Death of a Pope: Next Steps

We are pleased to announce that St. Leonard School has been the recipient of two grants gifted within The Catholic Community Foundation: A general grant in the amount of $17,000 for tuition assistance, and a grant from the Robert T. and Randi L. Bautch Fund in the amount of $12,591 for general support. We are grateful for the thoughtful and generous investments helping us continue to provide an excellent Catholic education. The Catholic Community Foundation helps donors with estate planning and other philanthropic initiatives that benefit causes that further the mission of the Church. Learn more at legaciesoffaith.org ▪

Each year we pick a charity to receive all the profits from our annual Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot 5K run & walk. The charity that we chose this year is Family Promise of Waukesha County , which helps low-income families and families experiencing homelessness to achieve sustainable independence through a community-based response. I’m happy to announce that we raised a grand total of $23,421.56 from the net profits of the event. This will all benefit the great work of Family Promise of Waukesha County. This year our Turkey Trot had a grand total of 1,872 runners and walkers, the largest turnout in the 13 years that we’ve been hosting this event! We had 900 male participants and 972 females. There were 1,032 runners and 840 walkers. The largest age group was 18 and under with 418 participants. Interestingly, the second largest age group was 50-64 with 385 participants. Teams are popular as 942 participants were on teams, while 930 signed up as individuals. At least 980 have participated in past St. Leonard Turkey Trots. We had 10 different states represented: Wisconsin, California, Hawaii, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, and Texas each had one participant listed. After the run/walk, we served 450 pints of chocolate milk, over 800 cookies, 150 apples, and 2 cases of bananas! Our participants were generous as an additional $3,095.72 was given on the optional donation page for Family Promise of Waukesha County. We owe a big THANK YOU to our Turkey Trot race director Allen Jorn and our roughly 100 volunteers who helped make the event a wonderful success. Thank you to all the people who worked so hard to coordinate the countless details of such a huge event! Thank you to all the bakers who made dozens and dozens of cookies for our walkers and runners! Thank you to our corporate sponsors whose names are on the back of the Turkey Trot t-shirts. Thank you to the Muskego Police Department and the Tess Corners Fire Department for ensuring that we had a safe racecourse! I’ve already started training for the 2025 Turkey Trot and look forward to another great event! ▪

Our conference of St. Vincent dePaul has been very involved in improving the lives of our neighbors and we send a sincere and grateful thank you to you, our fellow parishioners. It is because of your constant support through prayers, reflection, monetary and item donations that allow us to reach those in our community who are struggling to pay rent, utilities, etc. and to have enough food and necessities. Between October 2024 and December 2024 we have paid $7275.70 toward rent, energy, car repair for a homeless neighbor and other necessities. During this time we also provided $950 in gift cards to assist those in need. We are also thankful for all the donations in the blue bin by the Youth Center. We are feeding the hungry, housing the poor and working to help our neighbors achieve independence in their daily living. We look forward to your continued support of those in most need in our community. "Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God," (Proverbs 14:31)

One might think of the word catechesis as interchangeable with religious education, but knowledge is just one of the tasks of catechesis. These six tasks are prayer, knowledge, liturgical formation, community, morality and mission ( General Directory for Catechesis, ##85-86). Our Christian Formation programs keep this in the forefront, making sure our children and youth are formed not only in knowledge of our faith, but also in the practice of it so that- in partnership with their families- they can be prepared to live a life of discipleship. For example, this past week our fourth and seventh grade Christian Formation students, along with our Vine and Branches Special Ed. group, decorated and assembled hygiene bags. Students teamed up in multi-age pairings and decorated canvas bags with cheery, upbeat drawings and then filled a zipper bag with various self-care items. The bags were assembled and the recipients were prayed for. The intent is for these sets to be donated to Street Angels Mobile Outreach Program and distributed to some of their youngest clients, especially during this cold winter. Hands-on experiences like these help our children be more engaged with the content of a lesson and demonstrate how what we learn is applicable to our lives. Other activity-based lessons, such as games, crafts, multi-modal presentations and discussions help our children learn more effectively and reach different kinds of learners. We appreciate your continued support of our Christian Formation program and the efforts of some of our youngest parishioners in supporting those in need. To learn more about our Christian Formation programs, please call our Christian Formation Office at 262-679-0880 or visit our webpage . ▪

