Feast of Saint Patrick & Our Call to Mission

Monday, March 17, is the Feast of Saint Patrick or as many people refer to it as “Saint Patrick’s Day.” This day is the feast of our patron. Recently we have begun using the Saint Patrick Breastplate Prayer to help increase our devotion to this Saint, who’s feast day is much beloved and celebrated by many (though not always in a religious manner). 

To honor Saint Patrick, we will have Mass on Monday in our chapel at 6:30pm. There will not be a morning Mass that day because Father Dan and I plan to attend the funeral for Father Dan Dahlberg. Father Dan died peacefully on March 4, at Benedictine Living Community in Duluth, MN. He was a priest for 58 years and served several parishes in our Diocese, including Saint Patrick Parish in Hudson from 2009 to 2011. He also served at Saint Bridget Parish in River Falls. There will be a visitation at Cathedral of Christ the King in Superior (where he attended grade school and high school) on Sunday, March 16 from 3-6pm, with a prayer service at 5:30pm. On Monday, March 17, there will be a visitation from 9-11am and a Mass of Christian Burial at the Cathedral in Superior at 11am. The Mass will be live-streamed to the Cathedral’s FACEBOOK page. 

Since we are having a Mass in the evening on Monday, we are not able to have Liturgy of the Word with Holy Communion in the morning. If a Mass is offered anytime during a day, Liturgy of the Word with Holy Communion cannot be celebrated that same day. We look forward to honoring our Patron in the evening at 6:30pm. 

"Eternal rest grant unto Father Dan, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen".

On another note, our Diocese recently released a document titled: “MAINTENANCE TO MISSION PASTORAL PLAN: Recalibrating our Structure to Move on Mission” Work on this document began more than five years ago, but work halted when Covid shut many things down. About two years ago work began again. The Diocese of Superior has released pastoral plans in the past. These focused primarily on the shortage of priests our diocese was facing and how to organize the more than one hundred parishes in such a way that they could be served by a dwindling number of priests. Work on this plan began in a similar fashion, but then shifted as the committee tasked with developing the plan realized that our diocese was not only facing a declining number of priests, but also a decreasing number of people in our pews and receiving the Sacraments. 

In his letter introducing the latest pastoral plan, our Bishop points out that the earliest missionaries arrived to northern Wisconsin with great zeal, but since that time we have generally become complacent in our faith. The result is we, along with many Catholics throughout the world, became maintenance focused in living out our faith. Many bishops have responded to the current state of the Catholic Church in their dioceses by closing parishes. With 103 parishes in our Diocese, many very small, several not seeing a single baptism in a number of years, and others having few parishioners, this was tempting. Instead our Bishop, with his Pastoral Letter, released earlier, and now this Pastoral Plan, is placing his trust in us that we will strive to regain the apostolic zeal that was present in the early missionaries and will move from the work of maintaining our parishes to bolding setting a course of being mission driven. 

He acknowledges that this will mean we need to embrace changes within our parishes and the Diocese of Superior. Some of these changes have already started taking root. Several are already paying dividends.  Next week I will talk more about the Pastoral Plan and what we need to do to implement the plan at Saint Patrick Parish.