“If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.”
— Mark 3:25
Christ is accused of working for darkness while He is busy breaking its chains. The truly divided ones are not demons, but the hearts that refuse to see light when it stands right in front of them.
“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.”
Each day, I read a paragraph from the encyclical Dilexi te and weave a quotation from it into that day’s Lectio Divina.
Memorial in the Grotto of St. Mary’s Cathedral. The inscription says: “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.”
“ One structural issue that cannot realistically be resolved from above and needs to be addressed as quickly as possible has to do with the locations, neighborhoods, homes and cities where the poor live and spend their time.”
Does my faith—the Centennial pillar for January—refuse to remain divided from the real places where those effected by our “serious mistake” live, or do I allow my concern to stay abstract while their neighborhoods, homes, and daily realities remain distant from my heart?
This morning I discover that the battlefield of cosmic good and evil is located in a most embarrassing place: my own bed.
“Bishop Matthiesen — a shepherd whose legacy in our diocese still asks hard questions of us today. May truth, healing, and justice be the final word.” Photo used by permission of Douglas Kirkland/Corbis via Getty Images
I am divided. One half of me is a heroic pilgrim of faith, ready to march through snowdrifts for the Eucharist. The other half is a deeply reasonable mammal who believes blankets are a theological virtue.
For two days I have not received the Eucharist because the Masses were cancelled. A strange silence settled over the Diocese, and I found myself both obedient and restless. Today there may be Mass. Or there may not. The road may be safe. Or it may be foolish.
The division is not really about weather. It is about fear versus trust. Comfort versus call. Self-protection versus surrender.
Above: The Tribute to Bishop Matthiesen Below: A Fallen Centennial Banner
Christ says a divided house cannot stand — and yet here I stand, a man divided between duvet and discipleship.
The devil’s cleverness is not in making me hate God. It is in making me hesitate.
Saints Timothy and Titus were summoned into leadership not because conditions were ideal, but because grace moves forward in imperfect weather — interior and exterior. Perhaps the real strong man tying me up is not ice on the road, but ice in the will.
To go, even if Mass is cancelled, would mean this: I choose the Spirit’s nudge over the body’s complaint. I untie myself.
Synodality, too, asks this of me. I want the Church healed, yet I resist the small personal obediences that make healing possible. A divided heart cannot preach unity.
The Lord does not accuse me. He simply waits — like the road at dawn — open, cold, and honest.
3. Contemplatio (Chestertonian Synthesis)
A tribute, built for Bishop Matthiesen, while John Salazar—a convicted pedophile priest whom Matthiesen kept in ministry against the counsel of cardinal archbishops, giving Salazar a “second chance.” That second chance resulted in the sexual assault of youth in our own diocese. And just before he was defrocked and sent to prison, he raised this monument in Bishop Matthiesen’s honor. Its presence remains a painful reminder of “serious mistakes” that harmed the very flock Bishop Matthiesen was meant to protect.
It is a glorious humiliation to discover that spiritual warfare looks suspiciously like putting on boots.
God, in His outrageous strategy, saves the world not with thunderbolts, but with small obediences performed by reluctant saints. The devil shouts; grace whispers; and the whole drama of salvation hangs on whether a man gets out of bed.
The house that stands is not the house without storms, but the house where the will finally says, “Very well, Lord — Your weather, not mine.”
4. Oratio — Prayer
Lord of the undivided heart, unbind me from the fears that disguise themselves as prudence. Where I am split between comfort and calling, gather me into one will — Yours. Let me not accuse Your Spirit of inconvenience when You are only inviting me to trust. Make my steps, whether taken or delayed, acts of love rather than acts of fear. Amen.
5. Actio — Action (Laudato Si’ & Synodality)
The world which came forth from God’s hands returns to him in blessed and undivided adoration: in the bread of the Eucharist, “creation is projected towards divinization, towards the holy wedding feast, towards unification with the Creator himself”.
Today I will practice unity of heart by doing one small difficult thing I would rather avoid — and offer it for healing divisions in the Church. Interior unity is the seed of ecclesial unity.
6. Song Pairing
🎶 “Bridge Over Troubled Water” – Simon & Garfunkel
When the road is icy and the heart is divided, grace becomes the bridge I didn’t build but am invited to trust.
