Theme: Seeing the Signs, Hearing the Call
LECTIO — What the Word Says
“Consider the fig tree and all the other trees… When their buds burst open, you know that summer is near.
So too, when you see these things happening, know that the Kingdom of God is near.”
Jesus reminds us that those with awakened sight can read the signs. Creation itself becomes a teacher—buds swelling, branches stirring, seasons shifting. For those who watch with faith, nothing is random; everything gestures toward the nearness of God.
“But heaven and earth will pass away,” Jesus says,
This is the steady truth that holds us when everything else cracks, falls, or proves temporary.
The early Church never separated faith from action.
Justin Martyr describes how the first Christians gathered on the Lord’s Day: they prayed, listened to Scripture, broke bread—and then every person “who was well-to-do and willing” gave according to their ability, so that the community’s “president” could care for widows, orphans, the sick, the imprisoned, the stranger.
“…it is not possible to separate the worship of God from concern for the poor. ”
Dilexi te §40
From its beginning the Church understood:
If worship does not become mercy, it withers.
Faith without action is dead.
The Kingdom is not recognized by stones, buildings, or ceremony,
but by love that moves like sap through a living tree.
CONTEMPLATION — The Bells, the Darkness, and the Fig Tree
This morning, the Bells of St. Mary’s Cathedral—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—rang out at 7:25, faithfully calling the people of God to Mass.
But as they rang, no light glowed through the stained glass of the Divine Mercy Chapel.
Every Mass in the Diocese of Amarillo had been cancelled.
The bells announced Good News,
yet the darkness behind the windows proclaimed a different truth—
a silence, a void, a Friday gone black.
I cannot separate this from our refusal to address the tribute that John Salazar—the convicted, defrocked priest—built for Bishop Matthiesen, the man who ignored warnings from cardinal archbishops and gave Salazar the “second chance” that resulted in the abuse of children in our own diocese.
How can we pretend all is well in this Centennial Year
while a monument built by a predator still stands in a place of ecclesial honor?
Silence has consequences.
Avoidance has weight.
And even the bells seem to testify—
calling us toward a light that we ourselves have allowed to go dim.
Just as the fig tree reveals what season it is,
so too do the signs around us reveal whether the Kingdom is near
or whether we have looked away from what needs healing.
MEDITATIO — What Is God Saying to Me?
🎵 Song Pairing: “Wedding Bell Blues” — The Fifth Dimension
Jesus teaches that those who truly watch can read the signs—not in the sky alone, but in their own community, their own history, their own conscience.
The bells rang.
But the chapel remained dark.
The sign is not subtle.
Is the Lord saying:
“Do you not see?
Do you not hear?
The Kingdom is near—
but only if you stop hiding from its demands.”
This Lectio presses on my heart:
The Kingdom does not come through silence.
It comes when the wounds of the past are purified,
when survivors are honored,
when monuments to harm are removed,
and when shepherds “feed the sheep for Christ…feed them in Christ and not…feed (themselves) apart from Christ.” (St. Augustine)
“If Boston is the fault line of the child sexual-abuse scandal that has convulsed the Roman Catholic Church, then few places have felt the aftershocks more deeply than the Diocese of Amarillo.”
New York Times
August 24, 2002
ORATIO — Prayer
Lord Jesus,
You told us to watch the fig tree.
Help us watch the Church with the same honesty—
its seasons, its shadows, its silence.
Where the buds are slow to open,
breathe Your Spirit.
Where darkness sits behind stained glass,
ignite Your light.
Where monuments still stand to those who harmed Your flock,
bring truth that purifies and justice that heals.
Make us a Church whose bells ring not into emptiness,
but into a future made whole.
ACTIO — Living the Word
🎬 The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)
“…local individuals and groups can make a real difference. They are able to instill a greater sense of responsibility, a strong sense of community, a readiness to protect others, a spirit of creativity and a deep love for the land.”
Laudato Si’ §179
Action:
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John calling out
to a flock still waiting for truth.
