family

‘Make Straight the Way of the Lord’

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment

Blogger’s Note: For those few of you who still follow this blog and don’t attend St. Michael Catholic Church, the article below was published in the Sunday, Aug. 24, church bulletin at our pastor’s request as a the first of a regular monthly faith formation column.

It’s been an eventful last few weeks. Early in the month, I survived my first-ever Vacation Bible School, a sort of faith formation director boot camp, helping to wrangle 175 children, age four through sixth grade. I want to thank Kathy Pope for all her work to plan and staff the week’s activities, and the countless adult and teen teachers who worked so hard to make VBS a success. God bless you!

Almost immediately, my family and I headed north to Camp Lebanon, where I was greeted by a throng of green-shirted, high-fiving VBSers who knew me by name (Mr. Thorp, in most cases) and expected me to know them, as well. The weekend was a whirlwind of typical camp activities – water sports and zip line; family meals and fellowship; evening rosaries, confession, and mass—mixed with conversations with a number of parishioners about what to expect from LIFT and other faith formation offerings in the coming years. I am grateful for the opportunity to hear how the parish can better help you and your families grow in faith, and these conversations reinforced a growing feeling I’ve had since beginning in this position: people in this community are hungry for a deeper relationship with Christ.

I left Camp Lebanon for two nights of solitude at the Franciscan retreat center Pacem In Terris, in the hermitage of St. Dominic—a simple, comfortable cabin looking out on a green patch of woods vibrant with the beauty of God’s creation. After more than a week of steady noise and activity, this silent retreat was a welcome opportunity to spend time alone with God and ask Him, With all of the good ideas and works we could undertake here at St. Michael, what would you have me do?

The answer came in the words of Isaiah and John the Baptist: “Make straight the way of the Lord.” Over and over again, the message rang in my heart: Let them come. Help them come.

To that end, although family catechesis will continue to be our model going forward and LIFT this year will be a culmination of what we started last year, we hope to emphasize the importance of relationship: between parents and children, between parishioners and their neighbors, and most importantly, between each of us and Jesus. We hope to be more flexible and do a better job of meeting you where you are and encouraging you and your families toward a deeper relationship with Christ—in prayer, in the sacraments, and in His body, the Church. We hope to find the right balance between the individual path each of us walks with the Lord and the fact that we are called to journey together in truth and charity. We can’t reach God alone—not only because we are fallen and in need of God’s grace, but also because God calls us to communion with him and with each other. 

People are hungry for God. Whether we realize it or not, the longing we feel for something more in this life is our desire for a personal relationship with our Lord and Creator—and it’s meant to be satisfied. I look forward to undertaking this journey with you, hungry but hopeful, toward heaven. See you this fall!

A New Calling

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment

Blogger’s Note: For those few of you who still follow this blog and don’t attend St. Michael Catholic Church, the article below was published at our pastor’s request as a self-introduction to the community in last weekend’s parish bulletin.

As of this week, I have been your new faith formation director for one month. The transition feels fresher than that, and I feel just as green, in many ways, as on the first day in the office. As I’ve said more than once, it’s like I’m a first-time parent again: like I have been entrusted with something precious and fragile and sent home with lots of advice and no clear idea of what to expect next.

Okay, it’s not as bad as all that. My wife Jodi and I have been parishioners here for 11 years now; two of our children (Trevor and Lily) have been born and baptized here, and our older kids (Brendan, Gabe, and Emma) have been altar servers and active in the youth group and other activities. Jodi and I were youth leaders at our previous parish—St. Michael’s in Remus, Michigan—and have been LIFT catechists, liturgical ministers, Natural Family Planning and God’s Plan For a Joy-Filled Marriage witnesses, and CRHP witnesses here. I also served on the Faith Formation Advisory Committee during the transition to LIFT, so I understand what we’re trying to accomplish and know how hard Carol and Kathy have worked over the years to build our core program.

Nevertheless, this is a big shift for me. I was baptized in the Faith but not raised in it, and I became a husband and father before I became a confirmed and practicing Catholic. Until last month, I had spent my entire professional career in journalism and communications. Jodi and I have talked for several years about the possibility of me working for the Church someday, but never imagined the call would come this soon. And it is a call. This past Monday’s reading from the prophet Hosea described the Lord leading His people to a desert place and speaking to their heart—and professionally, this past year was desolate and lonely, until former colleagues, friends, and family all began to urge me to pray and to think about what I was being called to do.

I prayed. I did my best to listen. And I’m here…now what?

We visited some of our former youth group “kids” in Michigan earlier this month, one of whom was recently featured in the Diocese of Grand Rapids magazine for her beautiful pro-life witness. In the article, Natalie jokes about how much she could accomplish if God would just give her a clear to-do list. Instead she—and we—are called into a relationship and an ongoing conversation with God, in which we get to know Him day by day, enabling us to better hear, understand, and respond to His desires for us.

