September 04, 2025 – Pastor’s Note

Prayers of the Faithful

I want to apologize for not asking our staff to include the Annunciation Parish Community in Minneapolis in our intercessions last weekend. That was an oversight and, unfortunately, a common one on my part.

I honestly struggle a lot with what to include in the intercessions.

As a rule, I do not want to use the Prayers of the Faithful as a news bulletin. I find if we pray for every natural disaster or tragedy or national news event, the Intercessions become more about people listening to see what we include and what we don’t, than it is about praying to God for large categories of needs. So I have instructed our staff to use hardcover books of intercessions that base the prayers off of the readings, rather than writing fresh prayers each week based off of news broadcasts. This also means we miss most national holidays, too.

That said, from time to time it is appropriate to add intercession for larger occurrences. We certainly did so during COVID, and the Archdiocese has asked us to do so for the duration of Partners. And we pray for the sick and dying of our communities (which also ends up, unfortunately, being a local news bulletin, but there is no escaping that). So I cannot say that specific intentions are wrong. The question I struggle with is, what rises to the level of requiring a specific intention? I do not trust my judgement on that question, so I have excluded current events entirely.

But I agree that Minneapolis should have been an exception.

First Friday Confessions

I am also struggling with the question of what to do about First Friday Confessions. When I held them exclusively at Assumption, before Partners, I would consistently have 60 – 90 minutes of confessions each month, just for one priest. But once we started rotating, and having 3 – 4 priests available, we only ever seem to have 5 or fewer people, which is not a good use of such an event.

I have been thinking the problem comes from the rotation. Rotations mean inconsistencies, making it hard for people to develop a habit. So I am considering putting them back at Assumption every first Friday, since Assumption’s confession line is so long on Saturdays that it could use the help. However, even though Assumption was originally built with four confessionals, it now only has one, and it is awkward to fit all the priests there. So I may also make the first Friday confessions permanent in Ferndale (which is equally central), since that church has two full confessionals and two back rooms that work very well.

If you have thoughts, I would appreciate them.