Fellow Faith Travelers,
When I went to play cards on Tuesday I was told that Jim, one of my partners had died the day before after doing some household chores.   He was helpful in keeping the effort of playing together happening and was always a happy camper.   His wife left the message that they were not of any faith and therefore would not be having any religious or secular gathering.   
Also, a couple of days ago we have the Russian strong man (Vevgeny Prigozhin) who was leader of the   Wagner Military Group, who died in a plane crash with a number of his leaders.   Again, this man was not a religious man and has been thought of as being serious bully on the world stage.   Other than a few flowers there will certainly not be a religious service for him.   
In our Gospel this weekend we have Jesus asking Peter who he is.   Neither of these two men were able to give Jesus his rightful title and what that means that there was no one within their circle of friends who was able to show them or convince them that Jesus was important.   As individuals they had the right to know the truth and especially the truth about how God was present in our world and what those implications meant for them.   
None of you knew these two individuals, were not in their circle of friends, and therefore were not directly responsible for helping them in a faith journey.   But each of us knows many who are in the same position of lacking interest of having Jesus in their lives.   If each person has the right to know the truth of how much our God loves us and wants us close, there is considerable responsibility for each of us to do a great deal more that what we have been doing.   In general, most of us are not all that worried about someone not knowing Jesus which probably tells us a great deal about our own depth of faith.   
Where do we go next, Fr. Dick Rossman?

Fellow Faith Travelers,
Yesterday afternoon Irene S. gave me a Walla Walla sweet onion.   I had skipped breakfast and lunch and so thinking about slicing that onion and putting thick peanut butter on each slice was causing me to get excited.   It probably should have been a clue that when removing the outer layers that my eyes watered a little but I missed that message.   Then with the first bite there should have been another clue with the sizzle in my mouth, but that too was sort of missed because I was so fixated on what I thought would be the wonderful cross flavoring of the two opposite flavors.   But with two slices eaten and with my tongue on fire, I was not able to think about eating the other two slices and so I just licked off the peanut butter and fried up the two remaining slices along with potatoes and zucchini.  Even this morning my tongue was a little upset over being treated so poorly.
What is surprising is that I’m so slow to notice things that happen to me and around me.   You could think that only part of me is functioning thus missing some of the stimulus that is impacting my body.   I suppose it should be of interest to me of what else I missed yesterday or even right now when I’m assuming I’m awake and fully aware.
Our Church and our liturgies are constantly expressing to us that we are being reconciled by Jesus to the Father.   It would seem that when we constantly hear this message there is sort of a recognition that it has been said and some box is being checked, but it is not something that has a deep understanding within us.
I have this image of getting to heaven and meeting our God and saying to ourselves, “Oh my GOD” I had no clue about how separated I was from you.   I had no idea of my lack of response and my cavalier way of pretending to follow your rules and ways of being.   I’m so thrilled at being here and in being able to be fully loving you.   Thank you.   Thank you.
Where do we go next, Fr. Dick Rossman?

Fellow Faith Travelers,
One of the things that happens in my life is that parishioners think of me as being a prayer and therefore I’m asked constantly if I would pray for certain people and things.   In this way I’m automatically blessed by being allowed into some of the intimate thoughts of parishioners.    And there are other times when a person is so traumatized about something that they never bother to ask that they be included in anyone’s prayers.   And there are some folks whose job it is to find as many prayer groups as they can, to get their son or friend included, so that God could not possibly miss that healing has to take place.
Something that I notice about our petition prayers is how small they are.    By small I’m thinking along the lines of being selfish in that they may not be for us but they are for those close to us and those things that are more important to us.  It would seem that for every prayer that will in some way benefit me personally, there should be two prayers that have nothing to do with my life and will benefit another part of the world or another community.
What I mean by benefiting me personally it isn’t economically, but more along the lines of emotionally.   When a daughter is dealing with cancer there is an emotional drag, a spiritual drain, that keeps one from living life in a complete way and so we pray that the “other” be blessed so that I can continue to be a normal person again.   Yes, we certainly do not want to see them suffering but there is some percentage of our thoughts that fall back on ourselves.
The question comes up as to why we should enlarge our prayers.   Why should another corner of the planet be important to me?   Why should I extend myself to another person that I have never met and I have no connection to?    I guess the response is whether I like it or not is that the responsibility of Jesus was to reconcile the entire universe, with every person to the Father, and if that is his job and I’m one of his followers, his people, then I’m included in his responsibility and I’m to be in relationship with everyone not just the few that are in my circle.   Darn it Lord, why are you always messing with my faith?   I thought I was doing well.
Where do we go next, Fr. Dick Rossman?

