**🕯️ A Chestertonian Lectio Divina for the Memorial of St. Francis Xavier

I. Lectio — What the Word Says

Today, I read the Gospel and find myself surprised—though by now I ought not be surprised—that Christ always meets the crowd not at the height of their brilliance but at the depth of their hunger.

He walks up a mountain and they drag to Him their lame, their broken, their blind, their mute—drag to Him, in short, the whole ridiculous rabble of humanity, of which I am most assuredly a charter member. And Christ, being Christ, does the only unreasonable thing: He heals them.

And then, because the miracles of God always provoke the mathematics of man, the disciples complain:

Christ takes what little we have—seven loaves and a few fish—and makes it more than enough. The scraps alone outnumber the original offering. Such is Catholicism: a religion of leftovers that are larger than the feast.

“The bread you have given to my poor has been consumed, but the bread I will give will not only refresh you, but will never end.”

Dilexi te, §45 — Augustine

II. Meditatio — What the Word Says to Me

🎵 Song Pairing: “Let It Go” — Idina Menzel (Frozen, 2013)

“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

And here I stand, an ordinary man in the Diocese of Amarillo, staring at ice-covered grass after morning Mass. Most people see beauty; I see a warning. The priest spoke of “Black Friday,” and I felt as though the words fell squarely upon my shoulders. For it was I who wrote about “Black Friday”—not because of shopping, nor even because my football team lost (though they did), but because the Church I love is still walking wounded under the quiet frost of unrepented harm.

I have shouted—more awkwardly than St. Francis Xavier, but perhaps with equal desperation—that many do not see what must be seen, especially when it comes to the tribute in our diocese to Bishop Matthiesen, raised by the convicted pedophile priest John Salazar. They call my protests undignified. But then, truth is rarely dignified—it is merely necessary.

And now, as I look at this field of glittering frost, I see Dante’s hell more than Norman Rockwell’s winter—hearts frozen, not dancing. I fear that if I remain silent, I will freeze along with them in that lowest circle, where Satan sits imprisoned in ice and calls it a throne.

III. Oratio — What I Say to God

Lord,
I come to You like the lame and the blind did—
not glittering with virtue as if celebrating a Centennial
but staggering beneath the memory of an evil like clergy abuse.

Melt my frozen places.
Thaw the frost of the Diocese of Amarillo.
Break the ice of silence that has sealed so many wounds beneath the tribute in our diocese raised by a convicted pedophile priest to former Bishop Matthiesen.

And if I am to shout like a madman,
let it be for charity,
not for pride.

Teach me, like Francis Xavier,
to faint from exhaustion only after
I’ve fainted from love.

Amen.

IV. Contemplatio — Resting in Mystery

Here is the paradox I cannot escape—so it must be from God:
The ice that covers the grass is not death,
but the strange shimmer before resurrection.

And perhaps the tribute to Bishop Matthiesen,
built by the very priest whose “second chance” harmed our children,
is like that frost—
beautiful to some,
but deadly to the roots.

Perhaps what I am seeing—what others do not see—
is not madness,
but the clarity of winter.

For if Synodality means anything (and it must),
it means that the poor—yes, even the spiritually poor like victims of abuse—
are not decorations for the Church,
but the very seeds of its renewal.
Even pumpkins thrown to pigs prove this,
for their seeds return multiplied in spring.

So too does suffering,
when placed into the hands of God.

V. Actio — How I Will Live This Word

🎬 Movie: “3 Godfathers” (1948)

👉 Action:

Today I will take one small act of thawing:

I will name gently but firmly what must be named—
and trust God to multiply whatever little loaf of courage I bring.

Guided by:

“Human beings too are creatures of this world…
and cannot be expected to feel responsibility for the world
if they do not appreciate it.”

Laudato Si’ §118

I will persevere—
not because success is assured,
but because faithfulness is required.

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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