Ten months ago, on Oct. 6, 2023, I celebrated a Mass for our Catholic School Teachers and gave them each a small book on the life of Blessed (soon to be Saint) Carlo Acutis. After the Mass, a teacher from Pope John High School suggested that I read a book called, “Priest and Beggar: The Heroic Life of Venerable Aloysius Schwarz” by Kevin Wells.
Even though the 2024 Paris Olympics began on a “sour note,” with an offensive and disrespectful depiction of the Last Supper, for which the organizers gave a less than satisfying apology, there is still something impressive, inspiring, and encouraging in the opportunity to see the best athletes from throughout the world coming together to compete with one another.
In what we call a “Three Year Cycle” of Gospel Readings for Sunday Mass, the Church reads from Matthew’s Gospel in “Year A,” from Mark in Year B, and from Luke in Year C. The Gospel of John gets “mixed in” at different times, Feasts, and Seasons during that Three Year Cycle.
During my last weeks in the seminary, in 1997, shortly before ordination to the priesthood, the priest who was the Dean in charge of pastoral formation had a “final conference” with those of us who were about to be ordained. I remember that he gave us three practical suggestions so that we might be “good parish priests.”