Oddwalk Ministries

Category: good news

To, or Through?

Hello all, Orin here.  I realized as I sat down to craft this week’s Jesus-Justice-Joy post that Shannon and I have been remiss in letting you know a bit of exciting news.  In addition to the book that will be coming out this July sometime, we’ve also both been writing new music, and incorporating some…

Oddwalk on the 2017 NCYC MainStage – Video

Late last year, Shannon and Orin had the privilege of “doing what we do” as Oddwalk Ministries on the MainStage of NCYC (the National Catholic Youth Conference). We had a chance to share (with the like 25,000 folks in Lucas Oil Stadium) a bit of humor as we introduced the new “Music and Message Stage” (which we then also emceed) and led a bit of prayer and song as a blessing over the NCYC Youth Ambassadors.

Hopefully, as you watch this video (below), you’ll appreciate some slightly embarrassing pictures of Orin’s youth, and not be able to tell at all just how desperately hard he had to work and concentrate just to say “Wabash West” correctly two times in a row. Enjoy!














Moust-Ash Wednesday

A number of our Jesus-Justice-Joy weekly reflections lately have focused on Joy, and this one will too.

“But,” you say, “Orin! How can that be? Lent begins this week.  Don’t you know that Lent is all sad and repentant and morose and sackcloth and ashes and other depressing things?”

Well, I know it’s Lent, yes, but Lent need not be those things, at least not overly so.  Indeed we ought to be repentant, and sad for our sinfulness.  And, further, knowing our sinfulness led Jesus to his suffering and death on the cross, well, sure, we can be sad and even grieve these things.

But to do so without also knowing there’s more to the story is to, in a sense, make an idol out of only one tiny facet of our faith.  We must always take our faith as a whole – it’s not like during Advent we forget for four weeks that Jesus did actually come to ransom captive Israel.  It’s not like during Lent we should remember only the repentance, the suffering, the death.  We should also, while celebrating these things, remember that there is new life that arises from these very same things – there is joy and even more celebrating to come.

Did you catch, there, that we “celebrate,” even in Lent?  It’s true.  There’s an expression, in Latin, that goes:

Lex orandi, lex credendi

Which is to say, in English: “The law of prayer is the law of belief.”  Even more simply, we pray what we believe, and we believe what we pray.  With that in mind, let’s turn to a prayer that we will hear and pray together very soon:

Each year you give us this joyful season when we prepare to celebrate the paschal mystery with mind and heart renewed. You give us a spirit of loving reverence for you, our Father, and of willing service to our neighbor. As we recall the great events that gave us new life in Christ, you bring the image of your Son to perfection within us.  (Preface for the 1st Sunday of Lent)

We pray that lent is a “joyful season” in which we prepare to “celebrate” the paschal mystery – Christ’s redemptive suffering, death, and resurrection.  And, as we ponder these things, we become more Christ-like through the power of God perfecting that image within us.

Wow.

So, I (Orin) have attached to this post an image.  This Wednesday, after our parish school’s 8th graders lead music ministry at one of our morning masses, I’ll be giving them each one of these – hopefully to remind them that Lent, which we should dive into whole-heartedly and intensely, is only one part of a broader story, a broader mystery, which as a whole tells us where we’ve come from, who we are now and who we should strive to be, and the future that awaits us all if we help each other grow in faith and holiness.

Blessings on our Lenten journeys this year, one and all.   Orin

The Joys of NCYC

It’s that every-other-year time again: the National Catholic Youth Conference (NCYC) is almost upon us. This is an amazing event of several great joys. Here are just a few:

1) Seeing 25,000 youth gathered in one place from all around the country (and beyond) is an amazing sign of the universality of the Church and a great witness of hope to our Church now and into the future;

2) Having even passing-in-the-hall moments to greet our peers in itinerant ministry is always a blessing;

3) This year we have the joy of ministering at 2 Masses, and partnering with the NFCYM in creating a new venue at NCYC, the Music and Message Stage. We’re very excited for this opportunity. We’re also grateful that we get to have our first moments on the MainStage in Lucas Oil Stadium – both to announce the new venue (in hopefully comedic fashion) and to offer a prayer and song of blessing over the youth ambassadors at the conference.

We’ve posted a graphic below in case you need to know where to find us at NCYC. Please some say hello and add to the joy of just a great event of faith! Orin