October 5, 2025: Missionary Discipleship

Dear Parishioners of Our Lady of Divine Providence Family of Parishes,

Welcome to our new Family Bulletin! I want to thank Danielle Meineke, our Director of Communications, for a beautiful and modernized bulletin look.

This is a great visual reminder about the purpose of our Pastoral Planning Process, Beacons of Light. Beacons of Light is not about closing churches, but consolidating parishes for more effective missionary discipleship. A parish is a legal and financial entity with a staff. As Mass attendance numbers shrink and donations dry up, we can no longer afford to staff five different offices, so we must consolidate into one parish. On the other hand, a church is a consecrated building. One parish may have several churches, which function as worship campuses. Our challenge during the Beacons of Light planning process is to a) bring the administrative organization together into one parish and b) discern which church buildings are strategically significant to retain as worship campuses in the one parish. Our new Archbishop, Archbishop Casey, has challenged us “to meet the missionary moment.” We must re-imagine what it looks like to be the church in our present day. The universal mission of the Church remains as relevant as ever, but what it looks like in the present will be different from the past.

Each one of us is charged with becoming Beacons of Light. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” How do we become light ourselves? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote, “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.” Solzhenitsyn said that the purpose of religion is to give people a strategy to shrink the influence of evil within them. We cannot eliminate evil from the world, but we can work to decrease its influence within ourselves. Therefore, our first and primary responsibility is to decrease the evil and increase the light within ourselves.

In light of that, I would like to reframe my statement last week about Charlie Kirk. Several people have brought to my attention statements attributed to him that horrify me… if he said them, those statements are utterly wrong, and in my opinion, deserve the severest condemnation. Nevertheless, he was killed because he stood up and spoke out with courage.

Unless and until we all acknowledge a universal and absolute truth, relativism and confusion will propagate further division and violence. If what is true for you differs from what is true for me, then there is no common ground, no unity, and no persuasion except through emotions and force. We must rediscover our dedication to truth by reigniting the light of unifying love.

In October, we celebrate the month of the Rosary and the victory of Mary. Under her providential guidance, we can hope radiantly in the light. Beacons of Light will unify and modernize our parish structure and assist us to restrict the sphere of evil within our hearts, so that we can become light and be a beacon in the darkness of our world and rise to meet our missionary moment.

Yours in Christ,
Fr. Henry Hoffmann