Happy Twenty-Eighth Sunday!

All the warm weather we enjoyed through September and early October finally broke this week into the crisp, cool 60s. For me, this is the glorious and nostalgic window of weather I wait for all year — my absolute favorite. Something I love about Michigan is the way we celebrate our seasons and how we’re always anticipating the excitement of the next one around the corner. But I’ve always had a soft spot for autumn. In the words of my old high school kiddos, “It just has all the vibes. And we love the vibes.”

So, if I hadn’t been born in April (best birthday month?), my second choice would probably be September or October. Cheers to all of you out there who are so blessed!

I want to mention this week how proud I am of our school principal, Sarah, our admin staff, and our teachers for their recent and successful completion of the bulk of the St. Robert accreditation process. Every five years, all our Catholic schools undergo this audit to ensure that we are on mission — that we’re administratively, financially, and spiritually healthy, and that we’re planning for the current and future needs of our community.

I’ve been observing this process, especially through Sarah’s hard work and her hundreds of hours of preparation since this past spring. As you can imagine, I’m quite glad we’re moving into the debriefing and next-steps phase of accreditation. Sarah, our staff, and I are very encouraged by the vision we’re continuing to hone, communicate, and build up for our St. Robert students and families. It’s never a bad time to thank our school leaders when you see them at church or around the community.

Thank you all for listening to my somewhat raw and unpolished homily last weekend — one that was hard to give and, really, hard to know how to give. In my nine years of preaching, it was up there with the least enjoyable. I’m sorry for any particular words or directives that may have been imperfect, imprudent, or confusing to hear from a priest, especially for our young ones. I felt it was important, in light of the Grand Blanc tragedy, to speak frankly about church safety — because I love you and want to make sure we’re safe.

We recognize together that this topic is a near-zero, but non-zero, probability. As mentioned in my homily, there are many aspects of safety planning I didn’t have time to speak on publicly but am nonetheless continuing to work on behind the scenes for us. You know I value transparency, and I’ll continue to communicate verbally or in writing anything further on this issue that’s helpful for the public domain. Let’s keep loving and praying for each other and for the good people of Grand Blanc.

Like many places in God’s Word, our Scriptures this week meet us again at the dramatic cliff’s edge of human need on one side and divine assistance on the other. The key that bridges that gulf is the union of God’s free gift with man’s free response. God offers to each person the gift of salvific faith in Him and His good promises, while each of us must accept that faith into our soul by surrendering our life into God’s hands with loving and grateful obedience. The end result is always the glory of God revealed!

Let’s hear and heed again the words of St. Paul: Jesus empowers us never to be without Him, whether in life or in death; therefore, let us persevere in faith and so one day reign with Him.

Yes and amen — I’m with you on that journey together.

Fr. Brian