People of God,
This weekend we celebrate the graduation of our 8th graders. Please keep them in your prayers as they transition to the summer and onto high school. I do realize I’m directionally challenged, but I’m pretty sure I got lost my first day of high school. We also want to thank the eighth graders for all they have added to our school for the last nine years. Their unique personalities will be missed.
A lot of the same can be said for our twelfth graders. This Friday is the graduation ceremony for our high school graduates. Please pray for them as they enter some of the most important years of their lives. I say this as a former college chaplain and as having my own major conversion to Christ during my college years. It is during this time that most people set their values, beliefs, and priorities that they will carry for the rest of their lives. So pray for our young people that they may embrace the love and values of Christ and His Church.
This weekend we are celebrating Pentecost, the event that in some ways started everything. As I have mentioned before, as I tell our Confirmation candidates, Baptism was for them. Baptism infused saving grace into their soul, the stain of Original Sin is wiped away, they became sons and daughters of God the Father, and many other gifts. Confirmation is for everyone else. In Confirmation you are given the fullness of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. With these gifts, you are meant to boldly proclaim Jesus Christ and His love to all the world. You are to share the good News of Jesus Christ with others, in season and out of season. At the Pentecost, these frightened men, impelled by the Holy Spirit, became an army for Jesus Christ. They boldly proclaimed the Truth of Jesus Christ to any who would listen. I have been reading the biography of Catherine of Siena. We have access to the same Holy Spirit that the Apostles received 2000 years ago. We too are called to be bold. I cannot go into all of your classes and workplaces. I have the easy job; the easy job to inspire you to live out your relationship with Jesus Christ within the walls of the church. You have the “hard” job of sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ out in the world. Now this is’t completely true, but it is largely true. In some ways the Great Commission is even more relevant to you than it is to me. Jesus commands us in Matthew 28, to “go and make disciples of all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Filled with the Holy Spirit, we can do it!
Pax,
Father Vogel
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