Week of August 17, 2025

My Sisters and Brothers in Jesus Christ,
May God’s love and peace be with you this day. Years ago, I remember hearing a story about a medieval person witnessing people all working the same job – moving stones to build a medieval Cathedral.  Each worker saw their job differently.  One person saw the superficial labor as just moving a stone. Another saw the labor he was doing as providing for his family. Another worker could say with pride that he was building a cathedral.  It was all the same work of moving stones, but each worker understood their job differently.
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Our desire should focus on building the kingdom. So often, we let our anger, frustrations, and so much stuff get in the way of accomplishing what we should do.  Yes, I want to build God’s kingdom, but this person is being a jerk and cut me off in traffic.  We have high ideals, but our execution falls short.

I think of my own high ideals with this ministry.  I want to share the Good News of Jesus Christ both virtually but also with each person I encounter.  At the same time, I betray these high ideals by my words and actions.  Each of us is made in God’s image and likeness but I need to be more like John the Baptist who decreased so that Jesus could increase.  Or I think of Mary who gave her life entirely over to God and desired to be a vessel of God’s love and presence in the world.  When seen that way, our jobs, struggles, and conversion take on a new perspective.

This week, I was working on a few more YouTube shorts that will debut in November and December.  A YouTube short on sin and despair was released this past week.  I am working to get the number of shorts caught up with my full-length videos.  Speaking of which, a full-length video was released this weekend based on a book on ministering to inactive and alienated Catholics.  There have been many programs and books written since the book I explore in the video was published.  At the same time, this is such an important ministry. 

There are so many people who are no longer practicing their faith for a variety of reasons.  I spend a lot of time listening and loving people alienated from their faith communities.  Sadly, I can understand why so many fall away – inadequate presentations of God in their religious development, the scandal of how Christians do not live according to their beliefs, judgement, authoritarian structures, and so much more.  Atheism is often the only legitimate response to false presentations of God and Christianity.  We have work to do if we want to share the Good News so that people can experience and participate in it.
Peace,
Ben