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Hi Everyone, Wow, we have broken the 100-day window in our countdown! Just yesterday the CDC said that all those who are vaccinated can remove their masks when they meet with each other in a close environment. Experts are also saying that in the next two months there...

Hi Everyone, I hope each of you is doing well. Wednesday marked the beginning of Lent. I don’t know about you, but it feels like we’ve been on a Lenten journey these last 11 months. For me, it makes it a bit harder to enter into Lent this year, as we’ve all been...

Hi everyone, In this season of Advent, I hope that I can be a bearer of good news. We have climbed a mountain during the pandemic and I believe we are starting to see the horizon in the valley below us. I say this 275 days after I first took to writing a daily...

Hi Everyone, Today is All Souls Day, one of the great feast days in the Catholic Church and especially important for each of us in our work. I love this day because we pray to God for all those that have passed from this life to the next. We also ask them to pray for...

Hi Everyone, Well, yesterday marked an anniversary of sorts. It has been exactly six months since the first official shelter-in-place order was implemented. As I spoke to our management team yesterday, I found myself wanting to point out accomplishments and successes,...

Hi Everyone, I hope you are doing well this week. I realize that we are still in the middle of what feels like a never-ending pandemic. In fact, it seems like we are getting used to this. Well, kind of… The last two weeks, I’ve asked you to open you hearts to consider...

Hi Everyone, Do you ever think of your work as “Prayer in Action?” I bring this up today because I believe that everyone of us is being “engaged” by God daily. We don’t always know how, and some days we may not feel up to the task. In fact, it is only rare that we get...

Hi Everyone, Well, today marks four months since I started this column. Not exactly a milestone of achievement, except that I am happy to report that we are moving forward with CFCS programs that began before the pandemic.  I don’t know about you, but during the...

I just wanted to follow-up today’s town hall with a copy of the recording: CFCS National Town Hall April 7, 2020. John Miller was kind enough to break it into two recordings, the presentation by Dr. Jim Langley, followed by a recording of the Mass and my short...

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. As we begin Holy Week, we have heard many warnings that this will be a painful week during the pandemic due to the increasing loss of life. This is certainly a hard time for each of us, as we all know too well the personal...

I am not sure how many of you noticed that I didn’t send out a Day 16 message. The reason was that I became ill on Tuesday and had to stop everything and quarantine myself. I can’t tell you whether I have the coronavirus or not, but it changed everything in a matter...

I was struck this morning by the look of weariness that I saw on the face of staff as I had 20 people join me for a Zoom “coffee” meeting to start the week. I thought to myself, how do I bring a sense of hope to a team that looks out on the horizon and is bracing for...

For many of you, the workweek is coming to it’s Friday conclusion. After our town hall meeting yesterday, I thought it important to share a favorite quote from Prime Minister Winston Churchill who led Britain through World War II.  “The pessimist sees difficulty in...

Hi Everyone, My message today is shorter than usual. It struck me that we are going to be hearing a lot of bad and negative news over the next few days. First, the death toll in the US was the highest yet yesterday, and it will continue to rise daily over the next...

Hi Everyone, This week I have been talking about social connection and social solidarity. I am reminded of how important friends are. As events around us get stressful, I need to remind myself to focus on the positive and to do those things that will make some...

Hi Everyone, It is Friday afternoon on what has been an exhausting week for me and so many of you…It dawned on me that weekly communication to everyone in CFCS is not enough. We are going to try to increase this to daily communication for those who just want to feel a...

Hi Everyone, I wanted to let everyone know that I will be providing weekly communication about topics relating to the impact of the coronavirus to our work in Catholic cemeteries and funeral services around the United States. This message and others will be posted...

During our Mission Elevation Conference in Orlando, I announced that CFCS has received financial backing by a new organization called CFCS Capital (here is a link to my presentation called “Raising the Golden Goose…”).  For many, this announcement might sound like we...

Pope Francis has called on all of us to be a Church “capable of walking at people’s side, of doing more than simply listening to them; a Church which accompanies them on their journey; a Church able to make sense of the ‘night’ contained in the flight of so many of...

Here I am in the midst of my travels to San Juan, Puerto Rico. I started to think about our mission here at CFCS, and it has occurred to me that we have become a creator of hundreds of new jobs between our Pleasanton Resource Center and in the various dioceses within...