The Temple doors open not to receive a king in armor but a baby in borrowed arms. The One who refines like fire enters as a child needing to be carried. The purifier arrives as the purified. The sacrifice enters the place of sacrifice.
Simeon and Anna stand like old gateposts of hope, worn smooth by waiting. They have been sanded down by years of prayer, thinned by fasting, polished by disappointment. They are not surprised by God being small — only by finally seeing Him.
Apparently… two elderly people with tired knees and burning hearts.
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.”
…recall the age-old history of the Church’s care for the poor and with the poor in order to make clear that it has always been a central part of her life.
If hope is the Centennial pillar for February, do I believe that my own Purification happens precisely when I remember the Church’s long history of caring for and with the poor — trusting that walking with those suffering from our “serious mistake” is not a detour from holiness, but the very path where God patiently purifies my heart and teaches me to hope?
Have the days been completed for my purification? Clearly not — because I still argue with God, still defend myself, still arrange my opinions like furniture I’m unwilling to throw out.
I like the idea of purification the way I like the idea of fire in a fireplace — decorative, contained, useful. But Malachi is not talking about a fireplace. He is talking about a furnace.
Life itself is the refiner’s fire. News headlines are lye. Conscience is the scrubbing stone.
And here is the uncomfortable part: purification is not merely about removing other people’s sins from the world. It is about removing my illusions from me.
I can say, “I voted for this reason,” and that may be true. But purification asks a deeper question:
Am I willing to let God burn away even my self-justifications, my tribal comforts, my moral bookkeeping, until all that remains is love?
I do not want to defend evil. I do not want to condemn the bishops who speak. I do not want to be hardened.
The Child in the Temple is not merely presented. He presents me.
3. Contemplatio (Chestertonian Synthesis)
The great joke of Christianity is that God purifies the world by becoming impure enough to enter it. The Refiner enters the fire. The Light walks into smoke. The Holy One submits to ritual cleansing.
And I — who am actually dirty — resist being washed.
Purification is not humiliation. It is liberation from the exhausting labor of pretending.
The furnace of God does not destroy gold. It destroys what gold is not.
4. Oratio — Prayer
Lord, Refiner of silver and Reader of hearts, do not let me fear Your fire more than my own falseness. Burn away what keeps me from loving freely. Cleanse me not only of sins I regret, but of the pride I defend. Let my life be an offering that pleases You — not because it is impressive, but because it is honest. Amen.
5. Actio — Action (Laudato Si’ & Synodality)
We need only recall how ecosystems interact in dispersing carbon dioxide, purifying water, controlling illnesses and epidemics, forming soil, breaking down waste, and in many other ways which we overlook or simply do not know about.
Today I will accept one uncomfortable truth about myself without defensiveness — and offer it at Mass as part of my purification.
6. Song Pairing 🎵
🎶 “Standing Outside the Fire” 🎵
Faith is not standing at a safe distance from the refiner’s fire — it is stepping into the heat where God burns away what keeps us from being fully alive.
7. Movie Pairing 🎬
🎬Movie:Casablanca (2006)
Rick is purified not by comfort but by choosing love over self-protection. Real purification always costs something — and always sets someone free.
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.
