The storm is real. The boat is small. The waves do not pretend to be polite. And the Lord sleeps — not from neglect, but from sovereignty. He rises not in panic, but in command. “Quiet! Be still!” And creation obeys faster than the disciples believe.
“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.”
…live among the poor, not merely to pay them an occasional visit but to live with them as they do. Such a decision should be deemed one of the highest forms of evangelical life.
If “faith” is our Centennial pillar this January, am I willing to let Christ lead me into a deeper calm by truly living among the poor from our “serious mistake” in heart and in reality — not as a visitor with answers, but as a brother who shares life, trusting that this hidden closeness is one of the highest forms of the Gospel?
2. Meditatio – Meditation
I have spent many years shouting at the storm, when all along the miracle was that Christ was in the boat.
The paradox is that I thought I was defending the ship, when in truth the ship was defending me. I mistook agitation for fidelity, volume for virtue, turbulence for truth. But storms do not prove the absence of God — only the presence of weather.
“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 set out seeking Synodality in the Diocese of Amarillo regarding the Tribute to Bishop Matthiesen, and like a very earnest but slightly comic apostle, I kept shaking the Lord awake: “Do you not care?”
And all the while He was calm.
Not indifferent. Not absent. Calm.
Now I see: faith is not the power to stop storms; it is the discovery that Christ is not worried in them.
Above: The Tribute to Bishop Matthiesen Below: A Fallen Centennial Banner
The sea inside me has gone still. The argument has become prayer. The struggle has become surrender.
I have crossed to “the other side,” not because the winds changed, but because my heart did.
As Don Bosco knew, noise rarely converts anyone — but trust can raise saints.
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.
Christ asleep is not Christ defeated. Christ silent is not Christ inactive. Christ calm is not Christ uncaring.
The greatest miracle in this Gospel is not the still sea — it is the still Savior.
The disciples ask, “Who then is this?” I ask instead, “Who am I, that I feared with Him in the boat?”
4. Oratio — Prayer
Lord Jesus, teach me the holiness of calm. Still the storms that rise from pride, rebuke the winds of my self-importance, and let Your peace be louder than my opinions.
Let me trust You in the stern more than I trust my shouting at the waves. Amen.
5. Actio — Action (Laudato Si’ & Synodality)
…how inseparable the bond is between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace.
Today I will practice ecological peace of heart: I will respond to tension with listening, to conflict with gentleness, and to disagreement with dignity — remembering that care for our common home begins with a calm interior.
6. Song Pairing 🎵
🎶 “Float” – Flogging Molly 🎵
When the storm inside finally settles, faith doesn’t sink — it floats. This Lectio is about learning that Christ is in the boat, and when He says “Be still,” the soul rises above the waves instead of drowning in them.
7. Movie Pairing 🎬
🎬Movie: Field of Dreams (1989)
Some storms wreck ships. The storm in today’s Gospel reveals the Captain.
I’m sharing the newest episode of CAPN: The West Texas Catholic—and it turns out the future has gears, wires, and a Catholic high school uniform. The robotics team at Holy Cross Catholic Academy is building machines, yes—but more importantly, they’re building minds that know technology is a tool, not a master. Chesterton would remind us that the devil does not invent things—he only misuses them. Fire can warm a home or burn it down; the answer is not to outlaw fire but to teach children how to tend it. The same goes for robotics and AI. To call every circuit “satanic” is to forget that human creativity itself reflects the Creator. These students aren’t bowing to machines—they’re learning to rule them rightly, to harness what is good, true, and useful in service of something higher. And that, my friends, sounds suspiciously like evangelization in the modern world. Give the episode a listen. Then decide: fear the tool… or form the soul that uses it.
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.
Email to Bishop Zurek
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.
