Dear Friends,

Since around the 1980’s we have been fighting a “War on Drugs”. And as a friend of mine reminds me, “Drugs are winning the War on Drugs”. Despite our best efforts and intentions, drug use, drug related crime, enrichment of the drug cartel’s wealth and power and drug related deaths are off the charts. And all this got a big assist from Arizona voters.

Dear Friends,

During the 90’s I was mostly in a time warp. That’s because I was in jail. Actually, I was a Prison Chaplain, served that sentence for about 12 years. But when I went back into Parish ministry, I started hearing something that confounded me. Namely, the amount of pornography use that men were engaged in.

Dear Friends,

If you are not an Opera fan but would like to venture into this wonderful musical genre, a good place to start is with the Opera Pagliacci by Leoncavallo. It is a simple, easy to follow work in two acts. It starts out with a Prologue that reminds the audience that actors have feelings too and that this story is about real people.

Dear Friends,

September is National Recovery Month; bringing awareness that there is a solution to the problem of addiction/alcoholism. Alcoholics Anonymous, the granddaddy of recovery, puts it this way, when describing how to deal with the problem: “without help it is too much for us. But there is one who has all power-that one is God. May you find him now!”

Dear Friends,

It’s de rigueur, right around the time of any major Christian holy day, to read stories in the Media that are anti-Christian, anti-God and especially ones that attack organized religions (never Islam but the rest are considered fair game).

Dear Friends,

And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree, There will be an answer, Let It Be….

-“Let it Be” by the Beatles”

We are the broken hearted who have found the answer. Most of us have had the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” pointed at us, and yet rather than remaining as victims we find the answer in faith. What we agree on even amid so much disagreement is that Jesus is the answer to our broken hearts and wounded souls.

Dear Friends,

Most young people in their late teens and early twenties are looking forward to and planning their future. Whether its finishing up college, moving into a career, saving up for a new car or planning to be married, it’s an exciting time in life. But not for all. Why do some young people lose the hope and the excitement of a future? Why is the suicide rate among young people skyrocketing, and why do some young men decide to blow up their future and the future of dozens and dozens of others? It’s easy to point the finger of blame at this or that but as we have found out, it’s much harder to find effective solutions that could stop the metamorphosis of a bright young teenager into a cold-blooded killer.

We all want to wind up somewhere on purpose. The problem is that often we wind up somewhere and wonder: How did I get here? This is not where I want to be. So, one day you find your business filing for bankruptcy, or your spouse filing for divorce or your best friend no longer speaking to you. It happens to all of us in different ways, at different points. And it happens usually because we don’t define what success looks like or as I like to put it, we don’t define what a win looks like.

Dear Friends,

“Oh when the saints come marching in…” You’re gonna want to be in that number this coming Thursday when St. Bernadette comes marching into our Parish! This is the first time that the relics of the Saint, from the Sanctuary at Lourdes, France, will be on tour in the U.S. and we are fortunate to be one of the hosts. Of course, St. Bernadette is tied to Our Lady though the apparitions at Lourdes.

Dear Friends,

One of our esteemed US Senators recently gave her uninformed opinion about “how those pro-lifers don’t care about women.” Well, actually Senator, we care very much. Not only about women but about their unborn child as well. In fact, we care so much that since 1973 we have opened and operated, at our own expense, over 4,000 Pro-Life Centers and Clinics to assist women with prenatal and postnatal care.

Dear Friends,

For those of you who keep track, it’s been a year since I came to Our Lady of Lourdes. I have to admit that the Sun Cities area (and I’ll include in that the North Peoria area) is a very nice place to live. In fact, it seems to me that you have to work really hard to be miserable if you live particularly in Sun City West. There is an endless stream of things to do, people to meet, fun to be had all wrapped up in a safe, rather quiet (except for those F-35’s) active senior adult community. It has been a big change from my days in the ASU College town of Tempe.

Dear Friends,

The long and winding road that led to the overturning of Roe v Wade required almost 50 years of playing legal jujitsu. In 1973 the Supreme Court actually decided two cases Roe v Wade and then Doe v Bolton. In Roe, somehow the Justices found what no one else had ever found: that a woman has a constitutional right to an abortion. Then Bolton said restrictions can be placed on that right. Putting restrictions on something that is declared a constitutional right is always were trouble starts. When and what restrictions can be placed on a constitutional right always leads to lawsuits that seek clarification. In another recent example, the Court also took up a case on when and what restrictions can be place on the constitutional right to bear arms.