October 4, 2025
Many thanks to conference chair, Dr. Anthony Oliva, and Mario Dickerson, Linda Donnelly and Carolyn Gretzinger for a beautiful and edifying annual conference in lovely Kansas City, MO. First time attendees said they saw the excitement and joy on the faces of participants. Father Kubat said of the nearly 700 attendees there were even more confessions! Thank you to all the priests who sacrificed their time to minister to us. Bishop James Conley, our episcopal advisor, packed up a beautiful altar, dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe, and drove it to the conference from Omaha, himself! What a blessing he is to the CMA. Charity abounded as a couple who left home without a car seat for their baby, was provided one through the local guild. Another woman fell at the airport coming off the escalator and was ministered to with exams, a splint and pain meds at the conference. It also was our first joint meeting with the Catholic Bar Association.
Please join us for the ZOOM CMA Prayer Group, Sat., Oct. 11 at 2:00 PM. Come pray with us!
Our theme this month is The Power of Meekness and Humility as we honor St. Thérèse of Lisieux (Oct. 1) on the 100th anniversary of her canonization. She entered the Carmel of Lisieux in 1888 at age 15 with special permission from Pope Leo XIII where she developed her “little way” of spiritual childhood, declaring “love is repaid by love alone” and “do small things with great love.” At age 21 she offered herself as a sacrificial victim and within months developed tuberculosis. Shortly before dying Sept. 30, 1897, she wrote, “I am not dying. I am entering life.” We strongly recommend reading her Story of a Soul. She was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1925 as Universal Patron of the Missions and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1997 by Pope St. John Paul II.
Pope St. John XXIII (Oct. 11) was drafted into the Italian Army in WW I and during WW II it is estimated he saved up to 24,000 Jews from the Nazis. The oldest elected pope in 200 years at age 76, he convened the Second Vatican Council in 1962. He negotiated the release, with President Kennedy’s help, of Josyf Cardinal Slipyj of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, held captive for 18 years in a Soviet gulag. Read more about him here. Pope St. John’s spirit of humble simplicity, profound goodness, and deep life of prayer radiated in all that he did, and inspired people to affectionately call him “Good Pope John.” We suggest the movie, John XXIII: the Pope of Peace, on FORMED and Jean-Yves Garneau’s Praying With Saint John XXIII.
Pope St. Callistus I (Oct. 14) circa 222 AD, is best known for extending God’s mercy to sinners who repented of grave sins and did public penance, reversing the Church’s previous rigid rules.
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