was up. It seems like God is calling more and more people to himself. He is inviting more and more people to enter the fullness of life through becoming part of his body, which is the Church.

I invite you to come to the Rite of Election on the first Sunday of Lent at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception at 3:00 p.m. It is not a mass, but rather a service where we welcome those who are entering the Church. It is a wonderful thing to have many Catholics there to support these newest members. Even if you cannot make it, I encourage you to keep these people in your daily prayer. Of course, the enemy is never happy when people join the Church, and he can make life difficult for them as they're preparing to enter. Together as a body, let us support those who are entering the Church. Let us also be prepared to take our own Lenten time of fasting, prayer and almsgiving seriously, so that we can grow in our deeper conversion and as these people are preparing to enter the Church, we can be renewed in our own Catholic life.

I hope to see you at the Rite of Election on Sunday, March 9th at 3:00 p.m. at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Crookston, MN.

God bless you,

Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens

Homily from the Opening Mass of the 2025 Jubilee of Hope 
Bishop Andrew Cozzens

Today is a day of great hope for the Church and the world. We are gathered here today in accordance with the ancient tradition of the church to celebrate a Jubilee year every 25 years. The first ordinary Jubilee was in the year 1300, but a jubilee is a Biblical reality that God ordained in the Old Testament. God ordered the people of Israel to celebrate a Jubilee every 50 years. The Jubilee was to be a time of forgiveness of debts and restoration of rights. The inherited land that had been sold was given back, indentured slaves were set free, and debts were forgiven.

In the history of the Church, the jubilee was centered on reconciliation with God – and the forgiveness of the debt of our sin. This is the source of the Jubilee indulgence which Our Holy Father Pope Francis mentions is still a very important part of the Jubilee year.

What is an indulgence? Sin has two effects on us. First there are the eternal effects; when I sin, especially if I sin gravely by breaking one of the 10 commandments, I am separated from God.  I lose the life of God within me, which we call grace.  This can lead to eternal separation.  The sacrament of reconciliation is given to us to restore this separation.  Through confession of my sin, and the absolution of the priest, the eternal effects of my sin are repaired.

But sin as other effects on me. There are the effects that happen here in this world, which we call temporal effects. Sin hurts me and others. It creates bad habits in me and hurts others, often in dramatic ways beyond what I could know. Even hidden sins have real victims. As Pope Francis points out in his letter on the jubilee, “the evil we have done cannot remain hidden; it needs to be purified in order to enable this definitive encounter with the Lord.” We cannot just pretend there are no effects of our sins on ourselves and others. These effects must be purified.

This purification normally happens through penance. Through doing acts of penance, I repair the wrong I have done in myself and in others.  I am not always able to repair concretely but at least on the spiritual level I can try and make right what I have done.  But this can also be repaired through an indulgence. The debt that I owe because I have hurt others and myself, can be paid by others.  Through an indulgence the Church grants that the merit of the saints, who right now live in heaven, be applied to erase my debt. It is an incredible free gift of mercy that helps make right the wrong I have done in the world in a spiritual way.

There are two types of indulgences – plenary and partial. Partial effects part of the debt owed by the evil I have done, and plenary effects all.  Indulgence can be offered for those who are deceased and still being purified from their own debt in purgatory. This is an incredible act of charity for those who have died, to do an indulgence and apply it through your prayer to them.

Indulgences are not magic, meaning they don’t work automatically or in an arbitrary way, but in accord with my own conversion. The conditions for receiving an indulgence make this clear.  The first condition for receiving a plenary indulgence is that I must be free from any undue attachment to sin. If I am addicted to a particular sin or have a sinful habit, receiving an indulgence will not automatically change that in me.  That is the hard work of penance and conversion. I have to grow in virtue, and I cannot receive a plenary indulgence until I am free from all undue attachment to sin, but I can receive a partial one.

