Holy Week and Paschal Triduum

The most common topic people come to talk with me about is their faith. I am glad about it. They often ask me questions during different parts of their faith journey. They ask, “Do I still have faith, or have I lost it?” “Is it ok to feel the absence of God in their life for a long time?” and “Is faith substantial for true happiness?”. These are important questions to answer. However these questions must be answered personally by each of us, and nobody else can judge our faith or happiness. It is a delicate matter and personal choice. We often think true believers go to church regularly and call themselves Catholics. But this conclusion does not necessarily reflect truth. We must look into our heart and reflect upon where our heart truly belongs. The Bible talks about two main states of heart. We either make God the center of our life or we do not. Choosing to make our heart close to God will lead us to true happiness. Making any other choices may satisfy us temporarily, but it will lead in the end leave us disappointed and unhappy. This was clear to the prophet, Jeremiah, who is the author of today’s first reading. Jeremiah describes the two contrary states of a human heart. The first state of heart belongs to a person who trusts just in a human effort and totally hopes in flesh. I know, this is an old language of the Bible that speaks about a human being who believes only in material things and does not really care about God and His commandments. This kind of person build his life without God, and often does it unintentionally. There are many things in his life which are more important than God. Jeremiah compares that person to “a barren bush in the desert…who stands in a lava waste, a salt and empty earth” (Jer 17:6). It is a dramatic and sad image of a state of heart of a person whose heart is far way from God. The second image of Jeremiah, contrary to the first, is about a state of heart closed to God. Jeremiah describes a person whose heart hopes and desires God all the time. That person is like “a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream…In a year of draught it shows no distress, but still bears fruit” (Jer 17:8). This is a delightful and encouraging image of a person who trusts in the Lord and his heart totally belongs to God. It does not mean that everything is wonderful and there are not difficulties or challenges in that person’s life. We often feel close to God but still experience suffering, trials and other problems. Perhaps we even feel like the Biblical Job who lost everything and everyone in his life. Despite his suffering and loss, he kept his faith in God and kept his peace of heart. Personally, I went through both states of heart in my life. I remember time I trusted too much in earthly matters and just in myself. My choices and desires took me far away from God. Everything, not just my relationship with God, was falling apart including my relationship with other people. I felt like “a barren bush in the desert.” But there also was time I totally trusted in God and I desire to do God’s will in my life. Perhaps I was like “a tree planted beside the waters” and felt strongly God’s presence beside me. Even when I had to face trials and challenges or loss, I knew I have true peace deep in my heart. To conclude, there is a test where our heart belongs. There are questions that might help us to recognize our present state of our heart. How do I react on the difficulties and defeats in my life? How do I relate to God when I suffer and go through trails? Do I search for God and feel God’s presence in difficult times of my life? Please find some time to reflect upon your heart frequently. It is a wonderful prayer.  I would like to end my reflection with a meaningful quote of St. Augustin who often looked into his heart to find God there. “Where your pleasure is, there is your treasure; where your treasure, there your heart; where your heart, there your happiness.” Fr. Andrzej

“Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch” is a quote from Pope John Paul II that he used in a speech at World Youth Day in Czestochowa, Poland, in August 1991. The quote is based on Jesus' call of the first disciples in Luke 5. “Put out into the dep…” became a theme of the World Youth Day, which I experienced as a young man in Poland. I will never forget the enthusiasm and zeal of the Pope who preached to the thousands young men and women who gathered around the shrine of Black Madonna in Czestochowa. The Pope encouraged the youth not to be satisfied with short-sightedness and shallow life but instead to “put out into the deep” when they plan and dream their future life. That experience with Saint John Paul II, and other youth who came to Poland from different part of the world, significantly impacted my faith and my vocation. It changed my life forever.  