Right after our last child, I was recovering from the cesarean surgery and started to notice that my foot was sore. My husband is in orthopedics, so one morning over breakfast, I told him that it was hurting a bit. He promised to keep an eye on it, and we went about the day. Two days later the pain had grown worse, and by the end of the day it was swollen. We tried to treat it medicinally until I couldn’t walk on it at all. It was a Friday, and he told me to come in for an x-ray. I didn’t go. It was tough to get all the kids taken care of and make time for all of that. So the weekend came and it got progressively worse. I finally went in that Monday and got the x-ray.

The x-ray tech set me up and went over to hit the button to take the picture. Then, she kind of chuckled, I think.

“So, what have you been doing?” she asked. “What do you mean?” “Have you been hiking? Or on a boat or something?” “What? No. These questions are pretty random.”

It turns out that there was an old piece of metal in my foot. I had to have it removed that week, and the diagnosis was that I had stepped on it when I was a child. After my pregnancies and other bodily changes, it festered and resurfaced. (Yes, this is all totally true. This is literally my x-ray.)

It had finally festered and needed to be removed. That resonates deeply, especially during Lent.

How many unhealed wounds do we walk around with? What will it take to finally let go and allow healing?

Two illustrations of operating in woundedness come to mind: turning off the light and broken bones.

If you are in a well-lit room (maybe wherever you are reading this) and turn off the light, the darkness is shocking at first. But, if you wait a moment, your eyes adjust. You can probably make out the outlines of the furniture around you. You could get up and walk around without stubbing your toe. You might even be able to pour a drink amidst that darkness. If there are people in the room, you could still find them, commune with them, speak with them.

But the Lord does not intend for you to live “just getting by.” To be fully alive requires illumination. With the light of the divine, everything can be seen. You can pour the drink, but now you can see the color of the liquid. You can speak to your friends, but now you can see the outlines of their smile lines when they laugh and the pain in their eyes if they are heavy hearted. Illumination is required for a joyful life, fully entrusted to God. Now, the broken bones. I asked my husband about his knowledge of field medicine after reading about St. Ignatius of Loyola’s horrific run-in with a loose cannonball. I realize that many of us walk around on broken bones, set on the front lines of battle.

When my mother died, to get through the funeral and all of the planning of laying her to rest, I slapped a band-aid on my broken heart. But to live my life in pursuit of God, I had to revisit my broken heart, rip the band-aid off, and allow real healing to take place.

The broken arm that’s set and wrapped in the ER can heal in that position. The person can probably use their arm though not fully. They can “just get by” until the deficiency becomes too hard to bear. They return to the doctor, and here’s the kicker: in order for the arm to be healed correctly, it has to be re-broken.

When I think of Lent, I think of an invitation for authentic healing. That usually takes place in the desert. It usually can only happen if we allow our old wounds and our broken bones to be re-broken and band-aids to be completely ripped off. Let the wind of the Holy Spirit and the hands of the Divine Physician put everything as it should be. Let him take our hearts of stone and turn them into flesh.

Where in your life are you just getting by?
Where is the wound that you have tried to hide but continues to fester?
Where does real healing need to take place?

Think of the person with chronic knee pain that finally has the time and money to get it fixed. You’ll hear them say, “I feel like a new person.” Or, “I had no idea life could be like this.” Usually, living with such chronic pain or woundedness makes us numb to the possibility of life without it. We live without hope and aren’t even aware of it.
When we become aware of the piece of metal that we were wounded with when we were children or maybe even when we are adults, we have to endure the suffering of reopening a wound to really allow for the removal of that which has broken our hearts.

In Co-Workers of the Truth, Joseph Ratzinger wrote the following: It is only by enduring himself, by freeing himself through suffering from the tyranny of egoism, that man finds himself, that he finds his truth, his joy, his happiness…The crisis of our age is made very real by the fact that we would like to flee from it; that people mislead us into thinking that one can be human without overcoming oneself, without the suffering of renunciation and the hardship of self-control; that people mislead us by claiming that here is no need for the difficulty of remaining true to what one has undertaken and the patient endurance of the tension between what one ought to be and what one actually is….There is, in fact, no other way in which one can be saved than by the cross.

