February 15, 2025
Dear St. Michael Parish Family,
After spending five days immersed in prayer and discernment during our time with ACTS XXIX in Michigan, we return with hearts full of gratitude and a renewed sense of identity. The Lord spoke powerfully to us, not just as individuals, but as a true family. The message was clear: Jesus wants this parish to be His family! He wants us to focus on four essential elements of family life: sacrificial love, authentic forgiveness, heartfelt vulnerability, and communal life.
Sacrificial Love
Jesus desires a parish where we lay down our lives for one another, not out of obligation, but out of love. He spoke these words, "This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." (Jn 15:12-13) A family sacrifices for each other, not just in the big moments, but in the small, daily acts of self-giving. The Lord is inviting us to see each other not as acquaintances in the pews, but as brothers and sisters. As St. Thomas Aquinas said, "to love is to will the good of the other." We’re called to will the good of the other at all times and in every circumstance, even the most difficult ones.
Authentic Forgiveness
During our time of prayer, Jesus made it clear that we cannot be the family He desires unless we allow Him to heal our wounds and teach us to truly forgive. When He teaches us how to approach the Father, He speaks a difficult truth: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” (Mt 6:12) Forgiveness is not easy, but it is necessary. Jesus calls us to let go of bitterness, past hurts, and divisions so that we can be united as one body in Him and eventually grow to forgive everyone, for everything, all the time, no matter what. Only by forgiving and being willing to ask for forgiveness can we become a family that lives now, what we will live together in the Father’s House after we pass into Eternity.
Heartfelt Vulnerability
Dr. Brené Brown defines vulnerability as “uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure,” which is why in today’s world, hiding is the norm. Jesus has a different norm. For Jesus, vulnerability is the only acceptable way of life. The Father of Goodness reveals His vulnerability through Jesus, His Son. With vulnerability comes the risk of being hurt, but this did not hold Jesus back from revealing that He wants us as His own!
Communal Life
Communal life is difficult, messy, and tedious. The amount of emotional taxation on a family trying to live a communal life is astronomical. Yet there is still a beauty and necessity for communal life that can never be taken away from Christian discipleship. The early Church lived this beautifully: "They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers... All who believed were together and had all things in common." (Acts 2:42, 44) The Lord is asking us to rediscover this way of life. He’s calling us to weep together, to grieve together, to laugh together, to enjoy each part of the human experience together. He desires us to invest in real relationships, to walk with one another beyond Sunday Mass, and to build a culture of trust where everyone is delighted in as a son or daughter of the Father of Goodness. Jesus wants any person who walks into this family to experience the fullness of what we will have in the Father’s House on the other side of Eternity!
We invite you to personally commit to this way of life, as Jesus’s family, as we move forward. There will be more to come on how to live out each of these elements of family life!
In Him,
Fr. Cole Kennett and The Leadership Team
To hear more reflection on Our Parish Family, listen again to these homilies: