Editor’s note: Bishop Kevin J. Farrell has started blogging. Following are his first three entries. To follow his blogs, log onto www.cathdal.org.

If St. Paul were alive today, he would have a Blackberry, a laptop and a blog . . . no doubt about it. Paul was a communicator, one of the greatest, and he made the best possible use of the communication tools available to him in his day. He kept in touch with his people.

So I have become a blogger.

Bishops today need to remember the lessons from St. Paul on keeping in touch with their people. Blogging offers the opportunity to use today’s technology to better serve the Church of Dallas in fulfilling the threefold responsibilities of a Bishop . . . to teach, to govern and to sanctify.

Blogging offers the opportunity to shine the light of the Gospel and the teachings of the Church on current events and to do so instantaneously. It will be accessible by means of a link on the Diocese of Dallas Web site at www.cathdal.org.

Communication must be two-way to be successful, so readers will have an opportunity to express their views to me through the blog. This is not a question and answer forum, so comments will not be responded to directly, but they will all be read and considered.

When Solomon was offered any gift he desired by God, he chose an understanding heart. Hopefully this blog will be a means of promoting understanding in a world where thoughtful deliberation is often drowned out by the voices of chaos. Steven Covey, in his best-selling book, Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, wisely suggests that we should "seek first to understand, then to be understood."

May this blog become a channel of understanding in the service of God and His Church.

There is something very refreshing about beginning a New Year. It is a time of promise, a time of challenge, a time of opportunity.
In the liturgical cycle the Church recognizes the new beginning by celebrating in early January the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, an event that marked the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.
Our custom of New Year’s resolutions grew out of the opportunity we are given to start over, to push our "reset button" and begin anew to form ourselves more closely to the image of Christ. In a sense, Christ is like a mirror that reflects our image alongside the image of Christ. By comparing the two, we see what needs to be changed to bring our image closer to His.
The New Year is an opportunity to stop avoiding looking in the mirror and face up to changing our image.

— Posted By + Kevin Farrell at 12/19/2009 04:21:00 PM

As the nations of the world struggled to find agreement and a solution to global warming and the devastation that it is wreaking, I couldn’t help but recall the words of St. Paul in his Letter to the Romans "We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now." Rom:8:22.

Paul sees creation as struggling for redemption and sharing in the fallen state of humanity and that, with us, "creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God."

Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI directly addressed the issue in his New Year’s World Day of Peace message when he called for "a cosmic vision of peace," explaining "respect for creation is of immense consequence," not least because "creation is the beginning and the foundation of all God’s works",[1] and its preservation has now become essential for the pacific coexistence of mankind."

In his message Pope Benedict linked the need for reconciliation among nations to reconciliation with creation and ultimately reconciliation with God, a connection first made in the Genesis creation account. (Gen 3:17-19)

Clearly we are called to stewardship of creation not domination and demolition.