That’s where I find myself now. We have a beautiful parish and community, faith-filled priests, strong core programs, devout and dedicated catechists, and a rookie faith-formation director who is on the job, but still praying and listening. We have a firm foundation and so much potential—and I look forward to hearing from and working with you as we continue to become a people living for Christ.

Nettles Or Nails?

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment

Some years back I wrote a brief personal essay on “the Jim-in-my-head.” The Jim-in-my-head is intellectually and physically fit, well-spoken and timely, gentlemanly even in revelry. He plays the upright bass and reads to his family. He hunts and fishes, writes and publishes, and still is home for dinner. He’s the idealized me, confident, unhesitating, and prudent.

Also, he does not exist.

I’ve known this all along, of course, but it hasn’t stopped me from chasing this phantom Jim, and stranger still, from feeling in recent years as though he’s slipping away. It should be no surprise, should it, that I am unable to catch a figment? But then, why these feelings of both failure and loss?

Last fall a couple of friends separately recommended to me the little book The Way, by St. Josemaria Escriva. I’ve been reading it little by little since then, waiting for the previous lesson to sink in before moving forward.

Fr. Escriva is no easy master, and his writings are loving, but direct and challenging, to the spiritually soft. One excerpt in particular has continued to influence my thinking on a daily basis:

“Many who would willingly let themselves be nailed to a Cross before the astonished gaze of a thousand onlookers cannot bear with a christian spirit the pinpricks of each day! Think, then, which is the more heroic.”  

— The Way, paragraph 204

I have said and written so many times that many people—many males, in particular—desire to be a part of something great and glorious, and our stories are filled with heroic deaths of good men. No man likes to imagine himself shrinking in the face of vice or violence, but perhaps it is easier to steel oneself for a bullet than to suffer a thousand paper cuts? Perhaps today’s nettles are heroic enough for now and serve not to wear us down, but to condition us for nails.

What’s Old Is Cool Again

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment

One of the great pleasures I’ve discovered in recent years in antiquing with our four older kids. Rummaging through old junk and treasures is not Jodi’s favorite thing — but the kids enjoy it, and through this activity, they’ve begun to cultivate new personal interests. It’s a delight to see where their curiosity takes them.

For Emma and Trevor, antique shops are like free museums. They wander and browse and ask questions about the novelties they see — and many things appear new to young eyes. Emma is never looking to buy, but is drawn to colorful kitchen implements and old machines with buttons: manual typewriters, adding machines, cash registers, you name it. Trevor has no such particular interests, though his attention is drawn by typically boyish subjects: creatures, toys and games, and oddities. And both (in fact, all four) of the kids are becoming expert at spotting Fiesta dishes for their mother.

Brendan and Gabe are active antique shoppers, and prefer to have money in their pocket when they step into a shop. Gabe likes religious artwork and books, vintage hats, and Coca-Cola memorabilia, while Bren looks for military surplus, historical books, manly artifacts like hunting and camping gear, and anything to do with Vernors ginger ale. Last weekend the three of us ventured out to give Brendan some driving practice in snow and traffic, and hit a military surplus store and three antique shops. Brendan spent $20 on an explosives crate, pictured above, to complement his military ammo box, and Gabe got a steal: a like-new copy of Our Daily Bread for a dollar and change. (Brendan drooled briefly over a signed ink sketch of Captain America knocking the heads of Hitler and Hirohito together, but decided that he didn’t have a couple hundred extra bucks.)

Both of these older boys show a nose for finding the right stuff and finding deals. Last spring, when Gabe and I brought Rosa (my old pickup) home from Michigan, we stopped at a junk shop in northern Wisconsin packed floor to ceiling with old stuff, new stuff, repurposed and recycled stuff — none of it marked. While the old fellow running the place made sporadic attempts to buy Rosa, Gabe nosed around the shelves of “smalls” and emerged with an inexpensive plaster-cast of the classic “praying hands” sculpture, a thimble-sized glass bottle of actual Coca-Cola, and a leather-bound Polish prayer book, pictured below. (Gabe knows how to say a few Polish words, but how he recognized this book as Polish, I don’t know.) He showed them to the old man, who was so intrigued by Gabe’s finds he charged him just a few dollars for the entire collection.

Brendan, meanwhile, has been eyeing an old, unopened six-pack of Vernors at a local shop for a year or so now. It’s priced at $50, as I recall; he went in last fall during a 20-percent-off sale, but still wasn’t sure he could drop $40 on it. He asked at the register if they could take less, and they told him the collector who was selling it had a deal with the shop that they could take 20 percent off his prices, but anything lower had to be negotiated with him in person. Brendan said thank you and walked away.

I told him later that I was impressed with his resolve. “Well, they basically told me I could get it for 20 percent off anytime, so I might as well come back another time when the guy is around,” he said.

Good thinking.

Me? I like books, boots, and beer memorabilia; shaving supplies; old tools; and all the stuff they like. Not sure who is influencing whom in this case, but with fresh eyes, what’s old is cool again.