August 29, 2010

Dear Parishioners,    

 St. Peter school is now in session. We have a preschool as well as kindergarten through fifth grade.

Catholic Schools are and have always been a gift to the Church and to our Country.  St Peter Catholic School is truly a gift to our parish, to the Diocese of Colorado Springs, and to the Monument community and beyond.

Our students are part of an educational system that challenges them academically, that teaches them what a gift our faith is, and shows them what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.  Everyday our principal, teachers and staff work hard to model what Catholic faith looks like when it is lived out.  What a gift and blessing we have in the ministry of our Catholic School.  I am so grateful to Monsignor Jaeger and Fr. Jeff for their willingness to have a Catholic School at St. Peter.  I am also thankful for the support our parish staff gives to the school and the support the school staff gives to our parish staff and community.  We all benefit from our Catholic school, especially our students.

As your pastor I want to see our school grow from a K through 5^th to a K through 8^th grades.  In order for our school to add grades it is my understanding that our parish leadership must go back to the City Council of Monument to ask permission to add grades.

I intend to do that with the help of our parish council, finance council and school leadership.  Adding more grades will not cause us to exceed the number of students that we already have approval for, rather it will enrich a wonderful gift given for the benefit of our parish and city community.

My prayer is that as soon as possible I will be able to announce that there will be a sixth grade next year, a seventh the following year and an eighth grade the next year. I ask that my prayer will be your prayer.

For more information about St. Peter School please call 481-1855.

God bless you all,

Fr. Don

Dear Parishioners:

I think it is important that I do my best to communicate what is happening in regards to the move into our new office space and the newly renovated church building. I have been asked about the return of the statues and the crucifix. People want to know the status of things and as parishioners you should know what is happening

By the time you read this the statues will have been replaced in the church but the crucifix will not be in place.  We will have a large crucifix placed in the church because a crucifix is one of our most important symbols—every Catholic church and every Catholic home should have one.  At this time I am unable to tell you the exact date that a large crucifix will be placed in the church because we are in the process of updating the sound system in the church. Updating the sound system may require new speakers.  Where those speakers will be placed in order to have the optimum sound we need for all in the church to hear clearly is not known at this time.  Once the new sound system is in place then we will be able to determine where the crucifix will be placed.

As time goes on I will do my best to update you on the progress of our move.  If you have any questions about what is happening in our parish please feel free to ask me.  You can email me, phone me or stop me when you see me.

I plan to meet with my advisory bodies, pastoral council, finance council, liturgy committee and so on in late August or early September to advise me on many of the issues that affect the life of our parish.

I thank you for your concern and you dedication to and love for St. Peter Catholic Church.

                                                              Fr. Don

Dear Parishioners:

Last Saturday I witnessed my first wedding here at St. Peter and had the opportunity to meet the couple Chris and Amanda a few days before the wedding.  I found them to be a delight full couple.

Chris and Amanda went through our marriage preparation program as all couples preparing for marriage are asked to do before a priest or deacon can witness the sacrament. During the marriage preparation process Chris and Amanda had the opportunity to learn about the Church’s teaching regarding the sacrament of marriage.  They learned that marriage is a gift from God, a gift that under-grids our whole society. They learned that the sacrament of marriage is given to a man and woman not only for mutual love but also to co-create with God the gift of children. Chris and Amanda learned that marriage cannot be redefined that it has and always will be a gift from God meant for a man and a woman to live as husband and wife.

There was a time in the history of our country that marriage between a man and a woman was supported, thus marriage preparation was not as in-depth as it is today.  In the present time some people are trying to redefine marriage and encourage couples to limit the number of children in their families thus the need for more in-depth marriage preparation.

During marriage preparation our couples learn the true meaning of marriage, they learn what God’s gift of marriage is intended to be. Not only do they learn what the Church teaches about marriage they also are given the time to grow in their communication with one another and to grow in their appreciation of their faith.

