But Why?
As we have begun in earnest as a Family of Parishes many of you have had many questions. As you may have noticed, our vicars have been addressing a number of these questions, especially as it pertains to the celebration of Mass. Please remember to dig a little deeper into the bulletin, to dig a little deeper into your faith. Some questions have related to why can’t we have a priest stationed at each site since we have four priests and four parishes, so why do we rotate around when we can just stay in one spot? Bam! Problem solved, right? Not really. There are a couple of reasons why we are doing a weekly priest rotation.
1. The archbishop assigned four priests to our Family of Parishes (Fr. Jarred Kohn, Fr. Steve Mondiek, Fr. Andrew Reckers, and Fr. Aaron Hess). The point of Beacons of Light for our parish family is to figure out how our four parishes are going to become a unified whole as single parish under a single pastor (albeit with multiple campuses). We cannot act like the situation is the same as it was June 30th. We must actually “feel the pain” that things have been modified for us in our individual parishes. Because eventually we will have only three priests in our Family of Parishes and if we stick our heads in the sand about this reality now, confronting that reality when it happens will even more difficult. We must be proactive and not simply reactive.
2. The benefit of having four different priests is that our parishioners can interact and relate to four different personalities, meaning that you will all get a sense for the fact that the Lord has called vastly different men to be priests of Jesus Christ. This gives each of you a chance to develop a friendship with different priests and to be able to relate with a priest you find it easier to interact with. I think it is a travesty that often we want to hold up a certain golden boy type of priest as the example par excellence of the priesthood. I think this discourages young men who do not fit that mold from considering the priesthood. This unity in diversity is a strong point of a priest rotation. Each priest is your spiritual father no matter who he is.
3. Each parish has different workloads. Both in the type of work (i.e., a lot of interaction with the school at Holy Angels, many weddings at St. Michael, etc.) and workload (how much work.) By having a rotation of priests, the workload is spread more evenly for each priest. For example, Steph Pohlman, who is our Coordinator of Sacramental Life for the NW-7 Family of Parishes, knows based on the priest rotation which priest is available to take a funeral and she knows that I have a heavier administrative workload and thus passes more of the ministerial tasks out to the vicars who have more freedom to do so.
These are just three of the reasons for doing a rotation of priests each week. I could provide more but these are the big reasons for doing the priest schedule the way we do it. I understand the adjustment is difficult, but it is important to remember that amid any transition the difficult part is not the ending or the new thing but the space in between the ending and the new thing which I call the “crazy.” This is essentially the period when we are trying to figure out how to get to the new thing. We are in the “crazy” right now, so give us time to get to the new thing before we make snap judgements about failure or success. I am doing my best and I have thought, prayed, and consulted A LOT about what we are doing so please give it a chance.
Please note that I will be gone between August 1-7 on vacation. Fr. Sean Wilson and I will be taking a train out west to Seattle and spending a few days in the Seattle area of Washington. This is an annual trip we take, and it has been on my schedule since last year. Please pray for me and I will be keeping you all in prayer as well. Fr. Gerald Bensman will be having Mass at St. Michaels the weekend August 6 & 7. So please welcome him back to where he once served as pastor.
Thank you to all our volunteers at each of our four parishes. They have all been amazing to work with and have adjusted with the tweaks that have taken place and helped to show the priests of NW-7 the ropes. I appreciate all that each of you do for our parishes. May God bless our volunteers for their honesty.
Peace in Christ,
Fr. Jarred Kohn