Christ constantly invites us into union with his suffering. In her wisdom, the Church turns up the volume on this invitation during the season of Lent. When all is stripped away, we can hear his cries even greater: “Return to me with your whole heart.” And as you revisit these wounds and make yourself vulnerable to healing, may you also hear the quiet whisper of Love Himself. My child, these wounds do not define you. Love Himself descends into humanity, drawing you into his divine life with an ever-ending refrain that he whispered over all of creation. You. Are. Good. This wound, this sin, is not the definition of who you are. You are good. Be made whole this Lent.

Rachel Bulman is a wife, mother of 4, speaker, and blogger. She enjoys seeking truth, finding beauty, rediscovering the goodness in all things; and answering the call to holiness through her life as a beloved daughter of God. Find more of her work at RachelBulman.com.

In a conversation with my five-year old daughter the other day, I asked where she wanted to grab breakfast on Saturday. I said, “Do you want pancakes or donuts, buddy?” Her response, “Mom, duh, I can’t have donuts because I gave them up for Lent! Did you forget already?” I did. I wouldn’t say I “forgot” it was Lent, but rather being present and mindful to daily sacrifices or Lenten activities haven’t been top of mind. Yes, I humbly admit, this has been a difficult Lent for me. With much going on at work and two more little ones in the family (5 month old twins), my distraction level is high.

A sacrifice is a challenge that is meaningful and intentional. Giving something up and offering it as a sacrifice shouldn’t be easy, rather an act of intentional discipleship. During Lent, we are preparing ourselves to witness the ultimate act of sacrifice and unconditional love. Jesus sacrificed everything. Easy and meaningless are not in the description.

Many of us need to recommit midway through Lent. Here we are closer to the end of Lent, rather than the beginning. Those early Lenten promises we made may have been put on the backburner or forgotten. Maybe we have found ourselves slipping in an extra meal when we are fasting, forgetting it is meatless Friday, or taking in a quick sweet we were supposed to be giving up. I get it. Life gets in the way, or we feel like it does. It is hard to adjust one’s routine or behaviors. It is hard when we fail. We fall, we drop the cross, we are incomplete. However, we shouldn’t be discouraged. We need to realize in those moments of weakness that we can find strength to get back up through Jesus. We can be forgiven and we can try again.

Think about Jesus as the model. Jesus was met with challenges and struggles. He was tempted in the dessert, distraught in the garden, burdened by the cross and ultimately sacrificed His life for us on the cross. It is through this Lenten journey we are walking alongside Him- step-by-step, fall-byfall, but with his help we get up again. We are lifted through prayer, humbled through fasting, and gratefully generous through almsgiving. We know Jesus’ unconditional mercy and love for us abound. The journey of the cross enables us to receive the grace to courageously go out and live the Gospel, despite our failings or worries.

So, how do we begin again? One day at a time. One intentional act after another. Making a choice to put Jesus first, then again, and again. Before you know it, you won’t find yourself in the Dunkin Donuts line, but rather in the pews, before Jesus. Right where we are supposed to be.

 Katie Price is the Coordinator for Stewardship at the Cathedral and works in Discipleship and Stewardship at the Diocese.

We need you!

Recent extreme abortion legislation has awakened a new resolve in the faithful to fight against abortion. The Cathedral is determined to keep right to life as a priority issue. We need some volunteers to help coordinate our efforts. If you are interested in helping to co-chair a Pro-Life Committee please call the parish office or email [email protected]. Thank you!

Still time to contact your lawmaker!

We still need your help in contacting legislators. If you have yet to contact your legislator, please do so by going to the Catholic Conference of Illinois (https://www.ilcatholic.org/) and hit the button that reads, “Contact your state lawmaker.” If you have already written your legislator, please send your friends and family an email or post to you social media account and encourage them to do the same!

Have a movie night!

The upcoming film, Unplanned, is coming to Springfield, IL. The movie Unplanned is the inspiring true story of one woman’s journey of transformation. The movie tells the story of Abby Johnson. She was the youngest Planned Parenthood clinic director in the nation, was involved in upwards of 22,000 abortions and counseled countless women about their reproductive choices. Her passion surrounding a woman’s right to choose even led her to become a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood, fighting to enact legislation for the cause she so deeply believed in…Until the day she saw something that changed everything, leading Abby Johnson to join her former enemies at 40 Days For Life, and become one of the most ardent pro-life speakers in America.

