Fr. Todd 6/29/25

Dear Sacred Heart and St. Mary on the Lake,

Thank you again for your prayers for our newly ordained priests.  What an absolute joy the Ordination Mass and the celebrations to follow, including Fr. Randy’s first Mass at our home Parish of Most Holy Trinity.  God is so good!  I look forward to having Fr. Randy just up the road in Jackson at his assignment at St. John the Evangelist.

Thank you for Katie Moncy in coordinating Totus Tuus for us this year and all the volunteers who were a part of it.  What a great week!

            On this feast of Jesus’ Sacred Heart may we be moved by His closeness with us.  I want to share a story from the life of St. Teresa of Avila.  “One day the devil appeared to her, disguised as Christ. Teresa wasn’t fooled for even a second. She immediately dismissed him. Before leaving, however, the devil asked her: ‘How did you know? How could you be so sure I wasn’t Christ?’ Her answer: ‘You didn’t have any wounds! Christ has wounds.’ …

He returns to His disciples in His bodily form without having disguised the wounds of His passion. He returns a battle-scarred hero, displaying His wounds to us for our scrutiny, inviting us to touch and even enter into these very wounds, so that our faith may be restored, our own personal wounds healed, and our sins forgiven.

This is at the very heart of our Easter faith. A Jesus without wounds is a Jesus without a cross and a Jesus without a cross would never be adequate to meet the deepest needs of mankind. Too many modern Christians have clasped to their bosoms a powerful but cross-less Christ. That kind of Christology will always have at its corollary a cross-less discipleship. A cross-less Christ, a God insulated from pain and suffering, will produce followers who believe they should enjoy the benefits of a special relationship with this lite-version of Christ. They become touchy ‘Christians’, ‘Christians’ who get offended easily. Every small little demand made of them would seem impossibly heavy. These ‘Christians’ will look to their false image of Christ for ‘blessings’ of success and privilege, and these become evidence that they enjoy divine approval. But to worship such a Christ would be to worship a false Christ – an anti-Christ.

This is the incredible reality of the Christian faith. We do not worship a God who gives us life lessons on how to be happy or a God who sets out a strategy for how to avoid sorrow. We do not worship a God who remains aloof, untouched by our pains and sorrows. We worship a God who has chosen to, as the Malay expression goes, ‘turun padang’, go down to the grassroots of unwashed humanity. Yes, we worship a God who has experienced the most profound sorrow of suffering. He suffered for us and He suffers with us. And He has the scars to show for it. …

The wounds that mar Christ are the wounds that mar us all, transferred from us to him. In His death, every needless death is absorbed. Every drop of blood ever shed is seen in His death. Every sorrow is seen in His sorrow. Every tear of mourning and loss is understood by Him. God attends every funeral and whispers, ‘I know how this feels’ to everyone who will listen to His quiet voice. Our wounded God has redeemed every wound. Our murdered God has redeemed death. Our broken God has redeemed brokenness. Our bereft God has redeemed mourning. And, we will recognize Him by his wounds.”

https://michaelckw.blogspot.com/2017/04/we-will-recognise-him-by-his-wounds.html#:~:text=Theresa%20wasn't%20fooled%20for,didn't%20have%20any%20wounds!

God Bless!

Fr. Todd