Leif Kehrwald
September 23, 2018

Jesus sat down with his friends and followers, took a child into his arms, and said to them, “whoever receives a child such as this, receives me.”
 
I learned the raw, core meaning of this passage in 1982 from the Catholic community of St. Patrick in Spokane, Washington. This was our parish at the time when our first son, Nicolo, was born. The community embraced him and claimed him as their own, as they did with other babies born to families in the parish. With frozen casseroles, a strong mom’s support network, ongoing offers for babysitting, and a simple desire to catch a glimpse of the new baby, the people of St. Pat’s claimed him as their own. 

September 16, 2018
Gabe Triplet

(currently available only by audio recording. Click Vocaroo icon above.)

Sr. Phyllis Jaszkowiak
August 19, 2018

We are invited to a great feast!  “Wisdom has spread her table” and she calls us to “come eat of her food and drink her wine”, so that we may “advance in the way of understanding”.  There are a few requisites: “whoever is simple turn in here, to those who lack understanding come eat of the food and drink of the wine.  Forsake foolishness that you may live”.

​The readings present two types of hunger, God’s concern for both, and two types of bread for response.  The message I have today is that the Body of Christ, we the Church, are called to do the same, respond to both types of hunger with both types of bread.

Leif Kehrwald
July 29, 2018
17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

“Grandpa ‘Owl’, I am always hungry.”
 
What my younger son, Luke, said when he was four or five years old. We dropped him and his brother at their grandfather’s house to stay the weekend. Luke wasn’t too sure about it all, and so he at least needed to state his most important basic need. “I am always hungry!” (His grandad’s name was Al, but as four-year-old, Luke thought it was Owl.)

Leif Kehrwald
15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

​If there were such a thing as a Prophets-of-the-Bible awards ceremony, our prophet today, Amos, would surely take home two of them. Hands down he would win the “doom and gloom” award for the harsh manner in which he told the Israelite people that God rejected their luxury lifestyle, their burnt offerings, and that their infidelities would lead to their destruction.
 
Amos would also likely win the “justice” award for his bravery in calling people to task about the gaps he saw between the luxurious lives of the rich, and the heavy taxes on the poor. 

Sr. Phyllis Jaszkowiak
July 1, 2018
13th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

My sister told me this story.  In April, while I was gone, she flew to Portland for a professional meeting, and decided to take the MAX since it stopped right in front of her hotel.  At one of the stops, along the way, a woman got on and asked if she could sit next to her.  My sister said yes.  Then the woman began to tell her story of being alone and not knowing what to do or where to go for help.  Her husband had died two years ago and her boyfriend had left her and she was all alone and not knowing what to do and could she help her, wringing her hands the entire time.  My sister, who is tech savvy, found the address of the Portland Rescue Mission and that the MAX stopped close by.  So she told the woman she would take her there.  They got to the stop, found the Rescue Mission, but were in the basement and had to climb the stairs to reach the office.  The woman complained that she didn’t think she could climb the stairs, but with the encouragement and help of my sister they made it to the office.  However, that office was for the men.  So they had to cross the street to the women’s office.  There the woman was warmly welcomed and taken in with the promise of help.  Then my sister had to find her hotel which is another story.

June 17, 2018
11th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Leif Kehrwald
 
In 1950, the St. Charles parishioners who planted two cedar seedlings over on Killingworth to mark the driveway entrance into the parish and school never imagined that those trees would grow to such heights that 67 years later they were crowding power lines and buckling the sidewalk.

Sr. Phyllis Jaszkowiak
June 10, 2018
10th Sunday in Ordinary Time

This April I made a Pilgrimage / Retreat in Assisi, Italy.  One of the places we visited was Greccio, the small mountain town where St. Francis first enacted the Birth of Christ with live people and animals.  One of the displays was a room of Christmas crèches from around the world.  As I looked from one crèche to another, I finally began to notice that the people in the crèche, Mary, Joseph, Jesus, shepherds, angels, looked like the country from which the crèche was sent.  Those from South Africa, Japan, Native American, countries of Europe, the people looked like people from that country and wore the clothes of that country.

Gabriel Triplett
May 27, 2018
Feast of the Holy Trinity

​Lucy, my daughter loves her accessories! Lol, to get her out the door with only two purses, 5 dolls, a bucket, 1 hat, 2 pairs of sunglasses, and 5 kinds of snacks, is a 10 minute negotiation! At two years old, appropriately, she doesn’t yet know what she really needs and so she wants everything.   What Lucy really loves is to go for walks, go to the park, and to go to St. Charles.  Those are the things that make her really happy! but she misses out on so much of these experience because she spends too much time trying to gather and hold all of her babies, sunglasses, and purses in her arms, which turns into a hilarious, but never-ending, dilemma of dropping one while trying to pick up the last one she dropped.