On Saturday, my Uncle Michael asked those gathered at St. John of the Cross Church in Middlebury, CT:

“When Brian, Jr. turns fifteen what is he going to need to know?”

“How will we know that we’ve done our job?”

After a pregnant pause, he added, “As long as he knows the God is head over heals in love with him, we’ll know we’ve done our part in sharing the gift of Faith.”

After becoming a deacon several years ago my uncle’s focus has shifted to the work around his home parish of St. John of the Cross, but I know he’s always been passionate about serving in the prison system throughout Connecticut.  His stories of the incarcerated, both redeemed and those yet to be, are a source of entertainment and awe.

The Catholic Church continues to receive her fair share of criticism, sometimes on target and other times baseless, but after my uncle finished baptizing his grandson, Brian Jr., he exclaimed with a big smile, “Here’s the Church’s newest member, and our Church just got better.”