He won’t apologize:  It was early Sunday morning at Pine Needle Pointe.  All was quiet.  Mom and dad were still asleep.  The coffee pot had just finished making that old fashioned fresh pot of coffee.  A pleasant coffee aroma was filling the air.  I meandered out of my room to see what was going on.  Before I got too far, I poured myself a cup of coffee and got ready to delight in the first brew of the day.  Of course I was nosy, so I went over and checked out what my sisters were up to.  They were sitting in front of the TV trying to find Good Morning America.  As I landed on the couch, I could tell there was some frustration filling the air faster than a cold front trying to destroy a beautifully warm sunny day.  “What’s up,” I asked.  They had multiple remotes pointed at the TV.  This is somewhat typical for my family:  when in doubt and frustrated, just point every single remote in sight toward the TV, bombard the poor TV with commands in the hopes some stray signal will work and get you what you want.  “We can’t get a single local channel,” they said almost in unison.  “Maybe they don’t have local channels.”  “OF COURSE, they have local channels.  It was working fine last night.  What did you do now?”  Now the frustration turned toward me because it appeared I was blaming THEM for their TV woes (isn’t that what big brothers do).  After taking a sip of coffee, I motioned for the remote.  As my one sister handed me the remote, she said with a grin, “You’ll apologize in a minute that you doubted us.”  Almost immediately, the other sister piped up, “Mike won’t apologize!”  I was floored.  “What do you mean I won’t apologize?”  I raced through my brain, trying to figure out why she would say I would never apology.  “Of course, I would apologize if I was wrong,” I thought to myself.  Then she clarified, “He won’t have to apologize because you forgot who you’re dealing with.  He’ll figure it out.”  Wow, the challenge was on.  So I took the remote, and all eyes were on me.  I just wanted to get back to my cup of coffee and enjoy the beginnings of the beautiful day that was unfolding before my eyes.
 
Once I had the remote in my hands and studied the screen, I pressed ONE button on the remote and … voila … the channels were back and I had Good Morning America on in a matter of seconds.  The peanut gallery let out a groan and just shook their heads.  Of course, I had to rub it in (isn’t that what big brothers do):  “You pressed too many buttons and accidentally filtered the channel listing.  I guess I have no need apologize.”  I handed the remote back to my sisters, took my cup of coffee, and went back to starting my day.  As I did so, I thought to myself, “Come on dear sisters.  You’re dealing with Father Tech; of course he was going to figure this out.  He’s not Clark Griswold ALL the time … maybe MOST times but not ALL the time.”
 
Unleashing the Gospel … Bold New Adventures at SJA:  Last week, I started a new series in my bulletin article about some of the new bold initiatives we are undertaking as part of our commitment to Unleash the Gospel at SJA!  I opened the series by talking about the bad habits that the participants of Synod 16 surfaced, which affect our ability to unleash the Gospel in southeast Michigan.  This week, I want to focus on the GOOD HABITS that help us … that empower us … to unleash the Gospel.  These good habits, “are those dispositions of mind and heart that we must take on in order to become a radically mission-oriented Church.  They are in fact a participation in the mind and heart of Jesus. ‘Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus …’ (Phil 2:5) ( Unleash the Gospel).”  Archbishop Vigneron presented six GOOD HABITS that need to be embraced:
 
1) Docility to the Spirit.  “Throughout Acts it is evident that the Holy Spirit was the initiator, guide, and driving force of the Church’s evangelizing mission.  So today the new evangelization can only be carried out through a radical openness to the leading of the Spirit: preceding every initiative with prayer for his guidance, constantly allowing ourselves to be led by him, and obeying his prompting and inspirations.”  I’ll be honest, this first habit has already had a massive impact on my life and priesthood since Synod 16.  I’ve been a priest for 28 years and I haven’t given much thought, until now, about how much we need to rely on the Holy Spirit for guidance.  Don’t get me wrong, I know the Holy Spirit is operative but never before have I been so intentional in calling upon the Holy Spirit by name for guidance.  I’m now intentional about asking the Holy Spirit to fill the room where I’m meeting.  I’m intentional about asking the Holy Spirit to guide the conversation and help bring about clarity to what God wants me or us to accomplish.  And, much like the early disciples, I’m on fire in a whole new way because it works!  I know I know … I shouldn’t be surprised!  Things are getting done, and changes are being made.  And even better, I have a whole new confidence and clarity that what is coming about is truly what God wants out of me and what God wants for our parish.
 
A perfect example of how the Holy Spirit was invoked and helped bring clarity to a decision is in the selection of our new Director of Faith and Family Formation.  For several weeks I was in a quandary about what to do.  As a result, I kept putting it on the back burner.  I had been consulting our own parishioner Patty Chase who is one of the Regional Coordinators of the Office of Catechetics for the Archdiocese of Detroit.  We were throwing out some ideas, and she finally said let’s meet to pray about it.  So we met and prayed.  At the end of our little prayer time, I told her that it was pretty clear to me that I needed to ask Kristine Hass, a parishioner who is a cantor and leads our Vacation Bible School each year.  I somewhat dismissed the idea at first because I thought Kristine would never say yes because she already leads a busy life.  But then Patty said Kristine’s name came to mind too as she prayed.  I kept thinking to myself, “She will never say yes.”  Then I heard the voice of God say pretty clearly to me, “Do you trust the Holy Spirit?  Ask her.”  So I did, and she said YES.  That’s what it means to have a docility to the Spirit to lead us through the decisions of life.
 
I’ll have more to share next week.
 
Enjoy the week.  Know of my prayers.
 
In Christ,
 
gmb
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