• You can find out more information here: https://www.unplannedfilm.com/
• Purchase tickets for the movie here: https://www.amctheatres.com/movies/unplanned-59384
• If you are interested in getting together with other Cathedral parishioners for dinner and a movie, please contact Katie Price at [email protected]. We are looking to get a group to head to the movies together!

The Gospel selection from Luke for this Third Sunday of Lent comes in two parts. The first part speaks of two different tragedies that are recent in the minds of those in the crowd following Jesus. The second part of the Gospel passage is a parable from our Lord concerning a fig tree.

In the parable of the fig tree, Jesus tells the story of an orchard owner who comes upon a fig tree in his orchard and states that he wants the tree cut down because it has not produced fruit. This is not a rash decision on the part of the orchard owner because this is the third year that the tree has not produced fruit. The gardener intercedes asking the owner for more time to work with the tree. If the tree still does not bear fruit then it will be cut down.

This parable shows us the patience of God the Father and the mercy that he extends to us sinners, but it’s a mercy that is limited in time. The tree is given time but it must produce fruit. The tree will be helped by the gardener. The gardener is the Lord Jesus who intercedes on our behalf. He seeks to show us the way and he freely gives us grace to help us produce fruitful lives that are worthy of our Father in heaven. We must remember that the time to produce this fruit is limited to this earthly life, however long that will be, which brings us back to the first part of the Gospel passage.

Jesus speaks of two events at the beginning of this Gospel passage. The first is an atrocity committed against a group of Galileans by the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. The second event is the collapse of a tower at Siloam that kills eighteen people. Neither event is a direct act willed by God but rather they are events that are allowed by his permissive will; in other words, things happen. The first act is of one person choosing to cause harm and the second is an accident; neither act directly involve action on the part of God.

Brining the two parts of the Gospel together reminds us that we must be about producing the fruit of the Kingdom of God in our lives. God expects this of us and he has a right to that expectation. We can only be about this work in the present life; the same is true for repentance and conversion as they can only happen in this life as well. None of us knows how long this present life will last because we do not know what tomorrow might bring or if there will even be a tomorrow for us. Therefore, we must be about the business of the Kingdom of God right now! A true disciple does not procrastinate in fulfilling the will of God in their life, but allows the work of the Kingdom to be a guiding force in their everyday living.

As always, the Saints have wisdom to impart to us and I will leave you with a word from two of them. St. John Bosco tells us “do not put off till tomorrow the good you can do today.” St. Augustine admonishes us to know that “God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but he has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.”

This Sunday’s first reading from the Book of Genesis tells us of the covenant that God made with Abraham. Abraham was not the first person that God made a covenant with. Before Abraham, God made a covenant with Noah after the flood and God would later reaffirm the covenant he made with Abraham with Moses, David, and through the other prophets. So why does this particular act with Abraham stand out? As God fashions his covenant with Abraham in Genesis, he promises to make of him a great nation, but he goes further in promising Abraham that their bond will be unique and personal. A covenant is more than an agreement or a series of promises; a covenant is a sacred relationship.

The covenant that God made with the children of Israel through Abraham is not undone but rather perfected in Jesus Christ and we have been made partakers of that same covenant. This Christian covenant, the same covenant made new in Christ, is both corporate and personal and we are brought into this sacred relationship through baptism. In baptism we are chosen by God and rescued from the power of sin and death. In this wonderful sacrament the promise made to Abraham is also made to us individually: I will be your God and you will be mine.

As with any other form of agreement or contract, a covenant’s value is only as good as each party’s resolve to keep it. The good news for us is that God’s resolve is infinite which is why his covenants are everlasting. God does not relent in his love and he is forever true to his word. So that’s one half of the equation secured. What about us? What about our resolve? I doubt that any of us, if asked, would say that our resolve to maintain our relationship with the Lord is anything but resolute; our words may say that, that may be how we feel, but what do our lives say? Are we living up to our side of the covenant each day? We all know that the reality of sin in our world and in our lives can very easily derail many our best intentions.

Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Church has this sacred season of Lent as a gift of God’s love. This season is an invitation from a loving and merciful Lord to examine our lives, our part of the covenant, and truly reckon with ourselves if we are living up to our part of the agreement, or maybe only somewhat, or maybe not really at all. The journey of Lent is a call to return to the grace that was given to us at baptism, when God made a covenant with us individually and thus made us corporate members of his Mystical Body, the Church. In his Letter to the Philippians, St. Paul reminds us that our citizenship is in heaven. God’s covenant with us has made us his heirs, heirs to the Kingdom. Does my life reflect that gift each day? If not then let us use the grace of these Lenten days to make the necessary changes, to be faithful to the covenant so that we may be faithful to the One whose fidelity to us is unwavering.

Father Christopher House is the Rector of the Cathedral and serves in various roles within the diocesan curia, namely Chancellor and Vicar Judicial.

Seeds of the love of God are found everywhere. We encounter him in the most unexpected places. I’ve written previously about the presence of true leisure during a visit to Disney World, and how I found glimpses of him in an episode of The Flashand The Greatest Showman film. And, tonight, I found him in another unexpected place: in a group fitness class.

One of my friends roped me into going. I was late but my friend had set up my area with all the goods (weight plates, bar, some step thing). The class had already begun so I jumped right in to the routine. People came and went. There were different fitness levels in the room: the guy who clearly is a bodybuilder, the ladies who regularly take this class and it shows, the folks who keep moving when they feel like dying. Everyone was trying to get on the same rhythm, achieve the same level of ease, of difficulty, of resistance. And I was surrounded by so many glimpses of liturgy, spirituality, and evangelization.

The unified movement of the class reminded me of the liturgy of the Mass. Prayers, Mass parts…one voice. We set up our “areas” the same way (cue the sound of the kneelers hitting the ground and the rustling of missals and hymnals opening). We follow instruction. All the while, we are all on different levels. We are all bringing different “weight” with us.

There’s something about moving together that allows our hearts to open up a bit more. Like a concert, when that song that everyone knows comes on, we sway to the same beat and sing the lyrics as loud as possible. When its over, that’s the moment that we remember—when everyone was together as one. That’s how the Lord intends it to be: united community.

There’s also a great lesson in evangelization here. The person leading the fitness class is usually in incredible shape, like they stepped off of a Muscle and Fitness magazine cover just to help you get your heart rate up. Watching their enthusiasm, you have three choices: be indifferent, disdain them, or join them.

Think of St. Padre Pio. He had people that joined him on his pursuit of heaven and many skeptics of his devotion. A select few will really understand your desire for Christian perfection, and at times, an even greater few will sacrificially walk with you through it.

Often the instructor was transformed and encouraged by the very thing they teach. They took the class first, experienced positive change, and decided they could teach it and share the inspiration. Isn’t it the same way with God? Encountering him changes our lives and inspires us to share the Good News, but the gift of evangelization truly lies in having been evangelized yourself.

Then you have the person who attends. All walks of life are represented, and the reasons for their attendance are vast, but I would conclude that each of them wants to be there. Each of them desires lasting change.

Do our encounters with God often happen when we are fed up and ready to change? We allow a strict focus on what matters most because we’ve realized that nothing matters at all without him.

And the most obvious offering of the group fitness class (CrossFit, Les Mills, etc.) is our desire for communion and the gift it offers to the human heart. I’ve watched the classes dismiss, and no one actually leaves. Groups gather outside the room, and conversations erupt—much of which have nothing to do with the class. They share about their jobs, their families, their faith. It’s incredible. Friendships flourish.

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in the Summa: “It is reckoned a sign of friendship if people ‘make choice of the same things.’” A class, fitness or not, predisposes the students to commonality, and it makes easier the process of communion.

Lastly, communion properly orders our invitation into suffering by making it not only suffering within but also the suffering without—with the other and for the other.

Even the science behind the physical suffering of “working out” mirrors the suffering of spirit. When you reach the “fight or flight” phase of a workout, it marks the threshold of muscle and stamina breakdown. The muscle is shredded or the stamina is conquered. It’s horrible and painful, but after the pain subsides, the muscle is rebuilt stronger and stamina rises. As goes spiritual suffering. We desire Christian perfection, but we do not desire the suffering; however, there is no resurrection without the cross. Thus, perfection presupposes error, failure, suffering. After the suffering subsides, the heart is stronger and the spirit higher.