Today’s gospel from Luke 5 is basically a vocation story of Peter and his companions, who became the first disciples of Jesus. Jesus’ invitation to Peter was preceded with a great miracle of catching huge number of fish. According to John, who describes the same miracle in his gospel, there were 153 large fish in the two boats (John 21:11). Peter and his companions were stunned. It was not the first time Jesus invited Peter to follow him as his disciple, but Peter always hesitated and refused. Peter’s usual excuses were his limitations and sinful life as well as his business. All the prophets and leaders in the bible used the same excuses to hesitate on God’s call. Jesus knew it very well. This time Jesus used the language and mentality of a fisherman when he called Peter. Therefore, Jesus succeeded when he compared the call to his discipleship to fishing, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people” (Luke 5:10). Peter left everything behind, including his own comfort zone and tainted life, and became his close disciple. The fact that Jesus convinced Peter to follow him and leave the two boats full of fish behind, it is another miracle that Jesus performed on the same day, I believe. I imagine, the gospel assigned for today is meaningful and profound for all people not just for youth or fishermen. We are all reminded and call to leave our tainted life and comfort zone, and “put out into the deep” of our faith and relationship with God. Our life is beautiful when we aim high, and we always strive to grow. I remember and when I reflect over the days God has called me for different kinds of ministries or even to perform a small task, a good deed, I hesitated to say yes, and often I used a similar excuse as Peter. Perhaps all of us can relate to the story and call of Peter from today’s gospel. We have our own stories, calls and our own relationship with God. Nevertheless, we are encouraged to think positively and continue our good work even when we cannot see an appreciation for it. We must never be afraid or discouraged to do good and perform our ministry God entrusted to us. God did not guarantee us prosperity or an appreciation from people for our ministry and honest life. God promised us to be with us always, even when we go through trial and difficulties. Fr. Andrzej

Today’s feast has a long and remarkable history and origin. The feast dates back to the 4th century in the East. In 542, Emperor Justinian ordered the feast to be celebrated in Constantinople to give thanks for the end of a plague. The feast spread to Rome in the middle of the 5th century and was approved as a universal feast. The feast commemorates the event when Mary and Joseph took Jesus to offer him to God according to the Law of Moses. As it is written in the Book of Exodus, all the firstborn humans and animals had to be offered to God (Exod 13:1). It was to remember the fact God slew the firstborn of the Egyptians to save the firstborn of the Israelites and to free them from slavery. As a consequence, the young parents had to leave their first children in the temple for service and offered firstborn animals as a sacrifice to the Lord. When the tribe of Levi took over the service of the Lord, the Israelites could redeem their firstborn from the service by paying tithings and offering animals instead. Today’s feast was previously called, the Purification of Mary. According to the Book of Leviticus, a woman had to be purified after forty days of giving birth. Thus, the feast was placed forty days after Christmas in the liturgical calendar. A woman could purify herself by offering to the priest a lamb and a young pigeon. If she cannot afford a lamb, two young pigeons or doves could be offered (Lev 12:6-8). The conception and birth of Jesus did not defile Mary as other women. But to show the obedience to the Law of the Lord, Mary and Joseph submitted themselves to the rite of purification. They had nothing to cleanse themselves from, yet they did it to obey and revere God. Today’s feast was also called Candlemas in the past. According to the tradition, this feast culminates the long celebration of Epiphany, revelation of Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God to the World. Jesus brought light to the people who lived in darkness. A lit candle symbolizes the presence of Jesus Christ among us. We light candles in a church, at the altar, during sacraments and when we read a bible to realize Jesus is with us. According to the author of the Golden Legend there are three parts in every candle, the wax, wick and fire. The wax is a sign of Jesus’ body. The wick symbolizes Jesus’s soul, which is hidden in his body. And the fire or light stands for Jesus’ divinity. Thus, there was a tradition in many churches to bring in a solemn procession and bless candles during today’s feast.  This profound and meaningful feast of the Presentation of the Lord was chosen by the Pope Saint John Paul II as a day of prayer for women and men in consecrated life in 1997. Today it is a good opportunity to pray for those religious who thought and form us in schools and churches, and inspired us to be good Catholics. Let’s also remember those religious Sisters and Brothers who have been working at St. Martin of Tours. We are grateful for their ministry. Fr. Andrzej