I tell couples who are preparing for marriage that the Church loves them and to show that love the gift of marriage preparation is given to them.  I ask the couples to give the preparation a chance and to see it as a gift and not something that has to be done in order to get married.  To this day no couple has told me their preparation was a waste of time, in fact many have thanked me for the opportunity to be part of the marriage program offered by our parishes.

I ask you to pray for Amanda and Chris as well as all newly married couples and if you have a son or daughter or family member who is preparing to be married in the Catholic Church encourage them to see marriage preparation as a gift and a joy meant to strengthen their marriage.

                                                                                                                                           Fr. Don

 FROM OUR NEW PASTOR

Dear St Peter Parishioners:

I want to say” right off the bat” I look forward to my assignment as your pastor. It is true that leaving Ave Maria is not easy. The fact is there are many wonderful parishioners at Ave Maria parish. Over the last nine years a great deal of good has been accomplished at Ave Maria because of some very dedicated parishioners and a very dedicated parish staff. I have made some very close friends who I will miss and I have watched the Lord, through the celebration of the sacraments, through the power of the Word and through the witness of many fine people, change lives for the better. And for that I will always be gratefull!!

At the same time I look forward to my being your pastor because I know the same things are happening at St. Peter. Because of many talented people, alive with Gospel love lives are changing here for the better. Lives always change for the better when people experience how good God is and how good God has been to us as a community of faith and as individuals. Once we experience the goodness of God through our faith celebrated well and lived to the best of our ability we  have no choice but to let God change our lives for the better, its that simple and at the same time that profound.

Over the next few weeks and months let’s try to get to know each other; help me to learn how to be an effective pastor for you. Teach me how you live out the call of Jesus Christ, the call to die to self for others. Show me how to support you in your faith, tell me who you are so I can be a good pastor. So much good has been going on here for a long time help me to be a part of that good.

I know St Peter parish is not Ave Maria and I do not want it to be. Never-the-less it is the same faith in Jesus Christ that bound me to the people of Ave Maria that will bind me to you.

I know your previous pastors have set the bar high: Fr. Dean Kumba, Msgr. Robert Jaeger, and Fr. Jeffrey Schneibel. I will try my best with God’s help and your prayers to also set the bar high.

I truly look forward to serving you as your pastor!
Fr. Don

 FROM OUR PASTOR                   

     You may have noticed what appears to be just something of the usual conventional language of thanks, where one tries to turn attention away from self-praise and to spread the credit across the community to the many who deserve recognition if we want to correctly acknowledge the special character of St. Peter parish.

This is a conventional strategy, to note that the good work done here is the work of many; an enterprise of love.

But though the observation is sort of expected, I would like you to remember that in this space, in my writing and preaching generally, I try hard not to say what everyone always says.  So I can only say again, in words that are often used, how much the credit and quality of our community is the work of many who quietly and whole-heartedly give of themselves for others.  This is a truth not a platitude.

I have learned true lessons during my service at St. Peter about the love of God, the cost of discipleship, the grace of selflessness in service.  I got those from others—your ministry to each other has given good example for me to learn from.

Again, it is a truism that in ministry we receive more than we give.  This is very Biblical, employing the various parables of the harvest, reaping thirty, sixty, one hundred-fold from the seed that is scattered in our work but nurtured and made fruitful by the work of God.

And so our success in this community these past years is in fact the work of God, in his grace, in his blessing we have found each other for a time.  I shall greatly miss your faces, your greetings, your lives.  You have been generous in sharing yourself, and in that I have been greatly enriched.  And I leave St. Peter a better servant and child of God than when I arrived.  I hope that we have benefited one another.  You have greatly blessed me.

And while all of this looks like the usual words, I have had tears come and go through the past week.  It is difficult to let go of such a good—no matter where God is leading me, it is difficult to let go of this wonderfulness here.

And so let me conclude with the Blessing of Aaron,

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

May the Lord’s face shine upon you and be gracious to you.

May the Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace.

with thanksgiving and blessing,Fr. Jeff  

 FROM OUR PASTOR                   

      You may have noticed what appears to be just something of the usual conventional language of thanks, where one tries to turn attention away from self-praise and to spread the credit across the community to the many who deserve recognition if we want to correctly acknowledge the special character of St. Peter parish.

