Monday Message, October 20, 2025
KNOW
We have our 101st Parish Leader Check In tomorrow. Click here to join.
More than 500 catechists received a message on Friday because, while they have signed up for Catechist 2.0, they have not completed it. Yes, I know that catechists are volunteers. They are busy people. We hate to ask too much of them. I have heard it all. I have also heard the bishop’s clear direction to all of us that ongoing formation is essential to the renewal of this diocese. He wants what is best for our young people. I presume you do too. Encourage your catechists to participate in formation. Today.
All catechists are invited participate in a Retreat. Spanish in November. English in February. Two locations. Two chances to participate. Details are on the Institute calendar online. To encourage participation in the Spanish retreats this November, please use this ad or this ad in your bulletins.
Have you nominated someone as a Witness of the Week yet? See details here and fill out the form in LEAD.
The Carlo Project launched on Saturday. Great day. Great event. Great kids. If you waited until after the deadline to submit names, your young people were likely not included. We will follow up with them this week. If you have been living under a rock, email Bill for more information.
New learning path launches today. Learn all about Dilexi te – the new document dropped last week by Pope Leo XIV. Pastors will receive this memo today. You can see the learning path here.
We have a limited number of Spanish Bibles. Please email Laura to make arrangements to pick some up.
Priscilla, Carmela, and Todd will be out Tuesday through Friday this week, attending a conference sponsored by Lilly Endowment related to the First Witnesses and Start With Sunday grants.
AROUND THE DIOCESE
Loren is looking for a Confirmation retreat before January. Email her here.
Chris Otis was inviting all youth ministry leaders to a night of prayer and praise, but it has been postponed.
Do you ever see a meeting advertised and wonder, “Why isn’t my parish hosting that?” Well, now is your chance. Every time the Bishop meets with parents of Holy Communion candidates, he wants to announce when and where the parents can meet with the new director of apologetics, Suan Sonna, for a question-and-answer session about the faith. Does your parish want to host one of these sessions? Email Suan (pronounced like the majestic “swan”) and make arrangements. Fairfield and Greenwich are scheduled already, but there are seven more openings!
REFLECT
Teens today do not want technology. I live with three of these teens. Trust me.
What they want is what technology promises them. They didn’t leave Facebook because their parents joined (we didn’t). They left because Facebook brought drama to their lives and there was already enough drama in their lives. It had promised a connection with friends and when the connection turned toxic, they abandoned the platform.
Teens long for communion with God, but not necessarily with a community of faith. Their communities are at school, in clubs, and in sports. Why? Because those communities fill a need they can express. It requires of them what they are willing to give and because their parents understand those communities, moms and dads are willing to participate, drive to and from, and pay healthily for said communities.
Can your parish do that?
Today, teens use social media for the potential to foster presence, even in the absence of deep relationships. The reality is young people will always make technology social. That is their nature. That is their desire – connectivity to others. We ask, “Where are all the young people?” when we gather on Sundays, but what we should be asking is, “How do we welcome young people and how do we connect with them? How do we inspire? What can our community do to feed their need for belonging?”
Maybe it begins by listening.
We are becoming a face-less society and we have to find a way to shift from transactional to transformational relationships. Instead of “do this and get that,” we have to listen to the needs of teens and be willing to meet those needs, even if it means changing how we engage with them.
Because young people who are experiencing an absence of presence will naturally attempt presence in absence. Read that again. It has happened before.
Don’t believe me? Look at the cover of Time Magazine on February 23, 1959. The image of “The Telephone Man” and the cover story that accompanied it, told of the reality of the power of this medium and how it was replacing face-to-face conversation. Just a few decades old, the telephone had transformed how businesses functioned, how families stayed connected, and how this simple invention ushered in a new experience of daily life – turning what was once a luxury for the rich into an essential tool of the everyman. Like the printing press in the 16th century, the telephone redefined society.
So has social media.
Belonging and identity are never negotiated alone. Neither is intimacy. And believing has never led to belonging.
We belong first. We always have. That’s why the encounter is so important. Blockbuster didn’t die out because people stopped watching movies. It died because people found a new way to encounter the movies.
Technology is social, young people will make sure of that. It overcomes the imposed separation of place and time.
We must make sure it doesn’t overcome our communities and that we do not leave the young people out in the cold to fend for themselves.
This week, listen to the young people. Learn how they make connections and what they seek at their deepest levels.
Then, let’s work together to meet those needs.
LAUGH
