In the desert, where common sense goes to die of thirst, Christ performs the most unreasonable act of all—He feeds four thousand men with seven loaves and a few fish and then has the audacity to leave leftovers.
The disciples ask the most practical of questions:
“Where can anyone get enough bread to satisfy them here in this deserted place?”
It is the question of every committee ever formed.
And yet Christ does not answer their arithmetic; He answers their hunger.
He does not calculate; He gives thanks. He does not conserve; He breaks bread. He does not merely feed; He satisfies.
The word strikes me like a bell in an empty church: “They ate and were satisfied.”
Not entertained. Not distracted. Not temporarily pacified.
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 reality, “the worst discrimination which the poor suffer is the lack of spiritual care… Our preferential option for the poor must mainly translate into a privileged and preferential religious care.” [127]
Question to myself (Hope – Centennial Pillar for February):
If our preferential option for the poor of our “serious mistake” must mainly translate into a privileged and preferential religious care, then am I truly satisfied with simply offering material concern — or does Hope require that I long for their spiritual hunger to be fed just as urgently as my own?
2. Meditatio — Monsignor Rex and the Satisfaction of a Soul
Saturday mornings will forever smell faintly of incense and old hymnals to me, because they will forever belong to Monsignor Rex Nicholl.
He was not a spectacular man in the worldly sense. He did not thunder like Sinai nor sparkle like Pentecost. He shuffled. He leaned. He steadied himself with a cane and a stool.
But he satisfied.
For reasons I have rehearsed—sometimes loudly, sometimes foolishly—I have harbored a mistrust of clergy. I have not always been satisfied. Indeed, I have at times treated priests as though they were restaurant servers who failed to bring my order precisely as requested.
One priest once told me plainly,
“Darrell, I wasn’t put here to be a dispenser that provides you with Communion at your convenience.”
It stung. And perhaps it should have.
Yet it was my search for Communion on Saturday mornings that led me to Msgr. Rex—the senior priest in the most obscure parish in town, who understood something that committees and critics alike often forget: sheep must be fed.
There were mornings when it was only him and me. Winter mornings when I arrived prepared to perform a spiritual Communion on icy steps, only to see the tire tracks of his scooter cutting faithfully through snowdrifts like missionary paths across Siberia.
He negotiated snow. He negotiated age. He negotiated pain.
But he would not negotiate hunger.
He was the last priest standing at the altar each liturgical year on that Saturday before Advent. Watching him carry the sacred vessels ten feet to the vestibule—at a pace that required patience and reverence—was a homily more powerful than any sermon.
I often told him of my frustrations with clergy. He listened. He did not fix the Church. He did not reform the hierarchy. He did not dismantle my grievances.
Yet somehow, I was satisfied.
And now I realize—he did do something. He fed me Christ. And Christ is not a suggestion; He is sustenance.
Perhaps I was not satisfied because my complaints were resolved. Perhaps I was satisfied because my hunger was.
3. Contemplatio — The Paradox of Being Satisfied
St. Cyril, that apostle of alphabets and tongues, once prayed over his people:
“I now return to you, your people, your gift to me. Direct them with your powerful right hand, and protect them under the shadow of your wings.”
When he died, Greeks and Romans gathered together and carried candles as though for a pope. They were satisfied not because he solved every problem, but because he had given them the Word.
Chesterton would say—and I shall say for him—that the Church does not exist to make us comfortable; she exists to make us complete.
Satisfaction is not the absence of irritation. It is the presence of Christ.
The desert remains a desert. The clergy remain human. The Church remains wounded and glorious all at once.
And yet, when the Bread is broken and given, and I receive it not as a consumer but as a beggar, something in me quiets.
The fragments are gathered. Seven baskets full.
God is extravagant even with leftovers.
I thought I wanted reform. I discovered I wanted Christ.
And that is satisfaction.
4. Oratio — Prayer
Lord Jesus, You who do not merely feed but satisfy, cure me of my restless appetite for control and complaint.
Thank you for the priests who fed me when they could barely stand. Thank you for Monsignor Rex, whose slow walk to the vestibule was swifter than my impatience.
Make me grateful for fragments. Make me faithful in deserts. Make me satisfied with You.
Amen.
5. Actio — Action (Laudato Si’ & Synodality)
Faith awakens the critical sense by preventing research from being satisfied with its own formulae and helps it to realize that nature is always greater.
I will thank a priest—not for being perfect, but for feeding the flock.
I will gather fragments rather than magnify frustrations.
I will practice Synodality not by demanding satisfaction from others, but by ensuring someone else is satisfied in Christ.
True Synodality is not a meeting; it is a meal.
6. Song Pairing 🎵
🎶 “Saturday in the Park” — Chicago🎵
On Saturday mornings, the park was not full of strangers—but of saints. A cane, a scooter, a handful of faithful, and a priest who believed that even a small crowd deserves to be satisfied. The best days are not always the loudest; sometimes they are the ones where heaven quietly feeds the hungry.
7. Movie Pairing 🎬
🎬Movie:“Going My Way” (1944)
Like Father O’Malley, Monsignor Rex did not reform the world with spectacle. He fed souls, listened patiently, and kept showing up. Sometimes the most revolutionary act a priest performs is simply staying at the altar long enough to satisfy the sheep.
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.
