The Catholic Communities of Immaculate Conception, St. Louis and St. Mary's

Some have suggested that my husband and I have sheltered our children.

I cannot deny the fact that we intentionally made decisions to shield our kids from potentially harmful situations or incidents that would negatively impact the foundation we were trying to provide them. I am not just talking physical circumstances but emotional, intellectual, and spiritual, as well. We worked hard not to expose them too early to specific experiences where the visual scenes would forever plague their memory. Often — I mean very often — my children did not participate in activities that were commonplace for other children.

I like to bring humor into classes I teach and homilies that I preach, because I think humor is a good way to get through to people about the importance of faith.

As I look back on my ministry I remember many times when certain points of humor were particularly well received; one was several years ago, right before Mass started at my parish of St. Joseph’s in Gnesen (the prettiest parish in the Diocese of Duluth, if you ask me). St. Joseph’s is a small, rural parish, so there tend to be other critters in the area besides humans. It was during Advent when someone inadvertently allowed two dogs to sneak in the door. They were good-sized dogs, and they ran up and down the aisle of the small church, which caused a bit of a stir with the parishioners. After the dogs were finally corralled and let out, I told the congregation that I can tell Christmas is getting near, because I hadn’t seen those two dogs since Easter.

By Father Ryan Moravitz

Guest columnist