St. Louis Review

05/31/2026

On this solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, we have placed before us the three persons of God who are one. That oneness is anchored in love and emanates love.

What does it mean that our existence and the existence of all things emanate from the love of the Trinity?

Creation takes on the traits of the creator. We have a godly inheritance given to us because of who created us.

Our God became flesh and dwelt among us. His incarnation gives our bodily existence a divine quality and reminds us of our eternal inheritance and the very nature of our lives.

God has been made present to us as the gifts of the Holy Spirit are given to us. Those gifts take flesh as we speak in a language that others understand, even if they live a life so different from ours.

Why is it so difficult for us to believe that our willingness to embrace fear is more powerful than our isolation in the midst of our fear? Perfect love casts out all fear.

Read Father Don Wester's full Sunday Scriptures reflection: https://www.stlouisreview.com/story/sunday-scriptures-perfect-love-found-in-trinity-casts-out-fear/

05/31/2026

Why should God come to me through intermediaries and not directly? That question has two good answers.

First: As body and soul, we need outward signs of spiritual realities. So God gives us outward signs through priests. For example, in confession we can hear that God really forgives us.

Second: Here on earth, where we still hide in shame, God gives us intermediaries — to draw us out of hiding and prepare us for the transformation we need before we’re ready for heaven.

The priest brings Christ into the world in a special way — especially in the Eucharist and in the confessional.

After 42 years as a priest and 22 years as a bishop, I know that priesthood demands sacrifice and strength. Of course, so does every Christian life! But, for a moment, let’s pause, and give thanks to God — for the priesthood itself and for the good priests we have known.

Read this week's Serve the Lord with Gladness column: https://www.stlouisreview.com/story/serve-the-lord-with-gladness-priests-bring-christ-into-the-world-in-a-special-way/

05/29/2026

Each month, the St. Ambrose youth group hosts a children’s adoration specifically designed to let the little children come to Him.

Middle and high school students sit in the front with younger children, guiding them in prayer, songs, and small activities like coloring sheets while their parents have a chance to pray behind in the pews. After adoration, everyone heads outside to the playground for treats and social time.

The children’s adoration started about a year ago when Pa**ie Ertmann, a sophomore at St. John Vianney High School, was searching for a meaningful service project.

“I thought about, what is the biggest way I can help the faith lives of people at St. Ambrose? And I thought that little kids don’t really have much of a time that they can really sit with Jesus,” he said. “So I thought a children’s adoration would be a great way to give them that space.”

Pa**ie recruited the youth group to facilitate and plan each month’s adoration with a different spiritual theme; this month’s focused on the Blessed Mother.

Youth group leader Annie Daub says her children look forward to adoration every month. Reverence is certainly still expected, but it’s relaxed enough that no one is worried about kids’ normal murmurs and fidgeting — they can just be themselves, she said.

Learn more about how St. Ambrose children’s adoration is bringing kids of all ages to Jesus: https://www.stlouisreview.com/story/childrens-adoration-brings-kids-of-all-ages-to-jesus/

📷️: Jacob Wiegand

05/28/2026

Jesus in the Eucharist spent part of Memorial Day on the water traveling from Florida to Georgia as part of this summer’s National Eucharistic Pilgrimage.

Bishop Erik T. Pohlmeier of St. Augustine offered a eucharistic blessing as the pilgrimage departed from St. Michael Church in Fernandina Beach, heading north by boat to the Diocese of Savannah.

The 2026 pilgrimage began on May 24 and will travel up the East Coast for six weeks, concluding in Philadelphia on the July 4 weekend.

Along the route, onlookers stopped on sidewalks and leaned out of car windows to ask what was going on. Those traveling with the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage explained that Jesus was present, and they extended invitations to follow Him.

“I’ve never been with Jesus before on a boat, like the Blessed Sacrament,” Mary Carmen Zakrajsek, a perpetual pilgrim from the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, said, adding that the experience was “living the Gospels … in a very tangible way.

“It’s an opportunity to really witness what the disciples did 2,000 years ago,” she said.

The 2026 pilgrimage will travel up the East Coast for six weeks before ending in Philadelphia on the July 4 weekend

05/28/2026

During his May 27 general audience in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Leo XIV defended Church reform as a legitimate process that adapts to current needs while remaining rooted in authentic tradition.

In his talk, the pope said authentic renewal of the liturgy is acceptable and encouraged when the Church first engages in careful theological and pastoral study and then makes sure that “any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing.”

Throughout his general audience catechesis, Pope Leo repeatedly framed liturgical reform as part of the Church’s living tradition rather than a break from the past.

The pope said changes within the liturgy had taken place throughout the Church’s history in order to help the faithful participate more fully in the Paschal mystery and to allow the Church’s worship to become embodied within different cultures throughout history.

Citing Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Leo said tradition and progress should not be viewed as opposites, recalling Benedict’s image of tradition as “a river” that carries its source within itself while continuing to flow forward.

Read more of the pope's message: https://www.stlouisreview.com/story/popes-message-reform-church-adapts-current-needs-respect-tradition/

05/28/2026

Karla Kramer's deep love for Jesus started in childhood, but she didn’t have a name for the devotion to the Sacred Heart until she learned about the Catholic faith.

