St Peter Diocese

Discerning a Vocation By Fr. Andrew Younan In my sixteen years as a priest, I’ve been vocation director, seminary rector, and spiritual director to a convent. More importantly, I’ve made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot, and like many God-related things, a lot of the knowledge we have about vocations is about what’s not true. How exactly someone goes about “discerning a vocation” is a hard thing to answer, but I can definitely tell you what not to do. For one thing, don’t talk to me about it anymore. This post is all you’re getting. Also there’s a video at [...]

He Will Be With Us Until The End of Time By Fr. Peter Patros Jesus makes us many promises and we know Christ is someone who always keeps his promises. One specific promise he gives us and his disciples is that he will be with us until the end of time. How does Jesus fulfill this promise if he ended up leaving this world at the time of his Ascension? Jesus fulfills this promise by becoming present to us: body, blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist every time we celebrate the mass. We read in the Epistle of Saint Paul [...]

Go into the world and proclaim the Gospel By Fr. David Stephen   Christ instructs His disciples to “Go into the world and proclaim the Gospel.” This is a call to action for the disciples as well as for us. We are disciples of Christ trying to follow in His footsteps and grow in our relationship with Him. The question then begs, ‘How do I go out into the world to preach the Gospel?’ First and foremost we must know God to teach about Him. He must be in our everyday life that we might preach about the Gospel to the [...]

What is the Meaning of Life? By Fr. Ankido Sipo   The Gospel reading from the Gospel of John this Sunday answers the question, even if in a difficult way to understand, that every child asks himself almost immediately upon developing enough to wonder about the world. We have all asked ourselves, young and old: what is the meaning of life? Jesus answers the question simply: “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). Here, Jesus is not showing how to get to eternal life but is showing [...]

Asking God for Things By Fr. Simon Esshaki   Probably all of us have experienced a time in our lives when we asked God for something and did not receive it. We could ask ourselves why Jesus would say that we should “ask and receive” if he will not give us what we ask for. Whenever there is a seeming contradiction in the Scriptures and with the way that we experience God’s providence, it does not mean that God or the Scriptures are wrong; it probably means that we are missing something. The first thing to do in this case is [...]

The Reality of Death By Fr. Daniel Shaba   Why do we use alternative words for death when expressing that someone has died? I have noticed that many people use terms such as: passed away, departed from with world, and phrases alike. Why do we shy away from saying that this person died? I’m not sure I necessarily have an answer to these questions, but one this is certain, these questions reveal a lot about the human person. We do not like to talk about death, we try avoiding funerals, we will use excuses to not go to the graveside service [...]