A Shepard's Care
Weekly Column

My wife Marilyn and I were blessed recently to go on a pilgrimage to Portugal, Spain and France. The trip included visits to Fatima and Lourdes, the sites of Marian apparitions. In 1858, in Lourdes France, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous. Our Lady of Lourdes revealed herself as “the Immaculate Conception” and directed Bernadette to an underground spring. The spring’s water is believed to have healing properties, and Lourdes has become a major pilgrimage site visited by millions each year. Then in 1917, in Fatima, Portugal, the Virgin Mother appeared over a period of six months to three shepherd children and identified herself as “Our Lady of the Rosary.” Our Lady urged the children to pray for the conversion of sinners. The apparitions culminated in the “Miracle of the Sun” on October 13, 1917, witnessed by tens of thousands. Today, millions of pilgrims gather each year in Fatima.

This weekend’s celebration of All Saints Day (Saturday) and All Souls Day (Sunday) invite us to reaffirm our faith in the first and last line of the Nicene Creed: “I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible… and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”

Shortly afterwards the branches stop sending fluid to the leaves which then separate and fall to the ground. Every year the Lord invites me to reflect upon this process: How wondrous it is that the leaves appear to be most beautiful just as their season is ending and they are about to die.

Have you seen those robotic vacuum cleaners, or lawn mowers, that wander around a room or a yard doing their job until they bump into something? Then they stop, back up, redirect, and continue on a new trajectory. That is exactly what Jesus does NOT want us to do in prayer. In this Sunday’s gospel passage (Luke 18: 1-8) Jesus tells a parable about the necessity “to pray always without becoming weary.”

Our readings for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time give us advice on how we should live our lives as Christians. First we should remember to be thankful to our God and to others for what they do for us. Secondly, we need to love all our neighbors and accept them as children of God. We have heard this advice before, but we see in the Scripture readings where the Word turns into action.

The four Catholic bishops of Colorado are asking all Catholics of our state to support three new ballot initiatives. They are encouraging all parishes to collect signatures to get these initiatives on the ballot for November 2026. Here is a brief description of the initiatives:

As we change seasons and the beauty of creation shines forth with the new colors of the leaves, many of us enter into a season of comfort and coziness. Sweaters come out (but the sandals may stay on here in Colorado), pumpkin-spiced beverages are everywhere, and we settle into a routine of football weekends (even if they come with painful, last-minute field goals). But with this weekend’s first reading, we are not shown comfort or coziness; rather, we are reminded that we must not become complacent. How should we act if we are to avoid becoming complacent?

I am grieving. I did not know anyone who was injured in the school shootings of Minneapolis and Evergreen, nor did I know of Charlie Kirk before I heard of his assassination. I do not know anyone who has been injured or killed in Ukraine or Gaza or any other war-torn area of our world. I did not know any of the children who drowned in the Guadalupe River flood, or the floods in Pakistan, or the typhoons in the Philippines. So I am not grieving from the loss of a personal relationship. Nevertheless, I feel somewhat sad, tired and overwhelmed by all this bad news about which I feel powerless.

In the parish’s Our Lady of Sorrows Adoration Chapel, you will find peace and solitude when spending time with our Lord as he rests in the monstrance. But what you may not realize is that a first-class relic of the instrument used to crucify Him is nearby. A relic of the True Cross was bequeathed by an IHM parishioner about 15 years ago. It now sits in a reliquary in a glass box to the right of the monstrance, a reminder of the victory over sin and death.

Do you know someone who has known the counsel of the Lord and has been given wisdom from the Holy Spirit? I think Scott Elmer, the Chief Mission Officer for the Archdiocese of Denver, is one of those gifted people. And he’s coming to IHM to share his wisdom with us on the evening of September 15th. Scott is leading the archdiocese on a bold new path of evangelization to meet the challenges posed by our secular culture.