This is a conventional strategy, to note that the good work done here is the work of many; an enterprise of love.

But though the observation is sort of expected, I would like you to remember that in this space, in my writing and preaching generally, I try hard not to say what everyone always says.  So I can only say again, in words that are often used, how much the credit and quality of our community is the work of many who quietly and whole-heartedly give of themselves for others.  This is a truth not a platitude.

I have learned true lessons during my service at St. Peter about the love of God, the cost of discipleship, the grace of selflessness in service.  I got those from others—your ministry to each other has given good example for me to learn from.

Again, it is a truism that in ministry we receive more than we give.  This is very Biblical, employing the various parables of the harvest, reaping thirty, sixty, one hundred-fold from the seed that is scattered in our work but nurtured and made fruitful by the work of God.

And so our success in this community these past years is in fact the work of God, in his grace, in his blessing we have found each other for a time.  I shall greatly miss your faces, your greetings, your lives.  You have been generous in sharing yourself, and in that I have been greatly enriched.  And I leave St. Peter a better servant and child of God than when I arrived.  I hope that we have benefited one another.  You have greatly blessed me.

And while all of this looks like the usual words, I have had tears come and go through the past week.  It is difficult to let go of such a good—no matter where God is leading me, it is difficult to let go of this wonderfulness here.

And so let me conclude with the Blessing of Aaron,

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

May the Lord’s face shine upon you and be gracious to you.

May the Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace.

with thanksgiving and blessing,Fr. Jeff  

 FROM OUR PASTOR

Two years ago when I was appointed your pastor at St. Peter we were tearing down the old rectory and just getting ready to break-ground for the gym / parish hall / multi-purpose facility.

          And so as Fr. Bob was going out the door, we were taking down the walls that held those doors and moving forward with the construction and renovation.  As he moved forward to the monsignorate, expressing his thanks and prayers for his fourteen year service at St. Peter, in his farewell letter he left a final admonition to be faithful to the Capital Campaign so that all that had been planned might be accomplished in good time.

Well, we didn’t make good time (not quite done even yet, the contractors have come in six months late), but the grounds look beautiful, the buildings spruce, and most importantly, everything is functional.  Our worship space in particular returns to us with all the sense of home and familiarity that one could ask for.

So it is not necessary for me to write to you about fidelity to fund campaigns—you have more than proven your commitment to the St. Peter community.  And so, being a priest, I guess I should exhort you to fidelity in the faith.  Though here too, my urging seems unnecessary, for your faith has strengthened and encouraged mine during these last years.  But what else is a priest supposed to talk about?

As a community, we have been given to each other as helpers, intercessors, friends.  You know in the old art forms of mosaic and stained glass, where various tiles or fragments of glass are arranged to make the picture—the beauty is found in the whole, the perfection achieved in the arrangement of parts and not in any single piece.  We in the community of a church are like that.  Individually, with rough edges and irregular surfaces.  But fitted together, it is the image of the Risen Christ that we achieve.

‘the stone which the builders rejected

 has become the corner-stone’

So to this community at St. Peter, I say be faithful to one another.  Love one another.  Be foundation and support for one another.  I say this not because you need the reminder, but because it is the constant work of the believer to be faithful by being a blessing for one another.  Concerned with and involved in one another, we form ourselves into the likeness of Christ.  My special point here is merely to remind us that we lean on each other, and in leaning on each other we are performing our Christian faith.

And so for myself, in three years we have become parts of one another.  I shall be lesser for awhile, parting from all of you.  But in Christ, we are never separated, but instead come to perfection through the lives we have shared these recent days.

God’s peace and blessings,

Fr. Jeff  

  FROM OUR PASTOR

I grew up in Minneapolis, in a family of eight children whose parents gave us the confidence to have self-confidence and a training in freedom and independence.  It was a home in which excellence, not competition, was encouraged.   In 1977 I went to college at Notre Dame for the sake of entering the Old College program and beginning seminary life in the Congregation of Holy Cross.  It is the best decision of my life.  The ethos of my family being continued in the common life of Holy Cross.  The years since ‘describe a humble and inglorious life; you can tie up all moral philosophy with a common and private life just as well as with a life of richer stuff.  Each man bears the entire form of the human condition’ (Montaigne, III.2).

