He must increase; I must decrease.

Merry Christmas!!! I hope that Christmas day was a great, or maybe for some of you (if not most) you started to celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, so I hope that was a good day as well. I know that this past weekend the church was packed here at Epiphany, and it was great to see so many people here. I was able to make it home on Christmas night and spend some time with my family. Usually the week after Christmas is a slow week (because school is out, and a lot of people on vacation) but it will not be a slow week for me. Tomorrow through Friday I will be helping with a TEC (Teenagers Encountering Christ)  retreat here in the Twin Cities, and looking at the schedule I can see that it is not exactly going to be a restful retreat, but it should be a good one.
On Christmas I preached about how we are called to be Christians, which means that we always have to be changing. The Scripture verse that I referenced is John 3:30 in which John the Baptist states: He must increase; I must decrease. Hopefully I will have the homily posted soon, but right now I cannot find the CD and so keep on checking back to see if it is up. Have a great week, and please pray for the kids that will be making a retreat this week.

According to Your Word

I hope that you have a good final week of Advent. I know that I will be busy with confessions, a Christmas homily, and some other talks this week. However, I also hope that you can take some time this week in silent prayer. The silent prayer will hopefully help you through the rest of the busy season.
Below is my homily from last week:

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Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing.

This past week my friend Fr. Dustin Boehm's brother passed away. His name was Adam Boehm and he was 24 years old. If you could please keep Adam and his family in your prayers that would be greatly appreciated.
I preached a little bit about Fr. Dustin and his family in my homily this past weekend. This homily is straight from my heart and I think that it would be a good homily for anyone to listen to if they are going through a time of trial (which is all of us sometimes), so I hope that you can get something out of it.

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St. Nicholas Challenge

Three Great Days!!!

What a busy three days it has been. On Saturday we had our first ever Gala and it was a great success. I have never seen Epiphany look as good as it did on Saturday night, so thank you to all who volunteered. Also, a big thanks to Tim and Jayne Taylor who won a day of ice fishing with me.Of course Sunday was great because we had Mass, and also because the Vikings at least made the game entertaining.

Yesterday was also a busy day in which I was able to put up my Nativity set and my Christmas Tree. Also, I took all of the ice fishing equipment out of the closet and have started to organize the gear for the season (which hopefully will begin soon).

This past weekend I preached on how Mark was more than likely the first Gospel writer. However, I failed to mention that this is not certain, but rather a belief by many scholars. I did not intend to say for fact that Mark was the first Gospel writer, but I can realize how it can come off this way. I guess in the big picture the point that I was trying to make was that it should not matter who wrote the first Gospel, because they all speak of Jesus, not themselves, which we are called to do in our lives. If you want to listen to my homily it is right here:

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And with your Spirit!!!