Fellow Faith Travelers,
I’m writing this on Friday the 4 which is the feast day of one of my favorite saints, namely John Vianney the patron of parish priests.   In my mind anyone who is a parish priest is my brother.   He was not blessed with ability when is came to the classes in the seminary.   He had great difficulty when it came to making passing grades and it was so serious that when it came to ordination time his bishop hesitated about ordaining him.   He was ordained but his bishop in giving him his faculties didn’t give him permission to preach.   He could say Mass and hear confession so the bishop did think that he wouldn’t be able to cause much trouble in those areas.   It was only later that he was allow to preach.
He is mostly known for his hearing of confessions where he spent most of his day and in the summer months he spent 16 hours a day in giving that service.   That would not have developed had he not had the ability and compassion for his people which they recognized and looked for.
A few years back I was able to concelebrate with Fr. Frank Chun along with the Walsh’s and Schierman’s in the little chapel under the main church in the village of Ars, France.   It was a wonderful experience to pray where this holy person lived his life of living with his people.
This has caused a little reflection on my part since being a parish priest has been my lot in life.   In the diocese being a parish priest is not exactly the highest position.   Working in the chancery and close to the AB is where those with real abilities go and where they think the action takes place.   The difficulty is that if there are no parishioners and no parish priests there is no diocese.   We have some difficulty in that most bishops have spent very little time living the life of being a parish priest and so it makes it difficult when they are not able to appreciate how parishes function.   Moan, moan, and all that is unfair.
Where do we go next, Fr. Dick Rossman?

Fellow Faith Travelers,
I think that there was some announcement that Covid was coming around again but I’m not all that sure of my hearing when it comes to things like that.   I could have heard it or I just imagined that I heard it.   I have found it interesting that Covid has been used to measure so many things.   I have been wondering if it will be one of those events that will be our measuring issue for 50 or 100 years.
Have you spent much time measuring how Covid affected you in terms of your health, relationships with your family and what I’m most interested in, our faith life?   During Covid they talked about the after-effects of having a fuzzy mind so that now no matter what is wrong with us we can always claim that it was caused by Covid and therefore it isn’t my fault (the devil made me do it).
As you remember during the first part of Covid we were only allow 10 people to come together for Mass so we had a list that few could access very often.   It was painful to have so few praying together.   During that time some of us blossomed because it wasn’t possible to access the Church community to assist one’s faith life and it was necessary to pray alone or with one or two members of one’s family.   And after awhile some started using the internet to find Masses being said that helped with their faith.  But also, some enjoyed their coffee during those on-line prayer offerings.   Sorry God.
And some of the weaker members of our community assumed that they were being given a pass when it came to that once a week time for Mass.   Since they were not able to pray together it meant they didn’t need to substitute any other prayer effort and, in their minds, they had received permission to go on vacation from their faith.   And as habits were formed some of them continued to think that God had not punished them during that time and so they have continued to exercise their will to continue their vacation from God and other Catholics.
In the area of relationships Covid seems to have sent us in different directions.   For some Covid has revived the need to be connected to the family and to the neighbors because they were so lonely during that time when they needed to stay imprisoned within their homes.   For others they became so frightened of being infected by all of those germy folks that they developed a bunker mentality.
Where do we go next, Fr. Dick Rossman?

Fellow Faith Travelers,
Yesterday was a red-letter day for me.   I went shopping alone at Winco.   It is hard to measure how easy it was to put off shopping because I knew that the effort would be extensive.
The main issue is that standing for that length of time is something that just has not been happening.   I have been practicing standing for ten minutes just to get ready to stand at Mass but 10 minutes has been difficult.   I know that for most people going shopping is not something that requires an evaluation of strength and energy but I was worried.
If you would have watched me while I was there I was hanging over my cart a number of times.    I also found that there are few places to sit for breaks.   I did find a candy display for my tusch that helped as I was getting my bulk cereals figured out.
A few people told me to get in one of those battery-operated shopping carts but I was afraid that my driving skills would not be adequate and that I might collide with someone or that the cart would stall somewhere in the store.   No, confidence in their carts.
When I returned home I sat for ½ hour just to get my energy back up before putting the groceries away.   But now I have a supply for two weeks and in that time period I will have more ability and not be worrying about simple things like going shopping.
Lord, thank you for the choices that you give us each day,   Fr. Dick Rossman

