The last six months have been stimulating, since our Parish Encounter in January. After a good deal of filtering and processing, we arrived at seven goals for the next five years. Since Christ the King has been at this for more than 80 years, some of these goals do not sound brand new. Other ideas are quite familiar to some of us, but now we are raising their level of awareness among all the parishioners.

The Goals are posted in Koelzer Hall, and each Sunday during the summer we will address each one of them. This past Sunday, we found Jesus at prayer. In St. Luke’s Gospel, when Jesus is at prayer, we can be pretty sure something important is on his mind, and we can also be sure that he is thinking about what his prayer will have to do with us! In this case, he teaches us to pray five simple things:

Father, may your name be held holy.

Your kingdom come.

Give us each day our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins as we forgive others.

Do not abandon us in the time of trial.

Goal 3 of our Five Year Plan calls for deeper spirituality — more dynamic as we gather on Sunday, and more reflective as we grow in our heart-felt relationship with God.

The Avett Brothers sing a song about three words that are hard to say: I and love and you. These three words are the watermark of humanity. They also sum up Jesus’ relationship with his Father. And we noticed in Paul’s letter to the Colossians, Ch 2, that the fullness of divinity is found bodily in Jesus, and therefore we, too find our fulfillment in our relationship with Christ. Goal 3 may be hard to say, but we can never get enough of it!

Fr. Clore