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Hello people of St. Richard!
My name is Fr. Jim Liekhus, and I’m very excited to be your next pastor. A number of you have already reached out to welcome me to your parish, which lines up perfectly with what Fr. Mark has told me about you: you are very welcoming. And chatty. Fr. Mark calling other people “chatty” is saying something.
I am looking forward to getting to know you and the parish’s personality, once we are able to gather in large groups again. A little bit about me – I was born in north Minneapolis and attended St. Anne elementary school, though our home parish was St. Olaf. I went to Benilde-St. Margaret, then right to seminary at St. Thomas. I was ordained in 2005, spent three years as the parochial vicar at Nativity of our Lord in St. Paul, and then twelve years as pastor in Hopkins, first at St. John, then St. Joseph as well, which merged into St. Gabriel during my time there. I have some experience with guiding two parishes through the process of sharing a pastor for the first time, so hopefully I can learn from my mistakes in Hopkins and make all new mistakes in Richfield.
All joking aside, I know you would prefer to have a pastor who is exclusively at St. Richard. What parish wouldn’t? All we can do is make the best of the situation, and make sure we stay focused on our mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ. Are we growing deeper in love with Jesus every day? Are we passing on our faith to our children at Blessed Trinity and in our faith formation? Are we going outside our own walls and sharing our faith so that others can encounter the Risen Lord as we have? Those are the questions that ultimately must occupy our minds as disciples of Christ, even as we get used to this new structure.
Please know I have been praying for you, even before I knew where my next assignment would be. Please pray for me as we work out our salvation together.
Fr. Liekhus
(pronounced LICK-iss)
P.S. If you peek over at Assumption’s bulletin, you’ll see largely the same message. I will do my very best to make sure you are both hearing the same thing at the same time. Plus it’s a lot less work for me to just replace “Assumption” for “St. Richard” and hit send.
