DISCIPLE: A Q&A with Father Park

Note: This article, from the May-June 2022 issue of the DISCIPLE newsletter, is an edited version of a conversation between Father Brian Park and Communications Manager Jim Thorp in late May of 2022. If you are not currently receiving DISCIPLE in the mail, call the parish office at 763-497-2745 to register as a parishioner or update your contact information!

Pictured at right: Father Park celebrates the ninth anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood at the River Inn in Hanover in May. Photo courtesy of Ministry Coordinator Cindy Woitalla.

You arrived a little more than two years ago. How’s the transition been for you, and how are you spending your time?

Father Brian Park: I mean, it’s been great. I love being here at St. Michael—I want the archbishop just to forget about me for the next 30 years!
I spend most of my time just doing day-to-day priestly stuff—sacraments; working with staff; meeting with individuals, spouses and families, engaged couples; a lot of email and phone calls. That’s often the meat of my day, along with my prayer life, of course. I spend a lot of time in prayer each day.

In terms of priorities, the four main things I’m often praying for are the building project, the historic church, the possibility of a Catholic high school, and our painting project. I pray for blessings on the building project, that all goes well—for safety for the workers, for completion on time, and for the money we need to pay for it. And I pray for discernment on how best to use our historic church. I love it and would love to keep it in some fashion. But how best can we use it as a community? There is a cost, obviously, to keep up the building, as well as major capital improvements that need to be made. 

A Catholic high school is another big question. The recent exploratory survey shows the demand is there, and I would love to have a regional Catholic high school in this area. So we’re looking at all options: partnering with Holy Spirit Academy (HSA) in Monticello to expand their school, starting something new in partnership with HSA and other local parishes, or even just expanding our own school over time to be preK-12. That’s where the discernment comes in, in our own community and with the archdiocese and HSA. 

With the painting project in the nave of the church, I’m praying that we can do some of the additional items, and that all goes well and on time. We have a tight, three-month window to get it all done. And we’re hoping to complete some other needed improvements at the same time: redoing the lighting in the church while we have scaffolding set up, and as soon as they’re done painting, we hope to put in new carpet before we reopen the space for Holy Week.

Clearly you love Catholic education. What’s your vision for the future of St. Michael Catholic School and how does that relate to exploring a Catholic high school?

Father Park: The vision for our preK-8 school is to have a new school on our church campus. That’s the dream. Personally, I would love to have a school that’s big enough to fit three sections per grade, preschool through eighth grade, so we can have 75 or so kids per grade. Right now, almost every grade has a waiting list—and a lot of families don’t even bother putting themselves on the waiting list. I think we could fill three sections per grade.

For that to happen, we have to focus on finishing and paying for our current project. We raised a little over half of the cost of this project, and those pledges go through 2023. If everyone is faithful to their pledges, a year and a half from now, we’ll have paid for over half of the project. Then it’s a matter of doing some more fundraising to pay for the second half of the project, hopefully in a short period of time, so we can ramp up for a big campaign to build a new school. 

In terms of a Catholic high school in this area, we’re in the infancy of that conversation. I think all options are on the table regarding what that could look like. It’s so early on, it’s hard to have any answers. How soon do we need a high school? How do we discern that with the community? And none of this means we need to build a high school. What if we could ramp up a high school in existing space sooner rather than later?

No one’s got a crystal ball. You can talk about hopes and dreams, which are important things, but at the end of the day, we have to discern one step at a time. 

Talk a little about what discernment looks like for major decisions like these.

Father Park: A big part of the discernment is getting feedback from people, even people who disagree. I find that one of the best ways to discern the Holy Spirit’s movement is through group discussion and conversation. Rarely in the chapel, praying by myself, do I get a clear word from the Lord. In my experience, discernment best happens in a community of believers who come together to pray and then have conversation that is open, honest, and charitable. Asking questions, getting feedback—that’s when the Holy Spirit’s able to guide us on the path He desires for us. 

