The Lord sends His apostles out like holy vagabonds — light, free, almost absurdly unequipped. No bag, no backup tunic, no financial plan, no strategic committee. Only sandals, a stick, and authority over darkness. And then that most curious command:
“If they do not welcome you… shake the dust off your feet.”
Not fire from heaven. Not a speech. Not a committee report.
Dust — the smallest protest ever staged. A gesture so humble it is almost funny. And yet it is a judgment.
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.”
“Can holiness somehow be understood apart from this lively recognition of the dignity of each human being?”
Question to myself (Hope – Centennial Pillar for February):
If I claim to live the Centennial pillar of hope, can I brush others who are effected by our “serious mistake” off like dust, or does true holiness — and real hope — begin when I recognize the God-given dignity in every single person, especially the ones the world treats as disposable?
2. Meditatio – Meditation
This morning, walking toward Mass, I noticed the grand Centennial banners outside St. Mary’s Cathedral — Faith, Hope, Communion, Mission — standing boldly… behind an empty reserved parking space. A throne without a king, a proclamation without a presence. It struck me like a parable written in fabric and wind.
Dust is what clings to sandals after walking long roads. Dust is what you shake off not in rage, but in resignation. Dust is the mark of one who has been there, who tried, who spoke, who loved, who stayed — and then moved on without hatred.
Dust is what we are made from. Dust is what we return to. Dust is the most democratic substance in the universe — it settles on bishops and beggars alike. And perhaps God prefers dust to marble, because dust cannot pretend to be eternal.
I begin to suspect that the true celebration of Faith, Hope, Communion, and Mission is not in banners, but in dusty sandals — in loving the Church enough to walk her roads, speak truth, and then surrender the outcome to God.
3. Contemplatio (Chestertonian Synthesis)
Saint Agatha means good. And like dust, goodness is rarely grand. It is small, quiet, persistent. Agatha did not win by force. She won by remaining what she was — God’s.
Dust seems like nothing, yet it testifies: “I walked here.” Martyrs are God’s holy dust — proof that heaven has touched earth.
Agatha’s goodness was not dramatic noise but quiet fidelity. She shook no fists — only bore witness. And like dust shaken from sandals, her life says:
“I have walked with Christ. What you do with that is now between you and God.”
The Sovereign Good hides in the smallest things. Dust on the road. Oil on the sick. Bread in a Host. A martyr’s quiet yes.
4. Oratio — Prayer
Lord, make me content to be dust on Your road. Let my witness be faithful, not theatrical. Teach me when to stay, and when to shake the dust and walk on without bitterness. Purify my zeal into goodness like Agatha’s — small, steady, incorruptible. Amen.
5. Actio — Action (Laudato Si’ & Synodality)
“We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters.”.
Dust from the road enters the house. The Church’s wounds enter my prayer. My prayer enters the life of the Church.
Action: Today I will perform one small, hidden act of mercy — unseen, unannounced — remembering that God builds His Kingdom not with monuments, but with dust-sized fidelities.
I’ve been happily—and rather unexpectedly—surprised by how much Episode 3 of The Introverted Apostle is helping me make sense of my own faith journey. John Reeves (yes, the same John I’ve exchanged the sign of peace with more than once at St. Mary’s Cathedral) adds another layer to understanding introversion—not as a flaw to overcome, but as something God actually works through. Even the idea of “putting on a mask” socially can, in the right spirit, be an act of charity rather than phoniness. That one hit home. It’s thoughtful, human, and quietly freeing. Worth your time.
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.
Email to Bishop Zurek
Dear Bishop Zurek,
Peace in Christ.
As our Diocese continues its Centennial celebration, I have been praying daily with the Scriptures and reflecting deeply on the four pillars: Faith, Hope, Communion, and Mission. In that spirit of prayer, I am writing once more not in protest, but in hope — hope for true synodality, which the Church continues to call us toward: listening, walking together, and discerning in the light of the Holy Spirit.
In recent prayer with the Gospel where the apostles are sent out and told to “shake the dust from their feet” where they are not received, I was struck not by the gesture of rejection, but by its meaning: testimony. Testimony that something unfinished remains. Testimony that repentance and healing are still invitations, not accusations.
For me, the Tribute to Bishop Matthiesen remains such a testimony. You yourself once referred to that period of our diocesan history as involving a “serious mistake.” Yet the tribute stands publicly, while conversation about the wound it represents feels absent. This creates, at least in my conscience, a tension between remembrance and healing, between honoring history and honestly confronting it.
I am not asking for condemnation of the past, nor for erasing history. I am asking for synodality — a visible, pastoral process of listening and discernment regarding what this tribute means today, especially for those who carry pain connected to that era. Pope Leo has reminded the Church that one of the deepest scandals is when doors are closed and people are not listened to. My hope is simply that, as your son in the Church, my voice might be received in that spirit of listening.
Our Centennial banners proclaim Faith, Hope, Communion, and Mission. I believe engaging this issue synodally would embody all four: • Faith, by trusting truth has nothing to fear • Hope, by believing healing is possible • Communion, by listening even when it is difficult • Mission, by witnessing that the Church confronts wounds with light, not silence
I remain in communion with you as my bishop and pray for you daily. I also continue to seek purification of my own heart, that my words be guided not by frustration but by charity and truth.
If you would ever be willing to allow a listening conversation — formal or informal — I would receive that as a great grace.
Respectfully in Christ,
Darrell Glenn
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.