There are three other things required to receive an indulgence. First, I must go to confession within 8 days of the act to which an indulgence is given. In other words, I must first deal with the eternal consequences of my sin, before I can be freed from the temporal ones.  Second, I must do the prescribed action which has been granted the indulgence by the Church. Today that is receiving the bishops blessing at this opening of the Jubilee mass. The church has declared that you can receive an indulgence for that today. Third, I must receive Holy Communion on that day and pray for the intentions of the Holy Father. These acts express my communion with the Church through which I receive this indulgence.

During the Jubilee of hope you can receive a plenary indulgence in many ways. By visiting one of the jubilee shrines in Rome or other designated places. But especially in this jubilee of hope the Holy Father has encouraged acts of Hope. Doing acts of service of those brothers and sisters who are burdened by various needs, especially by visiting those “who are in need or difficulty (the sick, prisoners, the lonely elderly, the disabled...).” The Holy Father, noting that Christ is present in the least, encourages us to make “a pilgrimage to Christ present in them.”

Why a Jubilee of hope? Because the world is desperately in need of hope. What is hope? Pope Francis says it is normal for humans to hope: “In the heart of each person, hope dwells as the desire and expectation of good things to come, despite our not knowing what the future may bring.”

But why should we hope in the face of many problems? Hope is not a natural virtue, but a supernatural one. Hope comes from our encounter with Jesus Christ. In Jesus, we realize that all things can be made new. In Jesus, we realize that love has come into the world and that loves has conquered evil in our world. This is the power of Jesus Christ – this is the hope of his birth.

God has seen our distress; he has seen our pain. He has seen that without him we are lost. And he has answered the deep cry of our hearts and sent his son Jesus Christ into the world. God is Emmanuel – God with us – he has come close to us. And in Christ, God has shared with us his own divine life. He has reconciled us to himself by forgiving our sins. He has filled us with his Holy Spirit. He has made us partakers of his own divine nature.

As our second reading declared so clearly today: “God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. As proof that you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” So, you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then also an heir, through God.” We have received the gift of eternal life! Without Jesus, we would have suffered eternal death! Without Jesus, we would not have any hope of true happiness. But through Jesus we have the opportunity to become like God. Jesus has revealed the depth of God’s love for us – and so we have hope no matter what happens.

As St. Paul cries out in Romans: “What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him? Who will bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who acquits us. Who will condemn? It is Christ [Jesus] who died, rather, was raised, who also is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?... No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us” (Rom 8: 31-37).

Jesus Christ has died to reconcile us to the Father. If we surrender our lives to him, if we seek to live close to him, we have nothing to fear. This is the power of the love of Jesus Christ. This is the reason for our hope. Jesus Christ has entered into suffering and death and transformed them. So that even these things, even evil, can become a way to draw us closer to him. As St. Paul says, “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” What is the key to living in this hope?  It comes from the deep encounter with the love of Jesus Christ.

This should be our goal of the Jubilee year of hope. To live deeply in Jesus! To pray every day! To attend Holy Mass as frequently as possible. To read the scriptures. To find ways to serve those in need. These are all ways to live deeply in Jesus.

 I want to highlight two things especially. First - the sacrament of reconciliation – which is at the heart of every Jubilee year. The jubilee is about deeper conversion – something all of us need. The sacrament of reconciliation is a sacrament of hope! All of us are sinners, we all sin seriously at times. Those who hope to overcome their sins go to confession. Confession provides two things. One, an opportunity to pay attention to my need for conversion – I have to humbly acknowledge my sin. Two, grace to overcome – even venial sins. Do you want to stop sinning? Go to confession. I would like to challenge everyone, go at least once a month. That’s twelve times this year.  You will experience great fruit in your spiritual lives.

 Second – be a missionary of hope! We are all called to be missionaries – this year especially seek to find someone who needs hope. Someone you know who is sick or in a nursing home – or in prison. Someone who is divorced or struggling with a breakdown of relationships. Someone who is in need of hope. Ask God to show you and seek that person out in friendship. Just showing love and friendship even if you never speak of Jesus – can bring hope.