At Notre Dame, I studied in the Program of Liberal Studies (where I read Montaigne), also taking a second major in Philosophy (where I read Aquinas).  A full and rich course, further enriched by the many friendships of those years in the classroom and seminary halls.  The seminary years proceeded along the regular course without event or drama save for the friendships formed, and so I survived.  Aquinas confirmed for me the lesson of prayer that ‘love is the first movement of the will and of every appetitive faculty’.  My seminary life taught me to agree also with Aquinas that ‘the love of God is better than the knowledge of God’.  Academic learning was a great gift to me, and my first career as a Holy Cross religious, but prayer has been the constant companion that has sustained all of the work that it has been allowed to me to undertake.

At the end of my seminary years, receiving Final Vows in the Congregation, I began a three year apprenticeship under the friendship and guidance of that inestimable pastor of souls, Fr. Thomas Jones, CSC.  After these foundational years in parish ministry, I returned to the academic apostolate, studying the languages, religions and cultures of ancient India.  It is a wide field, but a narrow specialization; good for me, recalling the worlds of the Buddhist sage Santideva, who advises, ‘to escape from thorns, the wide world can be covered with the measure of leather required for two sandals’.  Studies kept me focused and out of trouble.  And I can say about the years of studies, ‘In a time when it is so common to do evil, it is practically praiseworthy to do what is merely useless” (Montaigne again, III.9).

The end of these studies brought me to the University of Portland to teach in the Philosophy Department, and finally returned me to the Program of Liberal Studies at the University of Notre Dame.  Here I rejoined as colleagues generous and inspired teachers who had helped to form and grace my earliest studies.  I learned the course better as a teacher than I had first in my undergraduate days.  ‘Those who have studied liberal arts in youth and meditated day and night on the law of the Lord become more learned in old age, gaining experience and wisdom as time passes and gathering the sweet fruits of their old studies.’  Thus my experience, quoting here the approbation of Alcuin, who is himself quoting St. Jerome, in a letter to the Emperor Charlemagne.  Proof that the apostolate of study and teaching is as old as the Church, and I am grateful to my superiors for placing that joyful task as the first work of my religious obedience.

But the urgings of my early apprenticeship in parish ministry continued to rise up as a prompting in my prayers.  And when the students became brighter than their teacher, I asked to be reassigned from University to parish life.  And so my last three years of ministry have been the mirror of my first, working in a large and vibrant Catholic community of 1600 families, praying, preaching, and learning among the people of God at St. Peter Church in the Diocese of Colorado Springs.

It is an old and true cliché, that to give up your own plans and give your life to God is to discover more of God and of yourself than you might ever have imagined or seen without that ‘sacrifice’.  And so for me, ‘sacrifice’ is in strong, ironic quotation marks.  God has led me and cared for me step by step.  In summary, as to me, who when entering the seminary was at once challenged to give himself away in this adventure, in Holy Orders and in the Congregation of Holy Cross I have received more than the idealistic young person I was then ever imagined to be possible. 

Rev. Jeffrey A. Schneibel, C.S.C. was born to Augustine (deceased) and Theresa (Weisbeck) Schneibel.  Reception in the Novitiate, 8.19.80; First Vows, 8.8.81; Final Vows, 9.1.84.  Academic Degrees: University of Notre Dame, B.A., 1980; M.Div., ’84, University of Chicago, Ph.D., 2000.  Ordained a Priest, 4.13.85, taking this scripture verse as a commission: ‘Hear O’ Israel, the Lord our God is Lord Alone.  Let these words be written on your heart’ (Deuteronomy 6.4).

FROM OUR PASTOR 

I have only a few weeks left here at St. Peter, and I don’t want to focus too much attention on the fact of departure.  But I am just so full of thanks for my time here, for the generosity and warmth of this community, and for the many kind things so many have said to me in the past month, that I am using this space again this week to point out some of the goodnesses here at St. Peter that I see as pastor but which might not be visible to one and all based on different commitments and patterns of life.

