Monday Message, September 15, 2025

Patrick Donovan

KNOW

The Fall Forum was a great event, and if you missed it, you are missing the many gifts we gave away. Sad face for you. As is our custom, much of the SWAG that was distributed was only available to those present. This year, that included posters of Carlo Acutis, Institute-branded lunch bags, books, frisbees, and a glass holy water bottle from Rome, not to mention all the free stuff on the tables.

You can find all the flyers we gave out on this page. Included in this list is:

Full Calendar
Holy Communion flyers for parents
First Witnesses
Witnesses of the Week
Day of Prayer for Parish Admin Staff
Nexus (Ministry Day)
Adult Confirmation
Catechist Retreat
Quarterly Meetings for Catechetical Leaders
Mini Grant Flyers

If you missed picking up resources you asked for, please feel free to check in with Laura Kane to see what’s left and when you can arrange to pick it up in Shelton. This will include Advent and Lenten calendars, as well as catechist journals and (if available) copies of the Compendium.

One of the items we discussed at the forum was this summary and action sheet, based on the May 1st Summit on Evangelization. Please get together as a deanery and discuss your next steps.

Also distributed and discussed is this draft of the Parish Inventory. If your parish is missing, please make sure you contact Laura Kane to set up your interview. It will be released to pastors on October 1st, so you want to be included!

All parishes and schools are invited to nominate up to five individuals for The Carlo Project, a new initiative of the Institute that aims to form young people into digital evangelizers. The first meeting is on October 18th (the afternoon of Nexus). The flyer is here. The deadline for sending in names is early October.

CANONIZATION FOLLOW-UP

If you want to see Bill Staley’s CNN interview from Rome, see this.

If you would like to read Pope Leo’s homily for the canonization, you can click here.

Bishop Caggiano will bless the shrine for St. Carlo Acutis at the cathedral on October 3rd at 7 pm. This will include the distribution of medals, magnets, stickers, and more for those who attend.

OTHER NEWS

If you have a few catechists who would be willing to be interviewed by Pam Rittman, head of the Annual Appeal, regarding their ministry and how the contributions of the faithful assist the ministry we share, please click here to email Pam.

REFLECT

Like everyone else who was awake that day, I remember what I was doing and where I was on Tuesday, September 11, 2001.

When my sisters visited for Thanksgiving that year, we drove to New York from my home in Delaware. The fires were still smoldering. Bodies were still being recovered. Guards were posted every few feet, facing the crowds, standing stoically, both protecting what was behind them and guarding those who faced them. There was a silence, a pall over the crowd. Enough time had passed that the flyers announcing the missing were weathered. But not enough time had passed to stop people from openly weeping as they held on to the fence that had been erected.

I thought about that visit on Sunday when the bishop honored local heroes and first responders. Specifically, I remembered an encounter with a man who still gives me chills. He was a policeman, standing guard at the fence where we stood praying. I asked him how he did it. I wondered out loud how in the world he stood guard over a graveyard that held his brothers and fathers. I asked him what kept him coming back, day after day, to stand guard over such an awful place.

His answer stopped me cold. He looked me squarely in the eye and spoke without hesitation: “I’m a Christian. I’m a Catholic. There is so much crucifixion here, so much death, so much evil. But there is resurrection, too. So I’m standing by the tomb and I’m waiting.”

There is evil in the world. But look closer, my friends, because there is resurrection too. I pray that as you pause to reflect and remember twenty-four years later, you listen to the man I encountered on that smoky night at Ground Zero. The promise of our faith is simple. The cross leads to the tomb. And the tomb, in its emptiness, brings us face to face with life.

That is where I find hope. And I pray you will as well.

LAUGH