Happy Fathers Day to all fathers, grandfathers, godfathers and spiritual fathers. I’ll give a special blessing to all fathers at the end of Mass. Since it is Father’s Day, and inspired by today’s Gospel, I feel compelled to talk a little bit about being on the boat with my father. I have many memories in the boat with dad, mostly on the lake, which is really where the Gospel story today took place - the “Sea” of Galilee is actually a big lake which would only rate as the second biggest lake in the state if it were in Iowa.
A lot of people have asked me, “so are you going to continue to celebrate Mass on the radio?” It’s a question that I have wrestled with. Broadcasting this Mass actually is difficult for me. It’s not like we are broadcasting the regular Sunday Mass live, I have to record it in advance, so it really messes with my preparations and my schedule and I have to find people to help... it isn’t easy, let's just say that.
So if you are ever around a seminarian this would happen quite frequently, at least early on in seminary, we’d see one of our friends and say, “hey! How was your day? What was the best part of your day?” You know, small talk like that, and almost without faith they would say, “going to Mass and receiving Jesus in the Eucharist.”
This is one of my favorite weekends of the year, it’s Ordination Weekend. We had one man ordained to the transitional diaconate on Friday night, and three men ordained to the Priesthood for the Archdiocese of Dubuque yesterday at the Cathedral.