Look for ways to speak of your hope. Remember what St. Peter said, “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope.” 1 Peter 3:15.

Our Lady is for us the door of hope. Pope Francis in his letter on the Jubilee of Hope mentions the upcoming 500^th anniversary of the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe. We have dedicated our pastoral vision for evangelization in the Diocese of Crookston to Our Lady of Guadalupe and have begun to ask her to pray for us so that we can be missionaries of the love of her son Jesus. Mary at Guadalupe revealed so clearly the reason for our hope in her own words to St. Juan Diego. She said, “Am I not right here, I am your mother.” We have a loving Mother in heaven who is always interceding for us and always showing us the way to surrender to her son. She is our Mother and she will not abandon us.

Let us close with the prayer I wrote to Our Lady of Guadalupe which you can find in the pastoral letter:

“Dearest Mother, Our Lady of Guadalupe, you came to our world at a time of great difficulty and darkness, when the people of the Americas needed to know the love and mercy of your Son.  You revealed his love and compassion for all peoples. You called them out of darkness into his own wonderful light. You showed us your compassion when you said to Saint Juan Diego, “Am I not here, I, who am your Mother? Let nothing else worry you, disturb you.” 

We know you desire that all people come to know the saving love of your Son Jesus Christ, and that all would enter his Church and live as his Children. Inspire us, confident in your intercession, to find ways to reveal his love to those most in need in our communities. Through your intercession and with you as our strength and guide, make us also true missionary disciples. May we invite everyone we meet to new life through the tender compassion of our God.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

We stand at the beginning of a moment of profound grace for the world today. Our Holy Father, Pope Francis has declared 2025 a Jubilee year! Building on the tradition of the Old Testament when God ordered the people to celebrate a Jubilee year every 50 years for the remission of debts and the renewal of the covenant, the Church now celebrates a jubilee year every 25 years focused on deep spiritual renewal. As I highlighted in this week’s Advent reflection, the key to joy and deeper love in the Christian life is repentance. This is why the Jubilee year always focuses on God's mercy, inviting all believers to deeper conversion and commitment to the Gospel. A Jubilee Year is a special year of grace and remission of sin. It is marked by a focus on forgiveness; the forgiveness of debts, and the restoration of relationships, as well as opportunities for indulgences and acts of mercy. It is a time of hope for new life as we seek deeper spiritual renewal. This is hope not just for us but for all. 

In his Bull opening the Jubilee year, Spes non confundit, (Hope does not disappoint), Pope Francis emphasizes that hope is born of love; the love that flows from the pierced heart of Jesus upon the cross, an unmerited love that offers each of us new life. The upcoming Jubilee is an invitation to encounter the Lord Jesus, who is our hope. So many are alone and hurting in our world, so many feel burdened by despair and cynicism. We are called to hold up Jesus who is our hope. Pope Francis encourages us to embrace this hope, especially in this Jubilee year, reminding us that hope does not disappoint because it is grounded in the certainty of God’s unwavering love.

We are privileged to join the universal Church throughout the world to celebrate the opening of this Jubilee of Hope at our Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, January 1, 2025, at 11 a.m. All who are able to attend can begin this Jubilee Year by obtaining a plenary indulgence.  Those who are unable to attend because of health or difficult circumstances can also obtain the indulgence by being spiritually united with us in prayer on that day.

Throughout the Jubilee year, we will provide opportunities to encounter anew the Hope of the Gospel through our Diocese of Crookston Mercy Hours, which will also provide the plenary indulgence of the Jubilee year. These Mercy Hours, which take place once a month, are a time of prayer for hope and healing.

Please join us at the Cathedral on January 1^st, as we honor the Mother of God on her feast, to pray that through this Jubilee year of grace many people might come to encounter the Hope that Jesus offers us through his love and mercy.

