Father Christopher is accompanied in this video by his great niece and nephew, Morgan and Kellen Offermann. Their parents, Erin and Olaf, are there, too, looking on. Father’s family had joined him and the Friars at the Monastery for their annual St. Anthony celebration. Father engages the children in his homily, emphasizing that Jesus Commissioning of the Apostles is for them, too, and what it might mean for them.
“When Jesus sees people troubled and abandoned, He identifies with them. His heart goes out to them. This is the prophetic “sigh,” the profound grief at the suffering condition of God’s good creation, a gut-wrenching sense that what Jesus is seeing shouldn’t be.”
https://www.secularfranciscansusa.org/2026/06/the-gospel-through-a-franciscan-lens-11th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-fr-christopher-2/