Traditionally I prepare and present to you dear parishioners an end of year pastor’s report at the start of the New Year. It is always helpful to look back and reflect on everything that happened in our parish community in the past year. 2024 was a successful year for us at St. Martin of Tours. We had great plans and expectations, but unable to complete every target we hoped for. However, at the end of the year, we are satisfied and grateful to God for the progress and growth. New Members and Ministries I want to express my gratitude to the parish Staff, members of the Councils, many volunteers and those who minister in our community for their hard work, advice and willingness to serve at St. Martin of Tours. We are blessed to have them with us. We welcomed five new Staff members, Fr. Francis Vu (Associate pastor) Pilar Azmani (Administrative Assistant), Abby Wass (Religious Education) and Dcn. Tien Pham, who was ordained to diaconate in September, 2024, and also joined our parish Staff. Julie Baker became our bookkeeper just recently. All of them brought a lot of quality, new energies and substantial changes in our leadership and administrative work. Our stewardship and hospitality committees have grown and worked very hard by inviting and growing new members to our parish community. It is clear that we are making progress to be a welcoming church to the entire Franklin area. Our parish ministries have grown significantly in 2024. Our food pantry helped 3,737 people this year, about 450 more than last year. Our childcare ministry at the 10:30am Sunday Masses began in April. We have a regular group of children that attend weekly, but more are always welcome. We are also looking for additional volunteers to help with this ministry. Our marriage ministry, Together in Holiness, began in October and will run for seven months, and we are hoping to form another small group. A Grief group started this year and has a solid reoccurring group of attendees. The Human Concerns Committee hosted the annual Mother’s Day Rose sale for Right to Life, organized the giving trees for Christmas and they hosted a school supply drive and toy drive. Our Prayer Shawl ministry, consisting of 13 members, made 117 shawls, 10 lap shawls, 42 baby blankets, 375 baby hats, 24 child hats, 6 adult hats, and 78 helmet lines for the military. The Christian Women’s rummage sale was very successful again this past summer and brought in over $10,000. Our parish dinners are well attended. The Fall Harvest Fest brought in over $15,000 due to the generosity of our parishioners. Regarding new communication outlets for the parish, we added new TV monitors in the Narthex and main church hallway to provide information on upcoming events in the parish and in the community. We are going to continue to grow these ministries in 2025.  Facility usage We have multiple renters using our parish facilities throughout the week. Catholic Schoolhouse homeschool group has about 90 children that use our school building on Fridays. CHESS, another homeschool group, uses our school building on Wednesdays. The Caledonian Scottish Dancers use our gym and stage on Thursday evenings. And, St. Mary's basketball teams use our gym on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. We also have a parish pickleball league that plays every Monday and Thursday night and soccer games on Friday evenings. Prayer and Worship as One Community Our first purpose as a religious community is to pray and worship. We had a solemn and beautiful celebration of Easter, our patron feast St. Martin of Tours and Christmas. Each celebration was outstanding and meaningful. I was encouraged by your involvement, help and large participation. I am glad we have more opportunities and occasions to pray and organize social gatherings at St. Martin of Tours. We are committed to continuing these events and celebrations that strengthen us as one community of brothers and sisters in Christ. The social gatherings, hospitality, food and fellowship encourage people to come to church and join our religious community. I also believe the Vietnamese community feels more at home at St. Martin of Tours and is growing in numbers. We will continue to make an effort to bring both our communities (Vietnamese and English) closer to each other in prayer and worship as well as social events with respect of course to our cultural difference. The New Lunar Year celebration in February which was attended by nearly 2,000 people as well as the most recent celebration of the Epiphany with bilingual Mass and fellowship after Mass are good example of this. Our Strategic Plan We completed our 5-year Vision and Mission statement one year ago and targeting completion of a more detailed implementation plan by Easter 2025. Our parish Staff, both of the Councils (Pastoral and Finance) and MAC (Mission Advancement Committee) have been working hard setting priorities and key 5-year goals for our parish community. We hope to complete the Strategic Plan for St. Martin of Tours parish before Easter. Helpful Numbers At this moment we are a community of 995 Active Families (2,483 Active members). We welcomed 45 new families who joined our parish in 2024. We lost 25 of our members who passed away and 27 families who left the area. Sacraments in 2024 were: 20 baptisms (including two adults); 18 children received First Communion and first reconciliation. 