Fellow Faith Travelers,
On Thursday in the first reading we had the scripture about Joseph revealing to his brothers that he was their brother who had been sold into slavery years earlier.   Obviously, the brothers were stunned and most likely at first fearful that their brother would punish them for what they had done.   
But what we hear from Joseph is that the terrible thing that happened to him was done for the good of the family and for the good of the world.   Had he not been sold into slavery he would not have been put into the position where he would be able to do such wonderful work of helping the hunger of his family and many beyond them.   
Joseph had worked through what had happened to him and no longer was seething with anger over what his brothers had done.   The terrible thing that had happened to him was not eating him up but instead was seen as a blessing to his family and to others.   
All of us have had difficult and terrible things happen to us and what we do with those events and happenings will determine our spiritual future.   Joseph was able to see the good that came from his slavery and that is a good reminder to all of us that we too will be able to find and understand that our slavery can also involve some wonderful positives.   Or, if we prefer we can allow the pain-slavery to eat us up and we can be a really bitter person.   
Lord, thank you for the choices that you give us each day,   Fr. Dick Rossman

Fellow Faith Travelers,
Most of us do not sit down and write up a description of God because that sounds difficult if not impossible.   But in saying that it doesn’t mean that each of us lack internal attitudes of who our God is.   We just tend to not verbalize our attitudes but if we did we would be including or using the very things that we use in figuring out how things take place as we see life.
So, who are the smart and important people in our world?   We instinctively assume that a person with the advanced degree, with the nice suit, with a nice house, with an expensive car is a person who is intelligent.   It could be that their parents earned the money and they now have it to use but they are without clues as how to keep their money.   But in looking at them we often come up with some positive assumptions.
The problem is that we apply some of those same attitudes to our God and we assume that our God uses big words and lives in a big house.   We conclude from those understandings that our God only wants to talk to important people and those with the best grades.
Jesus comes along and tells us that NO your God is not like that.   Your God wants to talk to the unlearned, the one with all of the burdens and the person feeling left out of the important issues of life.   Your God is willing to be yoked to you and wants to help you pull your load.   What a different God.
And the Exodus continues, Fr. Dick (obviously not in a straight line)

Fellow Faith Travelers,
At our Mass with Archbishop Sample Thursday night he preached about the Feast Day of Peter and Paul.   He asked the question about why we have the headquarters of the Church in Rome.   Why not in Israel- Jerusalem or some other place?   Well the reason is that these two spiritual giants both were martyred in Rome and Rome was the center of the Roman Empire.   I find it difficult to imagine attempting to move to a new location at this time.   How would you rebuild a new St. Peter’s or the huge Vatican Museum?
He reminded us of the words of Jesus said to Peter about being the rock on which the Church was to be built.  But that interestingly the tomb of Peter is directly below the main altar in St. Peter Basilica thus providing us with a physical reality to the spiritual reality of what Jesus meant.
I’m reminded of when the persecutions were taking place in Rome that they gathered for Mass in the catacombs to have privacy.   Not many people are comfortable going to a cemetery and especially if they are underground.   It was common for them to use a tomb as their altar.   They probably picked out someone who was remembered as being a saint during their life.   I guess that when you start out having the relics of a saint as part of your prayer you are starting out ahead and move on to give Jesus to the Father.
You many know that most of our altars have two small, small, relics of two saints in the altar stone of the altar.   This practice goes back to those early days in the catacombs where they said Mass right on top of the saint’s bones.   The problem for us here at St Mary’s is that we don’t know who are saints are.   Our original name was Immaculate Conception but someone borrowed that name and to keep from being in a permanent competition we changed to St Mary.   But if we knew that our saint was Uramar or Papylus we could have a different name than what we have.   Oh well, one can only hope.

And the Exodus continues, Fr. Dick (obviously not in a straight line)

Fellow Faith Travelers,
Our Gospel this weekend has Jesus saying to us to not be afraid.   There certainly are many ways of being afraid and most of the time when we respond to the words of Jesus we think of being afraid of what we say.   So, we are afraid to voice our faith and that is the area that concerns us.
Another area of fear would be our homes.   Our home is where we recover from the efforts and traumas of the day.   We expect to sleep and be safe from any fears that our society presents to us.
Our homes typically have locks and strong doors that give us the feeling of being secure and that helps with any fears that we might have.   But what I have been thinking about is how we decorate and appoint our homes and what that tells us about who we are.
It strikes me that in most of our homes a person entering our space, our home, would find it very difficult to come to the conclusion that we are Catholic.   They could very well understand that we like nature or that we enjoy certain kinds of activities by the way the home is decorated with things on the wall or in the yard.
If we are Catholic why is it that we are afraid to physically show guests to our home that we are serious about being Catholic.   Yes, I’m sure that you could disagree with my argument but why are you missing a cruxifix in a prominent location in your home?   Why would there not be pictures or wall hangings that have scriptures or scenes depicting important events in the life of Christ?   I think we are afraid to put our faith out there for all to see.   Am I wrong in this?

And the Exodus continues, Fr. Dick (obviously not in a straight line)