Bishop Zurek’s Profound Hope and Deliverer

Dear friends in Christ,

We find ourselves living in extremely challenging times. And yet we stand today with a profound sense of hope, in the vaccines that will be capable of delivering us from the darkness of the pandemic.

Bishop Patrick J. Zurek, 2021-2022 United Catholic Appeal Brochure Letter

It seems that things are returning to “normal” in the Diocese of Amarillo. The United Catholic Appeal (UCA) brochure has been printed and published in the latest edition of The West Texas Catholic along with the status of the 2020-2021 campaign showing that parishes owe the diocese $173,501 in “Quota”; and Bishop Zurek’s “Appeal” has a new slogan, “Abound in Hope”, because our deliverer, “the vaccines” are capable of helping him meet our “Quota”.

Bishop Zurek doesn’t seem to be afraid, as the disciples are in today’s Gospel when, “they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they began to be afraid.” Perhaps he should be!

Those same disciples, as Apostles, came to believe that Jesus was the one, “To deliver them”, as demonstrated in today’s first reading, when they exclaimed, “It is not right for us to neglect the word of God to…” collect a “Quota”. Realizing this they came up with a whole new system to tend to the needs of the early Catholic Church so that they could, “devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

For this 2021-2022 United Catholic Appeal I pray that Bishop Zurek, “unbounds” us from the “Quota” column, before the “Appeal” to “Abound in Hope” begins.