10 students received Confirmation. Six couples received sacrament of marriage. We provided catechism classes to 86 elementary children in the English and Vietnamese communities, and 21 in high school. In short, we are alive and there are signs of growth. Completed major projects We were able to accomplish a few maintenance projects in 2024, which you probably noticed. I will mention just the major ones: Replaced all HVAC units for a total of $250,000; Resolved Foundation leak issue $4,500; Replaced kitchen exhaust blower unit $12,000; Patched back parking lot $3,200; TechJoy network implementation (total renewal of IT infrastructure and moving the parish data from servers to “the cloud”) $57,000; Replaced water pressure tanks in the cafeteria area due to failure and flood $6,000; Installed 2 TVs in church $5,000; Repair fire pump and cistern w/ refill $6,000. These $343,700 of projects in total we were able to accomplish without touching our regular budget. Most of these were done with the aid of the Love One Another campaign. Thank you very much for your generosity. 2025 / 2026 Initiatives There are a few projects we must undertake in this coming year. Bell tower renovation; Hearing aid system in the church; School windows $75,000-100,000; Replace back parking lot and side road $180,000 and $120,000; Replace 70 year old school heating system. Manage the need to replace the near exhausted school roof on the single story building at apx $150,000. With extended school facility usage reserve accounts must be planned for in the event of failure. We also hope to complete the stained-glass windows project in this year with donated funds vs operating funds. Our Financial Situation We are stable financially and we are not carrying a debt. The collections were stable in the past year and various fundraising activities gave us additional income which is being managed by our investment committee. There are many needs and plenty of upkeep developments we have to encounter within the next few years, but I believe we are doing well. However, we have a deficit of $73,000 in the operating budget this year because we hired new staff members. I am convinced we will eliminate our deficit within a year or two. We must increase collections this year. This is the only way to eliminate the deficit. Thus, I would like to ask you to consider to be more generous with your offerings to the weekly collection. I am grateful to our Finance Council and Investment committee for being good stewards of our money and for their professional work. To conclude , I am confident, this year will be another busy and successful year. I believe we will continue to grow in number but also in spirit. We will become an even more vibrant and growing community reaching out to those in need in the parish and larger community. Lastly, thank you for your prayers and support. I appreciate your comments and encouraging words but also your suggestions for improvements. Please do not hesitate to give me your feedback and thoughts not just about this report but also about our parish life. Our effort as parish Staff and administration makes only sense with your willingness to collaborate and your care. I am blessed and proud to be your pastor. Fr. Andrzej

Bishop Jeffrey S. Grob will be installed as the 12th archbishop of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee on Monday January 14, 2025. Bishop Grob, current auxiliary bishop of Chicago, will succeed Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki, who submitted his retirement as required at age 75. Bishop Grob, who grew up on a dairy farm just west of Madison in Cross Plains, attended Holy Name High School Seminary in Madison and the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio. He was ordained to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1992. He completed graduate studies at the University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein Seminary in 1999. He received a Doctorate of Canon Law degree from St. Paul University and a Doctorate of Philosophy degree from the University of Ottawa in 2007. In his interview with the Catholic Herald, Archbishop Listecki expressed his joy after the appointment of Bishop Grob as his successor in Milwaukee. Archbishop Listecki said that “Pope Francis has blessed the entire southeastern Wisconsin community with his selection of Bishop Grob, whom I have known for years. He is a man dedicated to Christ and his Church… He’s an excellent leader. He’s a listener. He gives guidance humbly, and sometimes only when asked. He only gets involved when he has to.” Also Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, expressed his congratulations and wishes to Bishop Grob for his new appointment. “For more than 30 years, the Archdiocese of Chicago and the People of God have been the beneficiaries of Archbishop Jeffrey Grob’s compassion, scholarship, and commitment to service,” Cardinal Cupich said in a statement. “Pope Francis has recognized Bishop Grob’s extraordinary gifts and is returning him to his native state of Wisconsin as leader of the Milwaukee Archdiocese… Our deep gratitude and prayers go with him as he continues to follow Jesus and bring grace to the fortunate people of his archdiocese.” We are very grateful to Archbp. Listecki for being a good pastor of our Archdiocese in the last few years. We welcome with joy Bishop Grob and we wish him many blessings in his new ministry. Bishop Grob’s installation to the archdiocese will take place at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist on January 14. Fr. Andrzej