We have a new priest coming this month, Father Connor McGinnis. How did that come about, and what will that mean for our parish?

Father Park: I requested a full-time associate from the archdiocese. It’s hard for Father Joe to have to go back and forth—to be the 
full-time priest at St. Albert and still be the associate here. We need a third priest to serve this community of Catholics. 

One change will be offering more Masses. Starting in July, we’ll have a weekly Wednesday evening Mass and a weekly Saturday morning Mass, as well as some additional availability for Confession. We’re adding Confession on Wednesday evening with that new Mass, and we’ll have two priests hearing Confessions more often.

We added another Sunday Mass back in December 2020, and for one priest to do three Masses every Sunday is exhausting. With Father McGinnis here, he can do two and I can do two, which will be better for our physical and emotional health. The Church is wise to limit the number of Masses a priest can say on any given day. There really is a spiritual draining that happens when you say three Masses every Sunday. 

You’ve also shared that some of the more fruitful things you do are outside of the day-to-day life of the parish. What do you mean by that?

Father Park: The word encounter is huge for me. Why do people not live their faith? Why do so many baptized and confirmed Catholics have a lukewarm faith or abandon the Church? Fundamentally, there’s not a desire to follow Christ. That initial conversion, from ‘I have little to no desire to follow Christ’ to ‘I want to go to Mass; I want to be faithful; I hunger to know God,’ can happen quickly through an experience like a retreat. It can occur at Sunday Mass, too, but most of the time it doesn’t. 

That’s why things like Extreme Faith Camp matter: Let’s get the young people away from their normal life and immerse them in a culture in which prayer, praise and worship, the Mass, and Adoration are central. That’s why things like the Awakening Retreat and the Welcome Retreat matter, why we’re doing the Marian Bus Pilgrimage again in October, and why we’re starting to schedule mission trips and international pilgrimages now that travel is opening up again. All these things pull people away from their daily lives to focus on nothing but God.

In the last issue, you said we are always advancing. If things go well, what does our parish look like in 10 years? And where do you find the energy?

Father Park: You asked me earlier about my priorities, and I mentioned four things that I’m often praying about. But really, those are practical priorities. My top priority always is the salvation of souls—that every single person who comes here would be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ. That’s what I’m thinking about at night when I’m lying in my bed and can’t sleep: How do we evangelize a parish?

At the end of the day, having a big building is nice. But if we’re not leading people to heaven, what’s the point? What’s the point of having a beautifully painted church if it’s not helping attract more people to come to know and love Jesus? 

I would like us to continue to be a parish on fire for Jesus Christ—more and more people faithfully living out the gospel in their lives, more people joining the Church every year, more young people encountering Christ through youth ministry programs and Catholic education. I hope we’re doing more to serve the poor in our area and even beyond.

The way I would put it is, “Come join our joy.” The one thing that every human heart longs for is joy, and we’ve found this joy in the Lord and in community with one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. So we invite people to come join our joy—the joy that only Jesus Christ brings. 
And it’s the Holy Spirit that drives us. It’s all Him. I can’t convert anybody’s heart. I can’t change anybody’s mind. All I can do is tell them. That’s how God works. The longer I’m a priest, the more the parable of the sower and the seed really speaks to me. The sower scatters seeds in the most imprudent way. He just throws seed everywhere. But it shows the extravagant love of God, right? I’m going to throw seed everywhere, on people whose hearts are so hardened they may never repent. I’m gonna throw seeds there anyway and pray that some will land on good soil and bear fruit. But I can’t make a seed grow. Only the Holy Spirit can do that, with the cooperation of the person. 

St. Augustine said, “To fall in love with God is the greatest of all romance, to seek Him the greatest adventure, to find Him the greatest human achievement.” You will never be disappointed in giving your life to Jesus Christ. It’s not going to be easy, but you’ll never be disappointed!