Mary, Mother of Hope, pray for us.

his Sunday, we will come to the climax of our liturgical year with the celebration of the Solemnity of Christ, the King of the Universe. With this feast, we declare who is the real ruler of the world. This is an important lesson for us to remember, especially in a time like now, when we just had elections. The fact is that Jesus Christ is seated on his throne, and he is the one who truly rules the world, regardless of human governments. Many human governments have come and gone in the two thousand years since he established his kingdom, and this will continue to happen.

Jesus Christ is orchestrating all the history to bring it to its fulfillment in the kingdom of heaven. This is why he came to earth to establish a kingdom and to invite all humanity to join it through his Body the Church. The kingdom of Jesus is a kingdom of peace, a kingdom of love, a kingdom of justice and truth. It is a kingdom where forgiveness brings unity, where charity brings healing, where truth sets people free. You and I can enter this kingdom today.

Jesus told us that the kingdom of God was at hand. The Kingdom of God exists when we submit our lives to Him and choose to live as his disciples in his Church. The Kingdom of God becomes present for us when we turn from our sins and through the Sacrament of Confession, receive his mercy and the strength to live anew. The Kingdom of God becomes present when we recognize his command to show mercy and love to the least among us. The Kingdom of God becomes real when because we have been forgiven of our sins, we turn and forgive others. Living has his disciple in the Kingdom on this earth prepares us to be welcomed into his Kingdom in heaven.

The world we live in does not recognize the Kingdom of God and exalts its own kingdom. Some people are seeking their own power and glorification. Some are seeking their own pleasure and entertainment. The truth is that most people, even us sometimes, live for themselves. Jesus Christ came so that we might live, no longer for ourselves, but for his sake.

Because Jesus Christ is King, despite all the struggle in our world, Jesus is not afraid. He is not concerned. He is in absolute control. Therefore, we do not have to be afraid or concerned either. If we will surrender our lives to him and choose to live in his kingdom, then he will allow His peace to reign in our hearts, and he will use us as his missionaries. We will become part of the building of his kingdom on earth.

The Kingdom of God starts in your heart when you submit your life to him and choose to live in his love. It continues in your family and in your community, when you seek to make his love present by the way that you live. Jesus Christ is King of the Universe, and he wants his kingdom established here in northwestern Minnesota. He is asking you and me to surrender our lives to him and build his kingdom.

It is a good time to ask ourselves in prayer, what is one thing you can do this Advent to submit your heart more to him, so that you can dwell more in his kingdom? Could it be reading the scriptures every day and meditating on them? Could it be going to confession, maybe even two times during Advent, in order to seek to conscientiously overcome your sins? Could it be some act of charity towards the least among us that God is asking you to do? As we declare Christ to be our king, let us ask him practically how we might grow closer to him this Advent and prepare for his birth more deeply in our hearts.

National Vocations Awareness Week  |  November 1, 2024

November third through ninth is National Vocation Awareness Week in the Church in the United States. This week is dedicated to reflecting on the gift of a vocation. Every person has a vocation because every person is created by God for some purpose. You have been created for some purpose. There is something that God has given you to do that if you do not do it, it won't get done in this world. In this way, you have an incredibly special mission from God.

This mission does not have to be extraordinary to be special and impactful. We think of the centrality of a mother's love in our life to know that a mother has an enormous impact. We think of the importance of people who serve in many ways in our society, as lawyers, law enforcement, service men and women or even those who serve in businesses or companies. In each of those places, we can live as Christ's light and fulfill our vocation.

However, when you see the scriptures, you realize that Jesus called some people, not all people, to follow him in a very unique way. These people, like the apostles and even some women, were called to leave everything behind and follow Jesus. They were called to embrace his way of life. Jesus did not have his own wife and family. His life was completely given to his mission. He did not seem to have his own house or possessions. He lived in poverty, dependent upon other people. Jesus certainly did not do his own will. Each day he carried out the will of his Father. Jesus called some people to this same radical way of life that he lived, a life of celibacy, a life of poverty, a life of obedience.