7. Movie Pairing
🎬Movie: The Two Towers
The real battle is not Helm’s Deep — it’s the divided will deciding whether to stand.
I’m sharing The Introverted Apostle, Episode 2, because it gently explodes the myth that the Church is powered only by the loudest voices in the room. I love how it frames how we are Church—together. As I move through the day wearing different shades of introversion (reserved, anxious, thinking, social), this episode helped me see each not as a defect to overcome, but as a gift to be offered—in concert with the gifts of extroverts. The Body of Christ needs both the quiet heart and the bold tongue. Give it a listen. I suspect you’ll recognize yourself somewhere in it—and find where you belong in the Body of Christ.
Here is one of those modern miracles that does not involve thunder, but does involve truth. In the latest CAPN: The WTC – The Podcast, you’ll hear the very personal story that set Karlynn Hochstein on the unlikely (and very Catholic) road to becoming our Diocese of Amarillo’s Director of Family Life. It is the sort of story that reminds us that vocations are rarely born in comfort, but almost always in conviction. And it also explains why I’ll be at St. Mary’s Cathedral next Saturday at 10:00 a.m. for the Respect Life Mass—because when faith becomes flesh in real lives, the only reasonable response is to show up. Give it a listen. Truth, like grace, works best when it’s personal.
Subject: A Request to Be Heard in the Spirit of Synodality During Our Centennial
Your Excellency Bishop Zurek,
I write to you with respect and with a sincere desire to remain in communion with the Church during this Centennial year of the Diocese of Amarillo.
As we approach the Centennial celebrations and the Respect Life Mass, I find myself holding an interior conflict that I cannot ignore in conscience. In prayer, particularly through Lectio Divina on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, I was struck by the single word spoken by Christ to John the Baptist: “Allow it.” Those words have stayed with me.
They raise a question in my heart: what does the Church allow herself to hear, and whom does she allow herself to accompany?
I desire to celebrate our Centennial and to stand in solidarity with the Church’s witness to the dignity of life. At the same time, I struggle to do so without any space for synodality regarding the Diocese of Amarillo’s Tribute to Bishop Matthiesen, especially in light of what has been acknowledged as a “serious mistake” during that period of our history. The continued silence around this tribute weighs heavily on me, not as an accusation, but as a pastoral wound.
Recently, Pope Leo reminded the Church that “abuse itself causes a deep wound, which may last a lifetime; but often the greater scandal is that the door was closed and victims were not welcomed or accompanied with the closeness of authentic pastors.” He shared the testimony of a victim who said that the most painful part was that no bishop wanted to listen. The Holy Father emphasized that listening is profoundly important and asked the Church to deepen dialogue and implement synodality.
It is in this spirit that I write. I am not asking for condemnation, nor am I asking for erasure of history. I am asking whether there can be listening—whether synodality can be allowed—so that the Centennial truly reflects the four pillars we have named: faith, hope, communion, and mission.
I want to be present at the Respect Life Mass and to celebrate our Centennial in good conscience. But I also want to know that the Church I love is willing to listen to those for whom this tribute remains a source of pain, confusion, and exclusion.
Your Excellency, I remain obedient to your pastoral authority, but I also remain compelled by conscience and prayer to ask that this conversation be allowed to take place. I believe that such listening would not diminish our celebration, but purify it.
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. Please know of my prayers for you and for our Diocese during this significant year.
Respectfully in Christ,
Darrell
My Story
Photo used by permission of Douglas Kirkland/Corbis via Getty Images
Memorial in the Grotto of St. Mary’s Cathedral. The inscription says: “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.“
I was one of “the few” Bishop Zurek spoke of in this letter. He first posted it in August of 2019, and in response to my, “calling out all the more“, he kept reposting it atop the diocesan news page until December 11, 2019. There it remains to this day.
Fr. Ed Graff, brought here from Philadelphia by Bishop Matthiesen, was arrested in 2002 for sexually assaulting a minor and died later that year in jail. Despite the harm linked to his ministry, he was buried in an honored section of Llano Cemetery among our pioneering clergy — a decision that continues to wound survivors and raise hard questions for our diocese.
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 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.
