A Note From Father Eickhoff

February 2, 2025

I noticed last week that my subscription to Microsoft 365 (aka Microsoft Office) has been “enhanced” through the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). I also note that Microsoft sneakily raised the annual cost of the subscription by 30% at the same time as they “enhanced” their product. I admit I have given some thought as to how to use AI to write these bulletin articles. But that I will not do. To do so seems to me to be a betrayal of my duty to be a pastor to this parish and its parishioners. I was not ordained to simply have a dumb computer program proclaim Jesus Christ on my behalf. Furthermore, to use AI to write these bulletin articles creates, I think, a level of impersonal relationship between pastor and parishioners.

This situation does recall an important aspect of our relationship with God. That is, we are known to God by name, and we are called by God to a relationship with Him by name. Too often in our modern society we are known to others only by our job description or title, or our Social Security Number, or some username. We are blips on a computer screen or some entry in a spreadsheet to other people. Our modern society can be a very impersonal environment to live in. We all know and recognize this situation in all aspects of our society. An example of this recognition is the forced familiarity that many businesses adopt when they want to address you by your first name from the very beginning of a conversation. They may want to call you by your first name to create the illusion of a close relationship, but we all know that to that customer service employee you will always be just a username or customer number. Just another customer entry in a database spoken to by a person who will never think of you as a unique individual.

God does not work this way. The scriptures proclaim that we are known personally by God. We are called by our name – not in the forced way of modern “customer service” – but rather by the same God who is our creator, who knows us better then we know ourselves. Indeed, God knows us so well that the scriptures note that God knows “every hair on our heads” – admittedly easier for God to count for some people than others. This passage in scripture need not be taken literally, but rather as a figurative demonstration of how deep God’s knowledge of us goes. We are never just a spreadsheet entry or a name in a database to God. Rather, God knows us on a deep personal level. It is this personal knowledge that is so rare in today’s world; and it is this personal touch that makes our need for a close relationship with God all the more important in today’s world.

Yours in Christ,

Fr. Stephen Eickhoff
Pastor