I hear Our Lord climb a hill, sit down like a King who has mistaken a rock for a throne, and begin to hand out crowns to all the wrong people.
Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the mourners. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the hungry, the merciful, the clean-hearted, the peacemakers, the persecuted.
If this is a reward ceremony, Heaven has hired the most scandalous Master of Ceremonies imaginable.
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.”
In light of this, it is evident that all of us must “let ourselves be evangelized” by the poor and acknowledge “the mysterious wisdom which God wishes to share with us through them.”
If hope is the Centennial pillar for February, do I truly believe I am Blessed when I let the poor from our “serious mistake” evangelize me — trusting that God is already at work in their lives, and that their faith, endurance, and hidden wisdom are signs that hope is not an idea but a living reality among those the world overlooks?
2. Meditatio – Meditation
Quite often someone tells me, “Have a blessed day,” and I receive it the way a cat receives a bath.
For I know what Christ means by blessed, and it sounds suspiciously like hard labor.
To be poor in spirit means my pride must go bankrupt. To mourn means I must care. To be meek means I must have strength under control — like a plow horse instead of a parade horse. To hunger and thirst for righteousness means I must stay unsatisfied with the world as it is, which is terribly inconvenient when one would prefer pie.
I would much rather be comfortable than blessed, right than merciful, loud than pure of heart, victorious than peaceful.
And yet — here is the riddle — whenever I chase the easy road, I grow smaller, sharper, and strangely unhappy. But when I accidentally stumble into mercy, humility, or forgiveness, my heart becomes absurdly large, like a balloon that forgot gravity.
The world calls that loss. Christ calls it blessed.
It is the great divine joke: God makes saints out of the sort of people the world would seat in the back row.
3. Contemplatio (Chestertonian Synthesis)
I see now: the Beatitudes are not rules but revelations.
Christ is not telling me how to act blessed. He is revealing who actually isblessed.
Blessedness is not the sparkle of success — it is the secret sturdiness of souls who lean on God instead of themselves. The world builds pyramids upward; Christ builds them upside down.
The people clinging to God from below are holding up the whole thing.
4. Oratio — Prayer
Lord Jesus, I confess I prefer happiness on my terms, yet you offer blessedness on yours.
Bankrupt my pride. Soften my heart. Make me hungry for what is right, merciful when I would be harsh, pure when I would be clever, peaceful when I would be powerful.
Teach me the strange joy of losing what cannot save me to gain what never ends. 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”.
Laudato Si’ reminds us that the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth are one. Today I will:
Listen before I argue
Choose one act of mercy over being “right”
Notice someone overlooked and treat them as blessed, not burdensome
That is how the Beatitudes become visible in the world.
6. Song Pairing 🎵
🎶 “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” 🎵
The song says “Don’t worry,” but Christ goes deeper: don’t just be happy — be blessed. Happiness avoids storms; blessedness walks on water.
7. Movie Pairing 🎬
🎬Movie:The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)
The film chases happiness through struggle; the Gospel reveals blessedness inside struggle. One climbs a ladder; the other climbs a cross — and somehow ends up in glory.
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.
