Today, my mom had asked me and my two sister’s to go to church as a family for Christmas. We kids haven’t gone to church in a while, so we thought it would be nice to give something to my mom that means so much to her. We went and, so quickly, I realized why this particular parish and so many others are failing. The ceremony was very solemn, which is needed to a certain degree, but also so depressing. The music didn’t have any kind of joyous tone to it and the sermon was ridiculously awful. The sermon mentioned the words “pain” and “wounds” and “depression” more than the 14th suicide note from a hyper emotional teen. To add to that, the deacon jumped from point to point like one of today’s many ADHD ridden children. It was painful (ha) to listen to.

A leader needs to be motivational and inspirational. People need care about the words they say and not count the minutes until it’s all over. Priests need to be that. Deacons need to be that. Most of them aren’t and that’s the problem with this church.