Saint Peter's Point- The Catholic Blog of Saint Peter Parish, Stevens Point Wisconsin

A warm welcome to all our guests who have joined us for our annual parish picnic For Pete’s Sake! We very much appreciate your presence with us this weekend – for prayer and for fun! Please know you are always welcome at Saint Peter!

A happy and blessed Father’s Day to all the men of our parish, especially those who have been called by Almighty God to the vocation of husband and father. “God our Father, in your wisdom and love you made all things. Bless these men, that they may be strengthened as Christian fathers. Let the example of their faith and love shine forth. Grant that we, their sons and daughters, may honor them always with a spirit of profound respect. Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen” (Book of Blessings, 1733).

Last week all the priests of our Diocese gathered in La Crosse with Bishop Listecki for our annual Priest Unity Days. It is a delightful time to get caught up with brother priests whom I do not get a chance to see except on such occasions. Nearly everyone asks me how I am getting along in Stevens Point. I tell them that they would have to ask the parishioners, but I sure am grateful that our Polish Bishop entrusted the Poles (and all others!) of Saint Peter to me as Pastor! Several brothers in the priesthood then just could not resist commenting that the people of Saint Peter must be treating me right judging by my expanding midsection! They really know how to hurt a guy! The follow-up to the original question most times was: “Well, just how long have you been there?” It is hard to believe but June 21 will mark the beginning of my fourth year at Saint Peter. In more serious moments of conversation, brother priests quizzed me about the Sacrament of Penance at Saint Peter. “You hear confessions six days a week?” they would ask. “Yes, including two times on Saturdays!” I noted. “The lines can be long and there are many days that I cannot hear all the confessions before Mass so I go back into the confessional after Mass.” Some acted surprised at such a sign of spiritual vitality. “Well, I had heard that Saint Peter was a dead parish” they would say. “Hardly!” was my comeback. “You do not get confessions like these from a spiritual corpse!” And then I relished in noting other signs of the spiritual vibrancy of Saint Peter. We are in the midst of a mini-baby boom on a pace to double the number of baptisms compared to last year. Our average weekend Mass attendance approaches 45 per cent of our registered parishioners – still a sad figure but better than the national average by more than ten percentage points! I “hooded” three of our young parishioners – Emily Pehoski, Kyle Rosenthal, and Joshua Zdroik – at a recent gathering of the high school Dead Theologians Society (to be “hooded” means that they receive a hooded sweatshirt after having attended three consecutive sessions and then they also take on the responsibility of praying for the Poor Souls in Purgatory each day). As a bi-weekly follow-up to the Men of Christ Conference, I prayed Morning Prayer in church on Tuesday with a dozen men at 6:00 am (that is not a typo!), listened to a presentation on the saints of the day, and then went to breakfast with the guys. Having gotten wound up (!!) I continued noting that we have 24 consecutive hours of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament each week, our parishioners have developed our own Vacation Bible School program that has generated interest from literally around the globe, our parish fields its own city-league softball team (that is off to a respectable start to the season!), and we are spearheading once again the Theology on Tap summer gatherings for married and single people 21-39 years of age of the area. And these are just a handful of parish activities that have caught my attention in recent weeks. There is so much more! Dead? Hardly!