By Kevin Shook

My wife, Dawn, and I moved to Liberty Township from the Washington, D.C. suburbs in 2017. Dawn and I met in January 2004 while serving in the Virginia Army National Guard. Our unit was preparing to deploy to Mosul, Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. This was at a point in my life when I was a single dad, with two young children that I was leaving behind, and I was feeling lost and full of self-pity. I had lost sight of God. Dawn was a practicing Catholic who converted to the faith in 1999. She asked me to join her in attending Sunday Mass and, being in a war zone, I felt that I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Going back to Mass gave me comfort and hope and it released the burden of my problems.

By Kevin and Jane Rowland

Kevin and I have thought a lot about suffering since his ALS diagnosis in 2019.  Everybody struggles with some form of pain and suffering during the course of their lives, even if carrying those burdens might feel wholly personal and solitary. God the Father, the Author of life itself, permits the brokenness of the world even though it is not part of His perfect will for His beloved creation.

So how do we understand the personal struggles in our own lives?  Kevin and I frequently find ourselves turning to Jesus and saying, "Now what?  What are we supposed to do with this, the endless itching or the burning tears or the nagging cough?" Yet we hear Mother Mary, like at the wedding in Cana, implore us to "Do whatever He tells you." 

By Joe & Amy Leach

Our journey to St. Max has been unexpected, full of twists, turns, and beautiful surprises. Just seven months ago, we were parishioners at a church closer to our home, with no thought of leaving.

My husband and I are creatures of habit, comfortable where we were. I was deeply involved in parish life—as a lector, a member of the parish council, an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion, and in many other ways. Our parish was small and close-knit, a community we considered family.

I was reminded in prayer, just before my exposure to toxic mold in April, that when we are new in our faith, the Lord often gives us a clear path, allowing us to see where He is calling us. Over time, He calls us into deeper, unknown places, where we must trust Him. I shuddered. I knew from experience that these deeper calls often lead to the cross.

By Barry Hamlin

I was blessed to grow up in a loving, Christian home with my parents and two sisters. We faithfully attended our local Southern Baptist church each Sunday. It was there that I learned that Jesus died for me, rose again, and wanted to be the Lord of my life. I followed Him in Baptism and later accepted Him as Lord and Savior. I’ll be forever grateful for my upbringing in that Baptist church.

As I grew older, I prayed to meet a good Christian woman to become my wife. While that happened for me, the surprising part was that Annette was a cradle Catholic. Living as a two-church family presented its challenges, but we did so while raising three wonderful children in the Catholic Church. In April 2021, we celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary while still attending two different churches.

By Fr. Jesús Salinas

When I look back at my journey towards the priesthood I am always amazed at God’s plan. He can do amazing things through anyone and anything – the only thing that He asks from each one of us is to keep our eyes fixed on the finish line. I very much enjoy running, but especially running in a race because that’s where all the pains and sacrifices of your training will pay off. The key thing for me is to remember why I am running, what’s the real motivation and where am I heading: I am heading towards the finish line, I want to receive that prize, that big medal. In order to achieve that, perseverance is a key virtue. All of us are called to finish the race well, to cross the finish line strong and full of joy because we have persevered in our calling.

By Deacon Mike Lippman

When I was a teenager, all the vocation talks I heard from our catechism teachers seemed to tell young boys that if God was calling you, then you had to become a priest. If God didn’t call, then you get married and have kids and hopefully one of them will be a priest. Not wanting to miss God’s call, and disappoint God in any way, I enrolled in a Franciscan high school seminary. During my last year of high school seminary, one of the priest teachers, a very somber man, left the priesthood. He had coasted from Catholic grade school through to the priesthood without truly discerning his calling. (P.S. I met this ex-priest twenty-plus years later and he was an incredibly joyful husband and father of four!) I didn’t want the same thing to happen to me.

By Karen Borgemenke

Saint Josemaría Escrivá, while at speaking engagements, would take questions. While answering questions related to vocations, he would often inquire if the person was married. If so, he would then ask the spouse’s name, saying something like, “David, you have a divine vocation and it has a name: Karen.”

Marriage is a beautiful sacrament and holy vocation; that free, faithful, and fruitful union of a man and a woman along with God. God’s perfect plan and purpose for Dave, and for me, is His desire for us to grow in holiness each day, and grow each other in holiness. God desires each one of us back with him one day for all eternity.

By Sarah and Matt Lewis

When we first sat down to write about our marriage, we couldn’t help but chuckle- what do we know about marriage? We were basically still kids when we got married, what could we possibly share? Marriage is really hard. It’s hard for two imperfect people to continue to choose each other every day when life is so complicated and you’re growing up and getting older while navigating a difficult world. It’s hard work, but you get little reminders from God that He has given you each for this journey.