Ultimately, the love of God when well-received doesn’t mean that suffering ends. With the love of God suffering is redemptive, and the most perfect response for suffering is compassion. Compatiis means to “suffer with,” requiring the presence of the other. Group fitness classes are about much more than getting in shape. We are drawn there because they also answer some of the deepest longings of our hearts: encouragement, hope, communion, and suffering.

Rachel Bulman is a wife, mother of 4, speaker, and blogger. She enjoys seeking truth, finding beauty, rediscovering the goodness in all things; and answering the call to holiness through her life as a beloved daughter of God. Find more of her work at RachelBulman.com. This article appears on the Word on Fire blog at wordonfire.org. Used with permission.

So much has happened in our country lately that has been quite disorienting. Notably, New York legislated the country’s most aggressive abortion bill that viciously attacks the unborn. Internet assumptions, uncharity, and scapegoating characterized the incident between the Covington Catholic teens and Nathan Phillips. The government continues to show its disunity as it remains obstinately divided over many issues, including immigration and the southern border. And in the Church, the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report and McCarrick scandals have shed and reshed light on some dark corners within the Church. Much has been disorienting.

When the news of the scandals broke out, a number of seminarians and priests in my diocese began a time of intentional prayer, fasting, and penance. Increasingly desperate times call for increasingly desperate, or rather heroic, measures…

For three months, two of my classmates and myself gave up alcohol, prayed a daily Divine Mercy chaplet, intentionally set aside time in our busy schedules to reflect on and share about our weekly joys and struggles, and fasted (two small meals, one regular meal) on Wednesdays and Fridays. Honestly, this was an idea that I was not super thrilled about at first, but then warmed to the idea after my classmates persuaded me.

I don’t share my practices to boast, but rather to hopefully convey some of the fruits of this time of prayer and penance. This article and its follow-up are going to be an attempt to help show the deep significance of fasting in the Christian life. The first parts will focus on how fasting helps to change us, while the second will work to show how it helps to change our world.

All of our efforts were meant to combat the specific evils, I believe, that are at the core of the Evil One’s continued assault upon the Church: the prideful desire for power and pleasure, the desire to isolate and the lack of transparency, and the absence of prayer and the lack of belief in its power. Everything diabolical, everything that causes division and confusion, comes from the Evil One.
Around the same time we started the fast, a priest friend explained to me that he shared with one of his parishioners that he too was entering into a time of fasting and penance for the Church. The parishioner’s reaction was as follows: “Fasting…what’s that going to do? What is that going to help with?”

I fear there exists a major misunderstanding about what the Church believes about the purpose of fasting. Fasting is not just a way that we Christians deprive ourselves good things in order to needlessly suffer. God created the world with inherent goodness and does not want his creation to suffer needlessly. While fasting can certainly be personally challenging, that does not make it a bad thing.

Surely, we know this by how willing we are to sacrifice and expend ourselves during hours of sport conditionings and practices. We know too how any dieting—Paleo and Keto most recently—takes a good amount of sacrifice and discipline in order to have and maintain a healthy body. It’s not that we don’t value discipline and sacrifice; we just don’t think our faith should lead us to do so. We’re tempted to believe that faith should only focus on positive, unchallenging feelings.

In truth, fasting is a practice of reorienting ourselves back to God, who is our ultimate happiness, when we have come to focus more on the world for our happiness. God created us not just to exist, but to live well, to live a life of virtue and holiness focused on him. This reorientation, this real transformation within us, can manifest on multiple levels and in different forms—physically, psychologically, and spiritually.

Without being a purely religiously beneficial endeavor, even the secular medical world has lately come to recognize and point to the value of fasting. Dozens of online articles can be found that advocate for fasting as a way to reorient the body to a place of adequate natural health. Personally, over the three-month fast, in sync with a slight increase of exercise, I lost almost fifteen pounds! The fast allowed me to cut unnecessary weight and I felt better because of it. Plus, for as much as I love a good craft beer and a good bourbon, detoxing from alcohol really left me with a clearer, more creative mind.

Yet the reorientation did not just play out physically. Psychologically, I could tell that, over the months, my cravings in general (food, entertainment, distractions) had greatly receded. At the end of the fast, my portion sizes were much smaller and I actually desired to have less. It is known that it takes about thirty days to break any habit and begin to form a new one. Imagine what three months—not even a quarter of a year—was able to accomplish. I did not so much feel like I was so much a slave of my passions. I felt reoriented.

