News - September 2025 RSS Feed

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.