Dear Friends in Christ,
On Monday we celebrate the Feast Day of St. Jerome who died in 420 AD. He was a great scholar and translated the Bible into Latin, from the original Hebrew and Greek. He famously said that “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ”. He was also infamously known for being gruff and sometimes mean. You see, anyone can be a saint.
Believe it or not sometimes people look at some of the things we do here at SKD and think it is a little gruff or mean. For example, to register for our parish you must attend a Prospective member orientation. This is different than a lot of places where you can literally register on-line. Are we just creating a hoop to jump through and being mean by asking folks to come to orientation meeting? Even our excellent Confirmation and First Eucharist programs get people talking about why we require some extra things. Can’t we just do a few group classes, go on retreat, and call it a day? Our Faith Formation strives to be for the whole family not just a drop off program for the kids. We also have lots of policies and procedures that we try to follow regarding who can have tables in narthex or speak at Mass, etc.
I can promise you that we are not being mean in any of these things. We are instead trying to call everyone to co-responsibility and ownership of their faith. Faith and relationships are like anything, you get what you put into it. We don’t make any apologies for asking for a little extra because we believe something as important as a faith community and growing in love of God should take some effort. Don’t worry though, if you need any help, we are here for you.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Fr. Matt