These people were to dedicate their lives, like he did, completely to God's kingdom. Today, we still see these people active in our church. They are the priests, the brothers, the women religious. These are the ones who have heard the call of Jesus in their life; to give up a normal family and a normal career and to live for Him alone. It is a great privilege when Jesus calls someone to this life, even though it can seem a bit scary at first, because it means a life of special intimacy with him. You could say it this way; Jesus loves some people so much that he does not want to share their heart with anyone else, and he wants them to live with an undivided heart for him alone.

Even though most people in the church do not receive this call, if anyone knows the power of the love of Jesus, then they know that this love would be worth giving everything for. That is the call that I received, and all our priests and religious have received. Let us pray that in our families, this beautiful call to live for Jesus alone might be held up as a great value. That the children and young people in our diocese might be open to hearing this call. God is still calling people to these incredibly special vocations, and our whole church depends upon these vocations even though all of us have an essential part in God's body.

Let's pray that in the Diocese of Crookston, he might raise up many young women and men who feel called to give their lives entirely for him and for his service That they might serve among us as great witnesses to the power and the love of God. You might consider this week doing an extra Holy Hour or some extra fasting to pray for these vocations in our diocese.

Lend us your heart
By Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens

What is a Revival?

Throughout the history of God’s people, we see both in the scriptures and in the life of the Church, that there is a constant need for renewal. God’s people are constantly failing to live as he calls us in fidelity to his covenantal love.

God responds by sending prophets, priests, and saints of all kinds (laity, religious, priests), and even his own Son, to call his people back to fidelity to him and to lives of holiness. And sometimes it works!

The Holy Spirit works through God’s messengers and inspires his people to deeper conversion, a deeper desire for holiness, a more authentic discipleship. This is called a revival. 

We are living in a time in the life of the Church when we are desperately in need of revival. The practice of the faith amongst Catholics has been diminishing for decades.

Today, most Catholics do not go to Mass every Sunday, never go to the Sacrament of Confession, and don’t have a daily prayer life (this summarizes the faith life of 75-80% of baptized Catholics). They are not living like true disciples seeking to follow Jesus daily. 

What this means is that most Catholics have not encountered Jesus Christ as a real living person. They do not know that he knows them and wants to share his life with them. They do not know that true happiness is only found in a daily relationship with him.

They do not know he is really present in the Eucharist and that through confession they can grow in holiness. They don’t yet want to be holy, because they don’t know what it means to be close to Jesus. Do you? 

All of us, myself included, need revival. Even if we go to Mass every Sunday, we need to grow in our daily relationship with Jesus so that we can become like him and become instruments for his Holy Spirit in our world. If we want our Church to experience renewal, then we must begin to seek holiness with all our hearts. Revival happens one heart at a time.

Revival comes through repentance. When you and I are willing to honestly stand before God and admit our sins, and then humbly bring our sins to confession. When we repent from being lukewarm disciples of Jesus and seek daily to live in his love, we are open for revival. We can become part of this renewal that God wants to do in our time.

Many saw this revival beginning to happen in our country last summer when 60,000 people gathered in Indianapolis for the National Eucharistic Congress. We were invited to repentance and renewal in our faith life.

We gathered to worship the Lord and ask him to send his Holy Spirit upon us. If you ask someone who attended, you will likely hear a story of how they experienced the Holy Spirit working and how they came home with a desire for deeper holiness.

Revival is ultimately God’s work, but we can ask him to do it. Do you want revival in the Diocese of Crookston?

Would you like to see our young people coming back to Church, and families growing strong in their faith? Would you like to see more vocations to the priesthood and religious life?

Revival begins with us. In this issue of Northland Catholic, we hope to tell stories that will encourage you to seek holiness as an authentic disciple. We hope you will be inspired to revival.

We hope you will begin by going to confession and beginning to seek to live closer to Jesus daily. What would happen in our Diocese if we all committed ourselves to confessing the ways we have failed to live as a disciple and tried to begin anew? I would like to find out! I bet we will see a revival.