Walking Daily with Jesus A Mission Born from a Wound

UtahMission.com was not born from strategy, branding, or ambition.

It was born from a wound.

Long before there was a website, a Facebook page, or a daily Gospel post, there was a quiet ache that never fully left me—a question that followed me through childhood, grief, faith, doubt, and return:
How does a person keep walking with God when life breaks open in ways that never quite close again?

At its heart, Utah Mission exists for one simple reason:
to help people walk daily with Jesus.
Not occasionally. Not only in moments of crisis.
But in the ordinary, often unnoticed rhythm of each day.

Christianity is not first an argument to win, a position to defend, or an identity to perform.
It is a relationship.
A life lived in communion with Christ—listening to His voice, receiving His mercy, and learning how to live with one another by living first in Him.

This is the core of the Christian faith.
And it is the heart of this mission.

Each morning, the Gospel is placed before the reader—not as content to consume, but as an invitation to pause.
An invitation to let Christ speak before the noise begins.
To carry His voice into ordinary life.

There is no debate there.
No commentary meant to divide.
Only the daily rhythm of the Church—
Christ proclaimed, Christ received, Christ lived.

Utah Mission lives on Facebook by intention, in a way that has become rare.
It is a space kept free from argument, political reaction, and division.
Not because truth is avoided, but because the Gospel does not need to compete.
Scripture is allowed to speak for itself.

In a world shaped by outrage and endless response, many return each morning not to argue, but simply to walk—if only briefly—with Jesus.

If someone finds themselves returning day after day,
then the mission is already bearing fruit.

A Room, a Father, and a Wound
When I was eight years old, I stood in a small, dimly lit room with my father and my grandfather.

A soft yellow light hung over my mother, who had just taken her own life.

That room has never left me.
It lives deep within my soul.

My father was only twenty-eight. He had made mistakes—many of them.
Eight years later, what became my mother’s final, tragic act was also, perhaps, her inability to forgive him.
That final lack of forgiveness cost us everything.

I do not write this to assign blame.
I write it because wounds that go unspoken often become prisons, not only for those who carry them, but for those who inherit them.

My heart goes out to all the beautiful souls who, despite their failures, find the courage to get back up, face the pain they’ve caused, and ask to be forgiven.
And to those who have been wounded by others yet still choose forgiveness—I see you. I pray for you. I walk beside you.

To my mother and father, to my family and friends, to those I have let down—I carry a room for each of you in my heart.
Even for those who cannot ask for forgiveness, or cannot yet give it, there is still a place.
A sacred space where the cold clarity of this world begins to thaw in the presence of Christ.

Because above all, there is God.

Through Jesus, we are shown a new way to live—with each other and for each other—if we first live in Him.
Peace and victory in Jesus are near to every soul.
No one should ever give up on life, or on one another, no matter how heavy the burden may feel.

Getting to know the Gospel—getting to know Jesus—opens a colossal door for those in deepest need.
If only they would give Him a chance.
If only they would open that door.

A Garden, a Grandpa, and Grace
One beautiful spring Sunday morning in rural Sacramento, I was heading to church with my grandmother and brother. Before we left, I went to find my grandfather—my anchor—to ask him why he wasn’t coming with us.

He mattered to me deeply.
Not just because he spoke to me when others didn’t, or shared peanuts with me while staring at the stars, but because he stood with me in that room.
That awful room.

I remember him putting his arm around me and telling me it was okay to cry.
He cried too.

My father didn’t say much—what could he say?
But even in silence, he was there. And he was welcome.

Sometime after my mother’s death, I found my grandfather in his garden and asked him why he didn’t go to church.

He replied simply, “I’m just not good enough, Richy.”

I was stunned.
If he wasn’t good enough, then neither was I.
So I stopped going.

That garden became my church.
And my grandfather’s love—steady, quiet, faithful—reached me in ways I could not yet name.

When I was sixteen, my grandfather suffered a stroke.
A week later, he asked me to help him into the garden.
He pulled just one weed.
Then we staggered back into the house.

The next day, he was gone.

I would not understand until much later that grace had been speaking to me long before I had words for it.

The Cross and Coming Home
Thirty-two years and many struggles later, my Catholic faith brought me back—mysteriously, gently, insistently—to that same room where my mother had laid.

Over time, I came to understand this truth:
we will not find a home, a church, or a place on earth that protects us from sin.
The Church is not a refuge from imperfection—it is a battlefield.
And at its center stands the Great Physician.
At its heart is forgiveness.

In that room, under that same soft yellow light—where pain once swallowed peace—I came to know true peace.

Because from that room, there is a hallway.
It leads to the heart of every home and to the soul of every person.
And in that room stands a cross.

At the foot of that cross, you want to bring everyone you’ve ever loved—or hated.
Everyone you’ve hurt, and everyone who has hurt you.
You gather them all there and take a long, honest look at what Christ has done—and is still doing—for each of us.

The cross divides heaven and earth.
On one side stands a crucified Savior, pierced by a beam of soft yellow light—a path of hope for the lost.
On the other shines the brilliant light of God, exposing the pit from which we are saved.

This is not an abstract idea.
It is a lived reality.

Original Sin, Original Blessing
Somehow, original sin—that deep inner anguish and brokenness, even beyond our own doing—can become the very place where we encounter our original blessing.

Our broken fathers, our limited mothers, our wounded families, and our own inner struggles give birth to a hunger for something beyond the pain.
“My soul is restless,” St. Augustine wrote, “until it rests in You.”

When we begin to know God’s intimacy, and when we learn to accept others—and ourselves—as we are, we begin to speak of a holy paradox: a “happy brokenness.”
Our struggles become the very path to truth, to light, to life.

How could we ever become children of God—embraced by the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—if God had not shown us compassion in our brokenness?

It is through Jesus’ incarnation that we come to know the inner life of God.
And it is in our fragile, mortal flesh that His original blessing is revealed.

A Daily Invitation
Utah Mission exists to offer this truth quietly, faithfully, and daily.

Each morning, the Gospel is shared exactly as the Church proclaims it—without division, without commentary meant to provoke, without agenda.
Just Christ speaking to His people.

For some, it is the first moment of stillness in the day.
For others, a return.
For some, a beginning they did not know they were ready for.

You are welcome to pause.
You are welcome to reflect.
You are welcome to walk daily with Jesus.

For the full Holy Mass readings of the day, visit:
https://bible.usccb.org/

To walk with us daily in the Gospel, visit:
www.utahmission.com

— Utah Mission