Last weekend, on the Feast of Corpus Christi, 133 people in our community received authorization to assist the community as Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion.  As I said in the review session, what we mean by ‘extraordinary’ here is not ‘rare or emergency service’, but extra-special.  The reverence and dedication of our volunteers who serve in this capacity in the liturgy at St. Peter is proof of that special character.

Let me also mention the lectors and proclaimers.  Always prepared.  Always dignified when announcing the Word of God in the midst of our prayer.

The hospitality of our greeters-- showing up early, staying late, smiling as we come in and go out—this creates and sustains the warm and welcoming feeling that visitors report as a pronounced character of St. Peter.

So just in those three functions, I see something that simply is not present in every parish.  And the presence and service given here makes a difference.  Those are ‘invisible’ ministries.  Let me point out a visible and visibly joyful ministry that is present in our worship.  Watch the choir some Sunday.  They are happy to be together.  Their song with us is shared in enthusiasm and joy.  You don’t get a better model than to watch a ministry carried out in smiles.

And this Sunday afternoon there is a reception about the new building and about me.  First, the Women’s Guild—at their monthly meetings, in providing funeral luncheons, and in receptions—here again are extraordinary ministers of generous hospitality.  Second.  The reception is about the new building and me.  But neither of the building nor I would look half so good without an unbelievable staff of dedication, competence, and kindness propping us up.  My colleagues here at St. Peter, who were here before me and will remain to teach Fr. Brownstein as well as they have guided me, these servants of the Church are a treasure you do not often see or notice.  Which is exactly how ministry should appear, an unnoticed service that disappears in the act.  My profound and public thanks for these people who prefer to serve in the background.

with thanksgiving and blessing,

Fr. Jeff

 FROM OUR PASTOR

5th Sunday of Easter

And so it is May, despite the snow last weekend.   I know, great for the ski industry.  Moisture needed in the ground.  I understand all that, but is there no limit?

              And I should now turn that into an illustration of God’s love… Love without limit.  But as you know, we have better reminders of God’s love than the ache in your back after an afternoon shoveling out the driveway.

This is the great preaching challenge during the Easter season.  The message is one, that Jesus is with us, abiding always, involved in our lives.  But Easter is a mystery.  And because this mystery is too large for our understanding (intellect), the homilist runs out of intelligent things to say rather quickly.  Instead, we are to understand and grasp this love of God through our experience.

It is by looking back on our lives that we discover the presence of God.  We may not have noticed, but when we glance back… there are markers, and turning-points, and favors that we did nothing to deserve and barely had sense enough to grab onto at moments when we did not know where to turn.  Friends, angels, messengers that entered our lives at the right moment.  Jesus abiding with us always.

I could write the names of five thanksgiving friends who were such turning points for me.  These people are part of why I believe in God and how I have seen God care for me and guide my life.  Experience.

There are also moments, looking back, when I remember calling out, but receiving no answer to my prayers.  So I often wonder about the friends I missed in those moments, and I have a few names there too.  People who came into my life at moments when I was too busy with myself to let them into my life.  If we entertain Angels, unknowing; then it is also true we sometimes turn them away without realizing.

God sends us to one another carrying the Gospel, to reach out to others.  Sometimes we carry that as a burden, and do not realize that others are also sent to us!  We can be so full of our burden as to miss the messengers sent our way.  In the Church, we share a ministry of prayer for one another.  Our prayer-partners are present to each other in the Church assembly and in the communion we share in the Eucharist.  But we are often so busy sending, that we are not open to receive.  As in all conversation, the pauses are often more important than the words; the moments of listening when nothing is going on but our reaching out to understand one another are often our best moments of prayer.

How does God listen?  With a silent heart, hearing what is under the words.  How does God answer?  Look to the people who are sent into your life.  God’s mighty works of salvation continue even to this day.

God bless you in his peace,

Fr. Jeff