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St. Francis Xavier Petoskey
(opens in a new tab)This is the official Facebook page for St. Francis Xavier Church in Petoskey, Michigan.
I am happy to announce that the new parish and school websites were launched today and are now live!
A great thank-you to everyone who supported this project. It has been a long journey for all of us, and I greatly appreciate all the support, hard work, and labor of love that each of you put into making this project a success.
A special thank-you to the Diocesan Publication Team, Greg, Sierra, and the parish and school offices. It truly was a wonderful team effort, and I am grateful for everyone’s contributions along the way.
Thank you all, and have a wonderful Labor Day weekend!
God’s blessings to you all!
Fr Peter
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Yesterday, we gathered at SFX Parish Hall and Church for a special presentation by the Omnibus Company, the team responsible for the restoration of our beautiful stained-glass windows.
The stained-glass windows were installed around 1915, while our church was built in 1903. These remarkable windows are truly of museum quality and are an important part of the history and beauty of our parish.
A heartfelt thank-you to everyone who attended and to all those who helped organize this wonderful event. We are also deeply grateful to everyone who donated toward the restoration of these treasured windows. Your generosity has helped preserve them for generations to come.
Looking ahead, one of our future restoration projects will be the pipe organ. More information about this important project will be coming soon.
Thank you all for your continued support of SFX Parish and our efforts to preserve its history and beauty
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What Are You Gaining—and What Are You Losing?
“What are you gaining—and what are you losing?”
We live in a world that constantly tells us to gain more: more money, more success, more recognition, more comfort, more possessions, more followers. None of these things is necessarily bad. The danger comes when they become the measure of our lives.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus asks a powerful question:
“What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?”
Jesus is asking us to look beyond worldly success and ask a deeper question: What is happening to my soul? Am I becoming closer to God, or am I slowly moving away from him?
Think about Saint Francis Xavier. He was intelligent, talented, and ambitious. He had the possibility of achieving great success and recognition. But his friend, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, repeatedly challenged him with the words of Jesus: “What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?”
Those words gradually changed Francis. He realized that worldly success could never satisfy the deepest hunger of his heart. He chose Christ over prestige and comfort and eventually gave his life to missionary service.
Francis discovered that the greatest gain in life is not gaining the world; it is gaining Christ.
Jesus tells us, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”
Each of us has a cross. It may be a difficult relationship, illness, loneliness, financial hardship, family responsibilities, disappointment, or the loss of someone we love. Sometimes the cross is simply forgiving someone, caring for another person, or remaining faithful when life becomes difficult.
Our crosses are different, but Jesus gives us the same invitation: “Follow me.”
We can also think of people like Saint Monica, who carried the cross of persistent prayer; Saint Teresa of Calcutta, who carried the cross of loving service to the poorest; Blessed Óscar Romero, who courageously stood with the poor and spoke the truth; and Martin Luther King Jr., who faced hatred, threats, imprisonment, and ultimately gave his life while working for justice and human dignity.
Their lives remind us that following what is right often requires sacrifice.
So we need to ask ourselves: What are we gaining—and what are we losing?
We can gain success and lose our peace.
We can gain possessions and lose our generosity.
We can gain recognition and lose our humility.
We can gain comfort and lose our willingness to sacrifice.
And we can gain the whole world and lose our soul.
At the end of our lives, what will matter most will not be how much we owned, how successful we were, or how many people knew our name. What will matter is whether we loved, whether we forgave, whether we served, and whether we remained faithful to Christ.
Jesus does not promise us a life without crosses. But he promises that when we carry our crosses with him, they can become a path to deeper love and new life.
So today, let us take seriously the question Jesus places before us:
What am I gaining—and what am I losing?
May we have the courage to let go of whatever takes us away from God, to carry our crosses with faith, and to choose Christ above everything else.
Because in the end, the greatest thing we can gain is Christ—and in him, we gain true life.
Amen
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