By Evelyn Cullen

In July of 2018, 2-3 days after Fr. Jim arrived in the parish, he was scheduled to visit my husband who had Alzheimer’s Disease. Shortly before the visit occurred, my husband swallowed a substance that could have been harmful to him. I called Fr. Jim and let him know what was happening with my husband. He said he would be there in 5 minutes.

By an Anonymous St. Max Parishioner

Our family has attended St Max since the mid-1990s. In the beginning, our homeschooling family met  with many other homeschoolers from the eastern Butler County area at St Max for social, academic, and  religious activities. My husband, Andrew, was the only homeschooling dad in the group. Fortunately, my  job allowed me to work a flexible schedule, so I could attend a lot of the homeschool functions. We felt  blessed to have many supportive families who were all striving to raise their children with a strong faith.

By Zach and Amanda Hinger

Our family’s relationship to St. Max has been a constant thread that has tied together the most important parts of our lives both individually and as a family. It would not be exaggerating to say that we would not be the people we are and wouldn’t even be a family without the Church and specifically the parish of St. Max and its community.

By an Anonymous St. Max Family

Each day in our house, we are thankful for two courageous women who chose life.

In 1966, Sean’s* birth mother found herself single and pregnant. His birth father was unsupportive yet she made the brave decision to bring him into the world. Her choice gave us the gift of Sean’s life.

Sean spent the first part of his life in foster care before being adopted. So, when it came time to grow our family, we always knew adoption through foster care would be part of our path.

By Matthew Bare

Hello, my name is Matthew Bare, and I have been a parishioner at St. Max my whole life. I am blessed to be involved in youth ministry (here, at Bergamo, and St. Ignatius), altar serving, Exodus 90, and the Newman Center at Miami University. Many of my friends and I are in a period of vocational discernment.

By an Anonymous St. Max Parishioner

I’ve been a parishioner at St. Maximilian Kolbe Parish for about 4 years. I’m so grateful for the consistent and persistent opportunities to learn about my faith and grow in it. At some point, I became aware of instructions given from the priest at the altar to parishioners receiving their First Holy Communion. Amidst the instructions were words similar to “… give your heart to Jesus as He gives His Heart to you.”

By Nathan Forsthoefel

I stepped off the train in northern Virginia after traveling back north from Focus missionary training in Ave Maria Florida. Having not participated in a mission trip since the early 2000’s, I did not know what to expect. In the early 2000’s, my father and I traveled with our parish, St. Maximilian Kolbe, to West Liberty, Kentucky to lend a hand replacing a family’s deck and accessibility ramp that had been destroyed during a storm the previous year.

By Cindy Muron

Four years ago I met a young 38 year old man named Ryan in the hospital, where I was working as a palliative care nurse. Ryan was just told he only had a few weeks to live that morning by his oncologist. He has been battling stage IV colon cancer for several years. He was suffering from widespread intractable pain and I was asked to see him to help manage his pain. I walked into a dark room, Ryan was curled up in a fetal position in the bed. My heart was filled with compassion.

By The Brunsman Family

One of the most beautiful ways God manifested Himself to us was on June 1, 2023, at the burial of our precious baby, Karol, at Gate of Heaven Cemetery. Beautifully officiated by Fr. Jesús, and surrounded by friends and family, we received some consolation through the service. For the reading, we chose Isaiah 35:4, “Thus says the LORD: Say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong, fear not! Here is your God, he comes with vindication; with divine recompense he comes to save you.”

By Debbie Lackey

My name is Debbie Lackey and I am the mother of two adult sons, Jeremy and Tyler. My oldest son, Jeremy, had started in his RCIA program in 2021. As his mother, a believer in God but not really committed to attending church or choosing any denomination, I was thrilled with his journey into the Catholic faith and supported him by driving him to and from church every Sunday.

Jeremy fell gravely ill in April of 2022 and I was terrified that I was going to lose my son.

By Abigail & Michael Bambrick

When I first got pregnant in 2014, I had just turned 30 and still wasn’t sure if I ever wanted kids. As with many things in life, God had a different plan for my life than what I had expected at that time. I can’t clearly remember my initial thought after seeing those two pink lines on the first pregnancy test but I did take four more pregnancy tests just to be extra sure. Our former view of what this stage of life should look like was so different than this.

By An Anonymous St. Max Family

These are words I felt God speaking to me in the midst of the pandemic, pregnant with my second child, and undergoing another Hyperemisis Gravidarum pregnancy. There were hopes it would be different this time and many prayers for healing, yet I found myself at the foot of the Cross in the same way yet again. This time it would be different.