Author: J. Thorp

Wednesday Witness: Let’s Get Going!

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On some level, everyone I know is feeling the strain of the coronavirus quarantine. It’s a challenge to make decisions for own family—balancing basic needs and less urgent desires, physical health and emotional well-being, the fear of endangering someone’s health and the cry of our hearts for flesh-and-blood interaction—so I am grateful not to have the burden of deciding for churches, cities, states or nations.

I am also blessed to be busy with both work and family projects. But lately I find myself oscillating between excitement about the good things that are happening at our parish and home and feelings of futility when faced with an unknown future. Great things are happening at St. Michael Catholic Church and School; the Thorps are installing a long-awaited second shower and, God willing, new floors in our house; and we are preparing for our first granndchild and our third graduate leaving the nest—but what about this virus, the economy and the upcoming election? Can the parish maintain its positive momentum? Should Jodi and I be saving the money we’re investing in our home? What will the fall bring for our children and our grandbaby? Continue reading →

Wednesday Witness: ‘Fun-Size’ God

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Last Wednesday I imagined myself the self-reliant man’s man, scaling Mount God to conquer Him—then shared my gratitude that He forgives my folly and makes Himself small enough to be digestible for His fallen creature.

I’ve said before that the Enemy will gladly you ride you whatever direction you’d like to travel, and so it is this past week. I went to the sacrament of Reconciliation, and my confessor was inspired to give me John chapter 6 as a penance: “Just read through it and reflect on it.” If you are following the daily Mass readings, these are the gospel passages for these middle days of the Easter season, beginning with the feeding of the 5,000 and Jesus walking on water, and ending with the famous Bread of Life discourses, in which Jesus insists that His disciples must eat His flesh and drink His blood, sacramentally speaking.

I’ve been down this road before and did not expect anything profound. But this time, I was struck hard by the worldly desires of the crowd who follows Jesus, as well as their fickleness: Continue reading →

Wednesday Witness: Ever Chasing God

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During our morning prayer time today, my bride read Bishop Robert Barron’s gospel refection aloud. One part, in particular, captured my imagination:

In so many spiritual traditions, the emphasis is placed on the human quest for God. But this is reversed in Christianity. Christians do not believe that God is dumbly “out there,” like a mountain waiting to be climbed by various religious searchers. On the contrary, God, like the hound of heaven in Francis Thompson’s poem, comes relentlessly searching after us.

In my mind’s eye, I saw the man I often aspire to be—the strong, self-reliant one—ascending the mountain of God, or rather, the mountain that is God. To what end? To conquer Him, I suppose—to pull myself, hand-over-hand, up his long white beard, perch upon His nose, look into the cosmic depths of His eyes and say, “At last, I get it. I know You. You are my God.” Or perhaps, “You are My god.” Continue reading →

Wednesday Witness: Experience the Difference

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Jodi and I are blessed with five children, four of whom are high-schoolers or older. All of them are knowledgeable about Catholicism and practice their faith daily. Indeed, they humble us with their devotion to the sacraments, their service to the Church and their willingness to evangelize.

Sometimes people ask us what we did to “make them” this way. We’ve asked them the same question. The clearest answer we’ve received is that going to Mass was never a choice or a question—but more than making them go, we never complained about it ourselves. They knew that Mass, prayer and formation were priorities, not only for them, but for us, too.

It’s gratifying to hear, but we know there is something more. Our example got them through the doors of the church, but St. Michael and St. Albert Youth Ministry made them want to come back and helped them fall in love with Jesus. First they wanted to go to Friday Night Live with their friends, then they asked to go to Extreme Faith Camp, then they began asking to go to Confession, daily Mass and Adoration. They admired the older teens who entertained and mentored them, and decided they wanted to pay it forward. They joined Core Team and began to draw the next generation to Christ. Continue reading →

‘Do You Realize What I Have Done For You?’

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So when he had washed their feet [and] put his garments back on and reclined at table again, he said to them, “Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.” –  John 13:12-15

In his Holy Thursday homily last night, our pastor Fr. Peter Richards encouraged us to reflect on why, in St. John’s gospel, Jesus interrupts the Passover meal to do something incredible: wash the feets of His disciples. Washing another’s feet was the job of the lowliest of servants: St. John the Baptist uses a similar comparison to tell his followers how far above himself the Messiah would be: “One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals” (Mark 1:7).

Why would Jesus do this? Father encouraged us to contemplate how great the Lord’s love for us is, to allow ourselves to receive that love, and to yield to it…to surrender to the One who gives Himself entirely for our good.

Here’s what occurred to me during and after his homily. Continue reading →