The St. Leonard Pastoral Council recently approved a $10,000 parish donation to Catholic Charities USA for hurricane relief. Catholic Charities USA is distributing funding to local Catholic Charities agencies on the ground providing life-sustaining assistance to people impacted by Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton. The donation comes from a parish tithe that is a percentage of St. Leonard’s annual operating budget. The purpose of our parish tithe is to increase our outreach and live stewardship as a parish, in recognition that all we have is a gift from God and meant to be shared with others. Thanks for your generous support of St. Leonard that makes this outreach possible! To make a direct personal gift for hurricane relief or find out how people in need following the hurricanes are being assisted, visit catholiccharitiesusa.org .

One of the four projects being funded by the Love One Another campaign at St. Leonard is the replacement of the gym roof and HVAC system. This project began July 16, 2024. Projects are being completed in the order of urgency of repairs needed. The environmental sustainability measures taken in this project demonstrates three of the areas of concentration defined by the US Green Building Council’s LEED rating system: Energy and atmosphere, indoor air quality, and materials and resources. We chose a stone ballasted roof instead of a chemically adhered roof, because we want to avoid a product that gives off a large amount of Volatile Organic Compound (gasses emitted from certain solids or liquids that can decrease air quality). The new HVAC system is a Single Zone Variable Air Volume (SZVAV) system. With an SZVAV system, the cooling capacity can closely match the capacity of the space being regulated. This matching avoids wide temperature swings, allowing adequate run time for humidity control. In comparison, the existing HVAC system provided air at a constant temperature and varied airflow, which created larger temperature swings and poor humidity control. SZVAV systems have the ability to decrease fan speed, resulting in less energy consumption compared to the existing system. We also purchased a CO2 ventilation system, which will improve indoor air quality.  We would like to thank everyone who has supported the Love One Another campaign and the Buildings and Grounds Committee. Without your commitment we wouldn’t be able to complete much needed projects around campus.

With the church in the midst of a “Eucharistic Revival,” there are many saints who can be looked to as models of love for Jesus who is truly present in the Holy Eucharist. A new hero of mine is a modern-day teenager named Carlo Acutis. Carlo is an Italian boy who died from leukemia at the age of 15 in the year 2006. He offered his sufferings for the Church, saying “I offer all the suffering I will have to suffer for the Lord, for the Pope, and the Church.” Growing up in Italy, Carlo was a normal boy who enjoyed video games and soccer. Even though his parents were not particularly religious, Carlo developed a deep love for Jesus in the Eucharist. While in many families it is the parents who drag their teenagers to church, in the Acutis family it was the opposite! Carlo was the one who wanted to receive Communion every day and kept dragging his parents to church with him! He would make a holy hour of silent prayer before or after Mass, he went to Confession every week, and prayed the rosary daily. At school, Carlo was known for defending other kids who were picked on, especially disabled children. Carlo had a talent for website design, and he used his talents to create a website documenting Eucharistic Miracles– instances when the bread and wine at Mass visibly turned into physical heart tissue and human blood. Carlo said, "the more often we receive the Eucharist, the more we will become like Jesus, so that on this earth we will have a foretaste of heaven." Carlo was declared by the church to be “venerable” in 2018 (the first step to sainthood), and then in 2020, Pope Francis beatified him in the final stage before sainthood. He is now known as Blessed Carlo Acutis. His official website is: https://carloacutis-en.org/

