Jesus said to us as though He were talking directly to my cluttered soul:
“Is a lamp brought in to be placed under a basket… and not on a lampstand? For there is nothing hidden except to be made visible; nothing secret except to come to light… Anyone who has ears to hear ought to hear.”
“The measure with which you measure will be measured out to you…”
Which is Christ’s polite way of saying: Darrell, be careful how you look at things, because that’s how you’ll be looked at.
“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.”
…the Church’s preferential option for the poor “is implicit in the Christological faith in the God who became poor for us, so as to enrich us with his poverty.”
Does my faith—the Centennial pillar for January—make Christ’s love visible in me by embracing his preferential option for the poor, believing that the God who became poor for us calls me to stand with those whose poverty — stemming from our “serious mistake” — the world would rather not see?
2. Meditatio – Meditation
The land around The Glenn is changing its sermon. Last week it preached in white — snow, silence, stillness. Today it preaches in brown and green — mud, grass, thaw, trickling water.
What was frozen is now visible in motion. What was locked up is now soaking into the soil.
“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
So it is with me.
Last weekend the Eucharist was not visible to me — no Mass, no Host lifted high, no bell rung. Christ was still there, of course, but like moisture in ice, present yet inaccessible to my senses. Now the Mass has resumed, and grace trickles again through the cracks of my stubborn heart.
And then there is the other kind of visible.
Above: The Tribute to Bishop Matthiesen Below: A Fallen Centennial Banner
Some things stand in plain sight and are still unseen. A monument can rise above snow and yet remain socially invisible. A wound can be known historically and yet remain pastorally untouched. A truth can be spoken softly for years and still be treated like background noise, like wind in barbed wire.
Paradox would laugh here and say the problem is not that truth is hidden — it is that it is too obvious, like the nose on a face or the sun at noon. We trip over it because it is not disguised as something impressive.
Perhaps Christ’s warning is for me first: If I want light to fall on certain things, I must allow light to fall on my own motives. The measure I use on others — impatience, urgency, frustration — will be measured back to me.
Am I asking for things to be made visible out of love? Or out of the secret delight of being the man who noticed?
The grass does not shout when the snow melts. It simply appears.
Maybe holiness is less like a spotlight and more like a thaw.
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 comical thing that God, who invented galaxies, prefers lamps.
Not explosions. Lamps. Not arguments. Light.
And light does not fight darkness; it simply shows up and makes darkness ridiculous. A room does not debate a candle — it yields.
The great paradox: The most powerful things in the Church are often the least theatrical — a Host, a whisper of absolution, an old woman fingering a Rosary, a farmer kneeling after chores.
The Kingdom of God advances not by dramatic revelations, but by quiet exposures — the slow, stubborn making visible of what has always been true.
4. Oratio — Prayer
Lord of light,
You who prefer lamps to lightning, make my heart a place where truth can be made visible without pride, where wounds can be acknowledged without bitterness, where love is seen not in noise but in perseverance.
Shine on what must be seen. Hide what is only my ego. Melt what is frozen. Let Your light fall first on me.
Amen.
5. Actio — Action (Laudato Si’ & Synodality)
It may well disturb us to learn of the extinction of mammals or birds, since they are more visible. But…Some less numerous species, although generally unseen, nonetheless play a critical role in maintaining the equilibrium of a particular place. Human beings must intervene when a geosystem reaches a critical state.
Today I will make one act of goodness that is visible to no one but God — a hidden prayer, a quiet kindness, a restraint of a sharp word — so that I remember that the Kingdom grows even when unseen.
6. Song Pairing 🎵
🎶 “Blinded by the Light” (Manfred Mann’s Earth Band)
Everyone sings about being blinded by the light, but today’s Gospel reminds me the real problem isn’t that the Light is too bright — it’s that I keep trying to shove the lamp under a basket. Christ doesn’t hide what He heals. He makes things visible — wounds, sins, truth, grace — not to shame, but to save. The Light exposes what we’d rather leave buried, whether it’s frozen ground in my own soul or parts of our Church history we’d prefer stay snow-covered. The irony? The Light doesn’t blind — refusal to look does. So the prayer today isn’t “dim the light, Lord,” it’s “open my eyes.”
7. Movie Pairing 🎬
🎬Movie:Ghosts (1990)
In Ghosts, the past doesn’t stay buried — it lingers in the house, shaping the present whether anyone wants to admit it or not. That’s exactly the tension in today’s Gospel: “Nothing is hidden except to be made visible.” We can pretend certain rooms of the house are closed, certain stories are finished, certain shadows are harmless — but what is unacknowledged does not disappear. It just becomes a ghost. Christ’s light isn’t meant to haunt us; it’s meant to heal what haunts us. When things are brought into the light, they stop being specters and start becoming places of grace.
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.
