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A Time For Saints

Yesterday, January 6, 2021, is a day that will never be forgotten. I was out rideshare driving for several hours while listening to the news on the radio. I rarely listen to the news, as I usually prefer to have some light background music on while driving others around the greater Milwaukee area. However, yesterday was different, I needed to listen to the local traffic and news because less than 24 hours before it was announced by the district attorney in Kenosha, WI that no charges would be filed against the police officers involved in the Jacob Blake shooting last summer. Several streets in that community were barricaded the previous evening as they anticipated some protests and rioting. For the most part, things seemed to be calm in Kenosha, and the rideshare trips led me out to the Waukesha area - I was safe and the risk was low that I would run into any demonstrations that might put my safety or the safety of my passengers at risk. Just as I reached for the dial to change the sta...
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What If You've Received the Eucharist for the Last Time?

We are living in unprecedented and uncertain times. The entire world has been affected by a global pandemic, it has reached nearly every corner of the earth and affected nearly every person on the planet in some way. If you or a loved one has not contracted the disease, you are probably suffering in some other way from the fallout of schools, businesses, and all forms of public entertainment being shuttered. As a human family, more especially as Americans, this is the first time we have experienced the rapid spread of illness, death, job loss, and freedoms being restricted in our lifetime. As people of faith, it is only natural for us to turn to the Church in difficult times. Unfortunately, in this time many of us are finding that no matter how hard we pull and push on the doors of our Church they too are closed. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the Church has been absent or silent during these times. Many priests and bishops have become creative offering drive-by confessions, parki...
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Holding It All Together

“Who has measured with his palm the waters, marked off the heavens with a span, held in his fingers the dust of the earth, weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord or instructed Him as a counselor? Whom did He consult to gain knowledge? Who taught Him the path of judgment or showed Him the way of understanding?” Isaiah 40:12-14 Recently, God has called me into a period of transition in my life to focus on expanding the mission of Patchwork Heart Ministry. Each new day is unpredictable, vastly different than the previous and can be filled with skyrocketing highs or rock-bottom lows. The reward of success is constantly and relentlessly paired with the added stress and responsibility of starting and operating a non-profit. In one of those rock-bottom stressful moments, earlier this month I was trying to hold it all together and began complaining to God, as I began reading Him my shopping list and asking Him for His interventi...
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Grace and Golden Tickets

We are all a great deal luckier that we realize, we usually get what we want - or near enough.  ~ Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  Just about everyone knows that the only way to get into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory is with a Golden Ticket. According to the vision of Roald Dahl, you can’t enter the famous Chocolateer’s world of pure imagination without one. There are only five authentic tickets and they are hidden inside an ordinary Wonka Bar. The reclusive Wonka knows, the demand of chocolate-loving children will outweigh the supply of golden tickets and madness will likely ensue in sweet shops all around the world. Children everywhere push their parents to the brink of insanity with requests for more chocolate in hopes of winning the ultimate prize. For the vast majority, their dream of touring the enchanted factory comes crashing down just as fast as their blood sugar levels, but the sugar rush is extended for the five Golden Ticket finders; Augus...
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Reach for Heaven, Not for Leprechauns

Our entire seventh grade class had been warned about our behavior. Instead of posing for a picture we decided to play a pickup game of basketball in the gym. We were reprimanded for being disobedient and defiant during our opportunity to take the traditional “incoming eighth graders class photo.” Our teacher, Mrs. Cullen was not only angry at our insubordination but also perturbed that the one photo she managed to take she thought we looked like “disheveled hooligans” instead of “nice Catholic school children.” Clearly, our picture was not making it into the St. Patrick’s Easter bulletin. Now that she had managed to gain control of us again, we were about to be walked back to her classroom for more academic enrichment. Many of us, myself included, still had “the naughty giggles” and some left over energy from our unfinished game of basketball. This being evident, she said, “anyone who makes a sound on the way back to class will be punished”, as we started walking. Personally, I ...
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Contemplate on the Cross

Working as a Youth Minister and in Catholic Media, the Stations of the Cross has shaped my ministry. What began ten years ago as a youth ministry activity in need of a revitalization, has become a pillar and guidepost of my personal spirituality and public ministry. Thus the Stations of the Cross has been one of the favorite ways Patchwork Heart Ministry reaches out and touches hearts; presenting them in a dramatic stage production of Living Stations of the Cross, authoring two print editions of the Contemplative Stations of the Cross (2016 & 2018) and also an audio version featuring an overview of the theology, history and spirituality of the devotion by Fr. Bill Zimmer. It almost goes without saying that the Stations of the Cross are a keystone of our ministry. Why? There are a few reasons. First, the passion, death and resurrection is what gives credibility to the claims of Christianity. If Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God, didn’t sacrifice Himself for your sins, my sins an...
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The Kingdom of God is Like a...Circus?

“We cannot all see alike, but we can all do good.” ~ P.T. Barnum Jesus used many analogies when he talked about the Kingdom of God. He likened Heaven to a hidden treasure, a landowner, a pearl of great price, a mustard seed, and many other things throughout His public ministry. One parable he never told was the Circus and the Kingdom of God, but He might have if P.T Barnum had lived in first-century Jerusalem. The life of legendary entertainer Phineas T. Barnum was recently brought to the big screen by 20th Century Fox in the imaginative musical film The Greatest Showman . While the movie took many liberties in regards to historical accuracy, it highlighted some important spiritual principles from which we can learn and apply in our spiritual life. Barnum is portrayed as a disadvantaged visionary. While he is unsure of exactly how the gifts he possesses will unfold on the canvas of his life, he is certain that he is called to greatness. More importantly, he desires to share this ...
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