The Christian life is about communion with Jesus. I am reminded of this truth each day at the seminary in which our lives as seminarians are scheduled around liturgical and personal prayer. This is why the Church requires us to attend Mass every Sunday and encourages us to receive communion as often as possible (at least once during the Easter Season). At Mass we offer praise and thanksgiving to God for his goodness and the blessings he has given us. We also offer petitions for our own needs and the needs of the Church Universal. Most importantly, we offer our hearts during the Eucharistic prayer, joining our own intentions and offerings to the sacrificial offering of Jesus on the Cross and receive the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ who gives us divine life, and healing which conform our hearts and lives to look more like his. The source and summit of the Christian life, indeed, is the Eucharist. However, the Church’s liturgy does not end with Mass. However, the Church’s liturgy does not end with Mass. The memorial of the Paschal Mystery, our communion with Jesus, and our offerings of praise, thanksgiving, and petition to the Father are extended throughout the day in the Liturgy of the Hours. This prayer is offered by the Church so that we are joined to Christ in prayer at all times and to sanctify the entirety of every day “from the rising of the sun to its setting” (Psalm 113:3). Near the end of his public ministry on earth, Jesus instructed his disciple that “You must pray at all times and not lose heart” (Lk 18:1). In the Acts of the Apostles, we read that from the Church’s beginning, the apostles took Jesus’ command to “pray always” to heart by praying at fixed times throughout the day: the apostles were praying together on Pentecost during “the third hour of the day” (Acts 2:1-15); Peter “went up on the housetop to pray, about the sixth hour” (Acts 10:9); “Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour” (3:1); “about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God” (16:25). Following the example of the Apostles, the Church gradually formalized this “hourly” personal prayer of the Early Christians into liturgical prayer which is called the Liturgy of the Hours or the Divine Office. Through the Liturgy of the Hours, the Church draws all of its members to “offer to God an unceasing sacrifice of praise” (Heb 15:15). For those who pray the Office regularly, the Psalms begin to become part of the rhythm of life and a source of dialogue with God, both praying the psalms to the Father and also listening to how the word speaks to one’s own heart. The Liturgy of the Hours is made up of seven specified times of prayer (called “Hours”). The two most important hours, called the “hinge” hours, are Morning Prayer (prayed around sunrise or 6 am) and Evening Prayer (prayed around sunset or 6 pm). At the seminary, we pray both of these hours in community on most weekdays. The other hours are Office of Readings, the three Daytime Hours (Midmorning, Midday, and Midafternoon), and Night Prayer. Sanctifying specific times of the day, each Hour reflects a spiritual theme that correlates to the physical time of day. During the morning, for example, the prayers focus on resurrection and new life in Christ. During the evening, the prayers focus on thanksgiving for the day's blessings and preparation for the day ahead. For those who pray the Office regularly, the psalms begin to become part of the rhythm of life and a source of dialogue with God, both praying the Psalms to the Father and also listening to how the word speaks to one’s own heart. At their ordination, priests and deacons promise “to celebrate faithfully the Liturgy of the Hours”(1) for the glorification of God and sanctification of his people. While not required of the laity, the Second Vatican Council encouraged the entire Church, including the laity, to incorporate the Liturgy of the Hours into the liturgical life of parishes and individual Christians. The Liturgy of the Hours has been a significant part of my prayer life for several years. In the year or two before I entered seminary, I began to make Morning Prayer and Night Prayer a regular part of my prayer life. Since I did not have as much time to pray as I do now in seminary life, I found that committing to praying one or two Hours daily gave my prayer life stability. Being almost entirely scriptural, it helped me to become acquainted with Psalms and Scripture passages that I would not have otherwise prayed with or read at that time. Finally, it gave me a better sense of living a liturgical life, especially during the seasons of Lent, Easter, Advent, and Christmas. If you are struggling to enter into a routine of prayer in your family life, if you would like to live more liturgically, or if you would like to pray more with Scripture, I encourage you to try incorporating one or more of the Hours into your daily prayer routine. A very simple start is to end the day with Night Prayer, which is simple to learn. While you can purchase a volume of Night Prayer or Christian Prayer (which contains Morning, Evening, and Night Prayer), there are many apps for iPhone and Android that prepare all of the prayers for you (no need to worry about ribbons or purchase an expensive book). Two very easy to use apps are the Divine Office and IBreviary apps. I encourage you to make a plan to pray one or two hours regularly by yourself or with your family. If we do not make plans for prayer, it will never seem like there is time for it. Making a commitment to pray Morning Prayer to sanctify the day as it begins or Night Prayer as a prayerful reflection on how the day went before going to bed is a great step toward prioritizing your prayer life and remaining in communion and conversation with Jesus each and every day. Please consider joining us at St. Leonard every fourth Saturday of the month after the 5 p.m. Mass for Evening Prayer in the Divine Mercy Chapel, beginning January 27. (1) Ordination of Deacons – Promise of the Elect