Spiritually, fasting opens up the relationship between us and God as we begin to acknowledge him more as our continual provider. As we fast, consuming less, we actually become more thankful for what we have in front of us. This humility and thankfulness are at the core of a Christian spirituality. Throughout the fast I certainly noticed my attentiveness to the presence of God noticeably increase. I felt like God and I were much more in sync than we were before. More will be said in the second part of this reflection on the spiritual repercussions of fasting as it functions as an avenue for intercessory prayer.

As the Church approaches the Lenten season, it is the perfect time to reevaluate the practice and significance of fasting in our life. One increasingly popular program, especially amongst young Catholic men, is Exodus 90. The fast that my classmates and I entered into was loosely based on this program. Exodus 90 is not a comfortable addition to your spiritual life; it is a complete overhaul. It is a true exodus from all of the things in our life that distract us from what truly brings us peace and happiness. Importantly, this intense fast is never done alone, but always in community—the ideal for Christian living.

It may seem unreasonable to most people to do this program; it’s an overhaul of our spiritual, psychological, and physical lives. Yet sometimes drastic situations call for us to take drastic, heroic measures. As reflected on at the beginning of this piece, our world is full of disorientingly unreasonable people and situations. Maybe God in calling us to do something seemingly unreasonable in order for us to return to him.

I think fasting is an unreasonable and apparently nonsensical, yet wise practice that we Christians need to recover. Truly, fasting is a gift given to us, and it is up to us to embrace this gift for the good of the Church.

Deacon David Stavarz is a transitional deacon for the Diocese of Cleveland. He is a graduate of Borromeo College Seminary and is currently finishing his formation at St. Mary Graduate Seminary, in Cleveland, Ohio. David has a profound a love for music – especially on guitar or vinyl; he loves enjoying God’s creation through snowboarding, running, cycling, and backpacking; and he loves a conversation with a good friend and good cigar. Dc. David hopes to be a priest of the diocese in May of 2019.

Temptation is real. It is not the stuff of legend and myth nor is it some figure of speech. Temptation is not sin and sometimes people inadvertently mingle the two. Temptation is an invitation to turn from God and to serve ourselves. If we consent to temptation then the actual act that constitutes the turning from God is what is sinful. We know that temptation itself cannot be sinful because of the Gospel proclaimed to us this weekend from Luke regarding Jesus being tempted by the devil. In fact, all four Gospels state that Jesus faced temptation.

Why was Jesus tempted? The Catechism (##538-540) teaches us that Jesus underwent temptation for us, to show us that we are not alone in our struggle to follow God’s will in our lives, and to show us that we can be victorious in the face of temptation. While the devil tempted Jesus through the allurements of pleasure, power, and honor, the basis for this temptation was Jesus’s sonship. Twice in Luke’s account of the temptation of Jesus the devil premises his temptations with “if you are the Son of God.” The devil tempted Jesus with a perverted notion of what Jesus’s sonship was while Jesus clung to the truth of his sonship which called for perfect obedience to the Father’s will. In the Garden, Adam and Eve lost sight of what it meant to be children of God, of the obedience that was expected of them and the grace that come as the fruit of obedience. Jesus in his temptation, and ultimately in the Cross, shows us that he is the new Adam whereby he completely and perfectly chooses the Father’s will over his own.

When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we ask the Father to “lead us not into temptation.” Immediately we are faced with the problem of an insufficient translation from the original Greek to English. We don’t have to ask God to not lead us into temptation. He won’t, because for him to do so would be contrary to his divine nature as God wants us to be free from the power of evil. However, God does allow is to be tempted. He allows us to be challenged to use the grace the he has given us to discern what is of him (good) and what is not (evil). Facing temptation and overcoming it leads to spiritual growth. Again, this is why prayer, the Sacraments, mediating on the Scriptures, and good works are all so important in our discipleship because these are pathways to the grace that we need.

Let us pray together that these Lenten days may be a time of increased grace for all us through our prayer, fasting, and acts of charity. The grace given to us, that is the fruit of these holy acts, will strengthen us in our struggle against temptation and evil and allow us to stand victorious with the Lord Jesus over the power of sin and death in our lives.

Father Christopher House is the Rector of the Cathedral and serves in various roles within the diocesan curia, namely Chancellor and Vicar Judicial.