Karla's experience in an adoration chapel on Oct. 16, 2013, "still brings tears" to her eyes. As she started praying the first Glorious Mystery of the Rosary — the Resurrection — she offered up the intention of her father and brother, both nonbelievers, to find the Risen Lord.

Karla described then experiencing the Lord before her, with His Sacred Heart extended before Him. "He said…into my heart: ‘I ask you to pray, not only for your father and brother but for all souls that are far from me, for I love them and long for them,’” she said.

She shared the experience with her brother-in-law, Father Mark Kramer, SJ, who connected her with two fellow Jesuits involved in the Apostleship of Prayer network dedicated to the Sacred Heart.

With their help, Karla founded the Sodality of the Sacred Heart in 2016. The group seeks to foster a deeper understanding of Jesus' love, mercy, and longing to be in relationship with all people.

Sodality members are encouraged to fast and pray for the intentions of the Sacred Heart, especially for souls who are far from the Lord. Often, you don’t see the fruit of those efforts — but sometimes you do. After years of prayer, Karla's formerly atheist brother and father were baptized into the Catholic Church.

“I definitely believe that nothing is impossible with God,” she said.

Learn more about the Sodality of the Most Sacred Heart: https://www.stlouisreview.com/story/sharing-the-heart-of-jesus/

05/27/2026

Does the Church believe the ascension was a literal upward movement by Jesus?

When I was in graduate school for theology, it was common to hear the observation that if Jesus had gone into the sky 2,000 years ago and left Earth at the speed of light, He would still be within the Milky Way galaxy.

In ancient times, the physical makeup of the world was understood differently. With our modern astronomical understanding of the nature of the physical universe, we cannot regard the transition to glory with God as a physical relocation.

However, this does not mean that the disciples did not witness this transition. I do not doubt that Jesus indeed rose into the sky that day as a means of communicating to His followers the spiritual meaning of what was occurring — not as a method of getting from one place to another.

While on this earth, Jesus remained the focus of attention and action. But in His wisdom, Jesus desired that His followers become the carriers of the Good News. To accomplish that, He stepped back so that they could step forward.

He did not abandon us, though. By the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, we ourselves become the Body of Christ on earth, and we are given the authority and power to continue His mission in our world!

Read the full reflection by Father Chris Schroeder: https://www.stlouisreview.com/story/dear-father-jesus-ascension-communicated-several-meanings/

05/26/2026

Archbishop Mitchell T. Rozanski has made several clergy appointments for the Archdiocese of St. Louis, effective July 1, 2026.

Retirement Father Charles W. Barthel, until now pastor of Sts. Joachim and Ann Parish in St. Charles, is granted retirement at a private residence. Father

05/26/2026

Over 40 years after the Roman Catholic Church-Polish National Catholic Church Dialogue began its quest for unity between the two churches, members of the group say they find hope in the progress they’ve made.

Archbishop Mitchell T. Rozanski, who is of Polish descent and was raised in the Polish parishes of Baltimore, has been a member of the dialogue since the 2000s, when he was an auxiliary bishop in Baltimore. He currently serves as the dialogue’s co-chair alongside Bishop John E. Mack, head of the PNCC’s Buffalo-Pittsburgh Diocese.

The dialogue grew out of a split among Polish Catholic immigrants in the United States in the late 19th century, which led to the formation of the Polish National Catholic Church.

By the 1960s, there were calls for dialogue between the two groups, but it didn’t become a formal reality until the 1980s, when St. John Paul II renewed the call.

“What keeps this going is that we’re trying to fulfill God’s commandment, where He said that may they be one as you are in me, and I in you, and that they also may be one in us,” dialogue member Bishop Paul Sobiechowski, head of the Eastern Diocese of the PNCC, said at the group’s annual meeting held in St. Louis from May 12-13.

“I think it shows us how far we have come in these 40 years, and it gives us the hope of moving forward, even to be closer,” Archbishop Rozanski said.

Read more about dialogue between these Catholic churches: https://www.stlouisreview.com/story/dialogue-between-roman-catholic-polish-national-catholic-churches-remains-strong/

📷: Jacob Wiegand

05/25/2026

Studio 3:16, a Catholic media company that produces educational programming for children, recently named Clare Flanagan a winner of its national scriptwriting contest. The winning scripts may inspire a future episode.

Clare and her classmates, fourth-grade students at Our Lady of Lourdes School in University City, learned during a May 1 livestream that her script was one of the winning entries.

Clare wrote a script based on Matthew 6:1-6, a passage from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, where He warns against practicing acts of faith, including fasting and praying, purely for public recognition.

Fourth-grade teacher Katrina Sommer described Clare as having an innate ability to understand Scripture and explain it to her peers in a way that they can understand.

Clare said she wanted the script to capture the passage’s deeper message that God knows our intentions, and that’s what matters most.

Jesus “wanted people to realize and understand that you shouldn’t just pray for people to see you,” Clare said. “You should pray because you want to pray. God inspired this Gospel for everyone.”

Read more about Clare Flanagan's talents as a scriptwriter: https://www.stlouisreview.com/story/our-lady-of-lourdes-student-scriptwriter-studio-316-contest/

📷️: Jacob Wiegand