I'm not going to be able to catch you up on all the changes since I posted last.  Here are the basics:  after seven years at St. Therese, Bishop Finn allowed me to return to hospital chaplaincy.  So now I am full-time Catholic priest-chaplain at St. Mary's Medical Center in Blue Springs.  Sometime I might write a little bit about why I decided it was time to leave St. Therese.  For now I will just say I was burned out, and St. Therese needed a chance to find another way ahead.

Sometime soon I may also write a bit about hospital chaplaincy.  For now I will just say that much of my day is like sales - I make a lot of calls.  Most of the time response seems to range from mildly pleased to mildly displeased.  But on occasion there are people in situations in which I fulfill my vocation and make a difference.

The challenge in life right now is pastoring a new Catholic Church in Kansas City - Our Lady of Hope, a mission of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter.  We were part of St. Therese Little Flower for over five years.  We didn't join the Ordinariate immediately because we didn't know how we could have one foot in a diocesan parish, and one foot in the Ordinariate.  Finally, after some study and prayer, it seemed clear that our future had to be in the Ordinariate.  Last January Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson received us as members.  When I left St. Therese, it seemed time to finally decide where we ought to be located if we are to have a mission to include people from through out the metro area.  So we are launching out on our own.

Beginning November 2, we will be located at Our Lady of Sorrows for Sunday Mass at 9:15.  I will write about that, too!