We have a new Archbishop! This past Wednesday, Thomas Zinkula was installed as the new Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Dubuque.

It is a beautiful thing to watch a priest who has been a good friend and mentor to me in my own personal journey of seminary and priesthood, to then be installed as our Spiritual Father, Apostle and Shepherd to our local Church of the Archdiocese of Dubuque. It inspires humble gratitude and inspires me to give glory and thanks to God.

It is also a reminder that while we honor, give thanks for, and pray for our new Shepherd Thomas Zinkula, he would be the first to tell you that it is not about him. It is a reminder for us that is about the True Good Shepherd Jesus Christ, who guides and Shepherds His Church and Flock, and yet the humbling reality that He calls us, imperfect men, to imperfectly share in His work.

When we were praying for a new Archbishop, we prayed for ‘a priest of deep and true prayer, a teacher with a loving heart and firm resolve, and a shepherd of joy and peace, who desires above all to do God’s will.’ I know Archbishop Thomas Zinkula sincerely desires to be this kind of Archbishop for us, and we continue to pray that he will be.

The installation of Archbishop Zinkula also humbly reminds us of the beautiful reality of what is means to be Church – that we belong to a very local particular Church of our parish community, of Ackley, of Hampton, but also connected to the larger local Church of the Archdiocese of Dubuque. But we are also connected beyond that to the global, universal, Catholic Church, with all the Bishops of the world, united together with the Bishop of Rome, the successor of St. Peter that we call the Pope.

This particular Sunday is World Mission Sunday, a day where the Pope asks us to take a special collection to support the Church throughout the world by supporting the Pontifical Mission Societies. The Pontifical Mission Societies (TPMS) are a worldwide network at the service of the Pope that supports the missions and the Young Churches with prayer and charity. These include the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, the Society of St. Peter the Apostle, the Missionary Childhood Association (MCA) and the Missionary Union of Priests and Religious.

The four societies have been defined as “pontifical” since 1922, thus indicating their status as official instruments of the Pope and of the universal Catholic Church. In most countries, the World Missions Sunday collection is taken up on the third Sunday of October each year in every Catholic parish around the globe.

These missionary societies themselves each have their own inspiring stories, as they were not founded by the Pope, but rather were grassroots efforts from ordinary people that later grew into something that came to be formally recognized, honored, and supported by the Pope by naming it at “Pontifical Society.”  You can read more about these societies and there histories here, onefamilyinmission.org/the-societies.

Peace,

– Fr. Kevin