Tuesday of the First Week of Advent

Theme: Seeing What Others Refuse to See

LECTIO

Jesus rejoices—rejoices—because the Father reveals His deepest truths not to the clever, the powerful, or the self-assured, but to the childlike, those whose hearts still remember how to trust, how to hope, and how to see what others overlook.

He reminds the disciples that kings and prophets longed for this kind of sight but never received it.

“For Augustine, the poor are not just people to be helped, but the sacramental presence of the Lord.”

Dilexi te §44

St. Augustine echoes the same truth: the real test of discipleship is not rhetorical brilliance or polished theological claims, but the willingness to see Christ in the poor, in the discarded, in those the world (and sometimes the Church) prefers to hide.

The poor, he teaches, are the sacramental presence of the Lord Himself.

MEDITATIO — What the childlike can see

🎵 Song Pairing: “You Will Be Found” – Dear Evan Hansen

This morning, I cannot help but meditate on the pumpkins on our front porch—bright and warm in the fall, now frozen and softened by winter’s touch. They once decorated our home; now they are destined for the pigs in the barnyard. And strangely enough, that is where they will bear their greatest fruit.

“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

I think of the countless victims of clergy abuse who were, in their innocence, the “decorations” of the Church—the hopeful faces shown to the world—only to be exploited by priests like John Salazar, and later hidden away, dismissed, or treated as inconveniences once their innocence was taken.

We were displayed when we were useful, discarded when we were wounded.

And when I, as one of those victims, dare to speak openly—dare to ask Bishop Zurek to remove the tribute that John Salazar built for Bishop Matthiesen, who himself stated he had “no regrets” for enabling Salazar to abuse again—I am treated the way these “frozen pumpkins” are treated: no longer good for display, quietly set aside, considered damaged, unstable, pitiable.

The “wise and learned” see a nuisance.
The childlike who have survived the “death of innocence” see the truth of what must be done.

But the “wise and learned” victims forget what nature teaches:
those pumpkins, broken and crushed, become seed.
The pigs scatter them.
The spring rains awaken them.
And the next season’s harvest rises from what others discarded.

So too with survivors.

ORATIO — My prayer

**Lord Jesus,
You rejoice when those who are victims of clergy abuse survive to see with a childlike heart.
Help me never lose that sight—
even when dismissed by the learned,
ignored by the powerful,
and treated as if my wounds are an inconvenience to our Diocesan Centennial Celebration.

Let my life be like those pumpkins—
that are broken, trampled, scattered—
yet somehow, by Your grace,
bear fruit in a season yet to come.

And grant the Diocese of Amarillo
the childlike humility to see what must be removed
so that we may truly prepare for Your coming:
the tribute built by a convicted pedophile priest
to Bishop Matthiesen who enabled him.
Reveal to us what the “wise” have missed.
Let the hidden truth come into Your Advent light.
Amen.**

CONTEMPLATIO — What the Lord whispers today

In silence, Jesus speaks:

Seeing is not a burden—it is a gift.
Victims were not chosen to suffer;
but survivors are chosen to see clearly
and to call the Church back to its childlike honesty.

The pumpkins will become seed.
The truth will become harvest.
And the hidden will come to light—just as Advent promises.

ACTIO — I Live It

🎬 Movie: “The Polar Express” (2004)

“The ecological crisis is also a summons to profound interior conversion.”

Laudato Si’ §217

👉 Action:

Today I will practice childlike clarity and courage:
to walk the long road of synodality with an honest heart.
I will name truth gently where others avoid it,
refusing the silence that buries wounds.
And I will sow seeds of renewal—
even in frozen ground—
trusting that God brings the spring.

My Story

• 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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