Lectio (Sacred Reading)
“Be strong, fear not! Here is your God… He comes to save you.”
— Isaiah 35
The Scriptures today sing with contradiction and hope:
deserts bloom, the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame leap,
and prisoners still ask questions.
John the Baptist—who shouted certainty in the wilderness—
now whispers doubt from a cell.
“Are you the one who is to come,
or should we look for another?”
This is not unbelief.
It is the prayer of someone who has waited long enough to ask honestly.
“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
Meditatio (Meditation)
“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.“
The rule of sharing, working together and helping the vulnerable established an economy of solidarity, in contrast to the logic of accumulation.
Dilexi te, §56
I am often told—usually gently, sometimes condescendingly—
to forget Bishop Zurek and simply wait.
“His resignation is already submitted,” they say.
“Any day now.”
“Be patient.”
But Advent has taught me that patience is not the same as amnesia.
For more than two decades I have been asking bishops to see, to hear, to name the truth.
Photo used by permission of Douglas Kirkland/Corbis via Getty Images
I asked Bishop Matthiesen himself to repent of what was later admitted was a “serious mistake.”
He replied calmly and without drama: “No regrets.”
I asked Bishop Yanta, who listened, believed, and tried—
but who lacked the strength to remove either the former bishop
or the tribute erected in his honor by a priest who would later be defrocked and imprisoned for sexual abuse.
And now I ask Bishop Zurek,
who insists the past no longer affects us,
especially not during a Centennial Celebration.
Three bishops.
Three answers.
And on this Third Sunday of Advent, I find myself standing with John’s disciples asking:
Should I look for another?
Contemplatio (Chestertonian Synthesis)
Here is the joke that God tells on the world—and on me.
John asked whether Jesus was the Messiah
not because Jesus failed,
but because Jesus succeeded in a way John did not expect.
Christ did not overthrow prisons.
He transformed prisoners.
He did not silence questions.
He answered them with signs.
And so I realize:
the sign is not that my question remains unanswered,
but that it remains necessary.
The desert blooming is not the absence of dryness—
it is life appearing in spite of it.
Gaudete Sunday does not say, “Everything is fixed.”
It says, “Rejoice anyway—because God is still at work.”
Oratio (Prayer — Revised Collect for Day 5)
O God,
who see how your people faithfully await
the coming of your Son,
do not allow our waiting to become an excuse for forgetting,
nor our celebration to become a veil for injustice.
As we rejoice on this Third Sunday of Advent,
grant that the joy we proclaim
may also cleanse what has wounded your Body.
Give us the courage to remove what dishonors the least,
the patience to endure what is unfinished,
and the humility to rejoice even while we repent.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Actio (Action — Laudato Si’ & Synodality)
Today I will practice synodality not by waiting for permission,
but by walking together in truth.
Yet only when “the economic and social costs of using up shared environmental resources are recognized with transparency and fully borne by those who incur them, not by other peoples or future generations”, can those actions be considered ethical.
Laudato si’ §195
In the spirit of Laudato Si’, I will remember that
what we refuse to clean up becomes a burden for future generations.
My action today is simple and stubborn:
I will continue to pray, to attend Mass,
and to speak truth with charity—
trusting that renewal, like rain,
often falls long after the seed is sown.
🎵 “People Look East” (traditional Advent hymn)
This hymn answers not with certainty, but with preparation—
inviting us to ready our hearts, our homes, and our Church
for a Christ who comes to heal what we would rather leave untouched.
🎬 A Christmas Story Christmas
Email to Bishop Zurek
Subject: A Request for Vigilance and Hope on This Last Day of the Liturgical Year
Your Excellency,
It was good to see you home at the Cathedral for Thanksgiving Mass. As we reach the end of the liturgical year and prepare for the Centennial, I write with a simple concern that continues to weigh heavily on my conscience.
In prayer, especially through the Gospel’s call to stay vigilant and strengthen what remains, I keep returning to the tribute erected by John Salazar in honor of Bishop Matthiesen. Because it was built by a priest who used his “second chance” to harm children in our diocese, its continued presence risks sending a message that wounds survivors and obscures our call to truth.
As we prepare to celebrate 100 years of the Diocese of Amarillo, I humbly ask that we consider removing this tribute as an act of healing and justice—so that our Centennial begins in truth, not silence.
Thank you for hearing my heart. Be assured of my prayers for you and for our diocese.
In Christ,
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 such as John Salazar—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.