Another couple of highlights from this time is leading the annual deacon retreat for the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. Spending time outside Chicago with the Catholic Relief Services Global Fellows was also incredible. As always, I have a lot to be grateful for. Being more grateful, as well as being more patient, even with myself, are a few of the things I've been focusing on.
Another thing that gives me joy is teaching theology to a small group of motivated high school students each week. This year, we are tackling the New Testament. Last year, my first doing this, was Old Testament.
In particular, I haven't been putting up the Friday traditio While I was very happy to have been diligent in doing that for virtually all of 2025, looking back, I realized that when I get busy, it is usually the first thing to go. And that's as it should be. Life over blogging (there's that faux verb again!). I posted fewer times during September than any month since November 2024.
As both of my readers know, 2026 has been a year of big changes and transitions in my life. While it's been difficult and taken a lot of adjusting, on the whole, these changes have been good. A little more than six months in, I feel like I have my sea legs. So, I am now making adjustments based on the big changes about which I wrote a lot early this year.
There have been some kind of strange difficulties I've faced this year. I've also written, if vaguely, about these. All of these things have really made me seek the Lord with a renewed fervor and have sparked some personal changes. Not superficial, but deep changes, you know, those you know you need to start making but remain reluctant to do so. Why? Because not only is it work, it's work you can't accomplish on your own.
In short, interior renewal that is centering and isn't dependent on externals. Saint Ignatius of Loyola had one word for this: indiferencía. As another spiritual teacher has taught me, I am learning to practice more consistently "benevolent detatchment."
At the present moment, I am finding one book in particular very useful. Jim Finley's Merton's Palace of Nowhere. Finely's masterwork on Merton, who was Jim's spiritual director for the six years he spent at Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky, as well as his novice master, was originally published nearly fifty years ago, in 1978. I don't think this book would've "worked" for me until this year. But it's just what I need right now. Perhaps at some point I will share precisely how Finley's exposition of Merton's spirituality has helped me better appropriate Merton's teachings (it isn't a method). It's also been way too long since I've seriously engaged Pater Tom. Grace abounds.
One fruit of all of this is my need to not be busy seven days a week. Manning several demanding positions in my fulltime work for the diocese made me realize that, at least for the next several years, I don't have the time or the energy for parish ministry. Six and a half years ago, when I accepted a demanding part-time position with the diocese (this while still working a fulltime job), I was given the option not to be assigned to a parish. I don't regret continuing to serve the parish to which I've been assigned between then and now, but it's past time for a change. Once this transition is complete, there will be more news to follow in terms of what's next for those who care.
While I will be transitioning out between now and Easter, I am already mostly out. My transition began in July. Pastoral necessity put me back in the thick of things for the month of September. At this point, I am pretty sure I will be around for Christmas and Holy Week.
This discernment has been six months in the making. I've done this is in collaboration with both with my current pastor and my bishop. I am also blessed with a wonderful spiritual director, who's helped me immensely this year. I've been through enough iterations of back-and-forth to know it's the right thing at the right time and for the right reasons. I have that peace that Saint Ignatius insisted is the confirmation of having discerned wisely, led by the Spirit.
I am preparing to leave for the annual deacon retreat for my diocese. It starts this evening and goes through Sunday morning. Please keep us in your prayers.
It's been way too long since our Καθολικός διάκονος Friday traditio has been something by David Bowie. Fittingly, Bowie's "Changes" is our traditio for this first Friday of October.
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