Every Wednesday in Church we offer the opportunity for adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, otherwise called Eucharistic Adoration. Recently, Pope Francis encouraged a recovery of this form of prayer stating, “we need to regain the sense of adoring in silence, adoration. It is a prayer we have lost; few people know what this is.” (1) To run with the Holy Father’s prompt, what exactly is this practice and why do we do it? Reflecting on my own experience of adoration I can identify a number of different ways in which I have thought about it, beginning with adoration as an opportunity to rest with the Lord in the midst of a busy, chaotic time. Adoration is Rest Eucharistic adoration only makes sense on the basis of a recognition that the Eucharist is substantially God-with-us, that is, the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ made present under the appearance of bread and wine. Once we get into our heads that the Eucharist is Jesus, then we can begin to hear the words of Jesus echo in a eucharistic context: “Come to me all you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28). All of us live busy and at times fragmented lives. Eucharistic adoration can be an oasis in the midst of this busyness that reminds us that we are not defined by what we do, how busy, successful, or unsuccessful we are; what defines us is the love of the Father. For myself, there is nothing quite so restful as sitting in an adoration chapel, and simply looking up at the monstrance. I have no particular set of prayers I say, although sometimes these are helpful. It is simply a time to rest, and a time to be with the Lord. Though the phrase is cliché, it is true, we are human beings, not human doings. Adoration is Sacrifice To be honest, it is difficult to get to adoration. Not only are the opportunities somewhat limited, but I find that whenever I make up my mind to pray, I can suddenly think of about eight or nine things which I either really need to do or would be more enjoyable in the moment than praying. To adore is a sacrifice. It has been characteristic of every religion ever, throughout the history of the whole world, to offer sacrifices as part of their religion. What is unique about Christianity is that instead of sacrificing something else (or worse, someone else), Christianity is a religion of self-sacrifice. Not only does Jesus offer himself to the Father on the cross, but we also in following Jesus must “deny ourselves” to be his disciples (cf., Matt 10:37). Anything worth doing requires sacrifice. St. Paul made the comparison that athletes train hundreds and hundreds of hours for a temporary reward, the sacrifices entailed in the Christian life are for an everlasting reward (cf., 1 Cor 9:25). I find that describing adoration as a sacrifice is helpful because, to be perfectly honest, it is not always the near-mystical experience that we – I – sometimes hope that it will be. Don’t get me wrong, some of the most beautiful moments of my life have occurred in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. Nevertheless, the daily experience of prayer is rather ordinary. But then again, isn’t your average trip to the gym also rather ordinary? You get the point, just because something is mundane at times doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing. Adoration is Worship Pope Benedict once described eucharistic adoration as prolonging and intensifying everything that takes place in the liturgical celebration (Mass). (2) Adoration is not an add-on to Mass, but flows from it, and leads us back to it. In fact, just as the Church has a “script” for Mass (called the Roman Missal), the Church also has a “script” of sorts for eucharistic adoration – a set of directives which govern how, when, and in what manner adoration may take place. Why is this significant? It underscores the point that adoration is not just another devotion in which some people may choose to participate and others not, rather, adoration is a part of the prayer of the whole Church. At Mass, the priest holds up Jesus in the consecrated host and tells us, “behold the lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world.” For how long do you typically behold that lamb? I’d guess it’s about eight seconds. Eucharistic adoration prolongs and deepens this moment. Not only do you get the chance in adoration to say, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof,” but it is also the opportunity to speak heart to heart with Jesus- or, perhaps more accurately, face to face- since the word “adoration” derives from the Latin words ad ore meaning “to the face” or “to the mouth.” Adoration is a Taste of Heaven The themes of adoration as rest, as sacrifice, and as worship together make up foretaste of what heaven will be. The Book of Revelation describes the multitude of the redeemed in the following manner: “They are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night within his temple; and he who sits upon the throne will shelter them with his presence… For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes.” (Rev 7:15,17). When we come to eucharistic adoration, the throne of God we see is not the heavenly throne yet, but the monstrance which is a real throne. That’s why it is typically covered in gold, or at least very ornate. In the center of that throne is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, how blest are we who come before this throne! Scott Hahn has put it this way, “you don’t have to die to go to heaven, you just have to go to Mass.” I would hazard to say that if eucharistic adoration deepens and prolongs all that takes place within the Mass, the same can be said of eucharistic adoration. (1) Wooden, Cindy. 2023. “Adore Jesus’ real presence” Catholic News Service. https://www.usccb.org/news/2023/adore-jesus-real-presence-eucharist-pope-tells-us-catholics (2) Pope Benedict XVI. Sacramentum Caritatis, 66.