Until we tear down what hides our wounds,
no dawn will break across this Diocese.
Today, I take one concrete step—however small—toward restoring the integrity of our diocesan community.
I will speak up, write, ask, remind, or request a conversation about what needs healing.
A living Church is tended the way a fig tree is:
with pruning courage, honest care, and unwavering stewardship for future generations.
Dear Bishop Zurek,
Peace in Christ. As we prepare to celebrate the Centennial of our Diocese of Amarillo, I find myself reflecting — in prayer, in Scripture, and through these daily Lectio Divinas — on what it truly means to honor the past while remaining faithful to the Gospel in the present.
In today’s prayer, Jesus’ words to the Sadducees and his parable of the wise and foolish virgins struck me deeply. The lamp that burns bright is the lamp filled with truth, vigilance, and courage. The lamp that burns dim is the one that avoids the very things that must be acknowledged and healed.
As you know, the Diocese continues to carry painful paw prints from an era when innocent children were harmed and the flock was scattered. Even now, the dedication to Bishop Matthiesen — installed in Kress by a priest later imprisoned for abusing our youth — stands as a silent monument to a period of deep wounds and unhealed history.
Your predecessors rode many “horses,” as it were — nuclear disarmament, pro-life advocacy, social justice — but in the midst of those efforts, victims of clergy abuse were left unfed, unheard, or unseen. And when I attempted to call attention to this history so that we could move from victims to survivors, I received your letter stating that I was “not among the faithful and loyal disciples whom the Lord Jesus desires.”
Bishop, I am writing now not to reopen old battles nor to seek vindication. I am writing because our Centennial gives us a once-in-a-century opportunity for authentic renewal — an opportunity to replace silence with truth, and to let the light of Christ shine where shadows still remain.
I humbly ask you to prayerfully consider removing the Matthiesen dedication as part of our Centennial celebration.
Not out of vengeance.
Not out of bitterness.
But as an act of truth, healing, and shepherding.
To leave this monument standing is to say, in effect, “We have no regrets.”
To remove it is to say,
“We have learned. We have repented. We will shepherd differently.”
This single act would:
• honor the victims and survivors of our diocese;
• show our people that truth is not our enemy, but our path to freedom;
• and ensure that our Centennial is not merely a festive recollection, but a true beginning of a more honest and Christ-centered century of evangelization.
I believe this action could help transform our wounds into witness — both for those harmed in the past and for those who will call this diocese home in the next hundred years.
Please receive this request in the spirit in which it is offered:
with respect, with hope, and with a sincere desire to see our diocese healed, renewed, and firmly rooted in the truth that sets us free.
With prayers for you and for our entire diocesan family,
Darrell Glenn
My Story
“In memory of the death of innocence of the victims of clergy sexual abuse. When innocence dies…a life stops. It is essential that we never forget.“
- Bishop Matthiesen, who rode the white horse of public activism even as he brought abusive priests into our diocese—wounds that still mark us today. I spoke with him often, pleading with him to reconsider his “no regrets” about bringing those priests here…
- Bishop Yanta, who sought to enforce the Dallas Charter even when Bishop Matthiesen resisted him, and who bore the personal and pastoral cost of doing so. I met with Bishop Yanta about Bishop Matthiessen’s “no regrets” stance. He listened. He believed me. He acted where he could. And when he retired, he urged me—quietly but firmly—to keep speaking out.
- Bishop Zurek, who told the Diocese of Amarillo he had “no facts” about the Philadelphia report even as Amarillo’s connection to that tragedy was headline news. When I continued to speak out, as Bishop Yanta had once urged me to do, he later wrote that I was not among the faithful and loyal disciples whom the Lord Jesus desires.
- And now Bishop Strickland, whose own fall from leadership echoes the pattern — a man whose zeal burned like a torch but often without the oil of communion, misused by others, yet still a wounded shepherd who, like me, carries pawprints of injury and longing.
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