a diverse community united as disciples of Christ 

Staff Member: Fr. Jim Liekhus

Staff Member: Fr. Jim Liekhus

Fr. Jim Liekhus

Pastor
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Hello Assumption!

My name is Fr. Jim Liekhus, and I’m very excited to be your next pastor. Though I haven’t had the pleasure of visiting you before, I’ve heard a lot about you from Fr. Mike, as well as from Fr. Mike Tix and even from Fr. Ralph Goman, who was my predecessor at St. John’s in Hopkins. It seems many fine priests have had the privilege of being your pastor, and I hope I can live up to that standard.

I am looking forward to getting to know you and the parish’s personality, once we are able to gather in large groups again. A little bit about me – I was born in north Minneapolis and attended St. Anne’s elementary school, though our home parish was St. Olaf’s. I went to Benilde-St. Margaret’s, then right to seminary at St. Thomas. I was ordained in 2005, spent three years as the parochial vicar at Nativity of our Lord in St. Paul, and then twelve years as pastor in Hopkins, first at St. John’s, then St. Joseph’s as well, which merged into St. Gabriel’s during my time there. I have some experience with guiding two parishes through the process of sharing a pastor for the first time, so hopefully I can learn from my mistakes in Hopkins and make all new mistakes in Richfield.

All joking aside, I know you would prefer to have a pastor who is exclusively at Assumption. What parish wouldn’t? All we can do is make the best of the situation, and make sure we stay focused on our mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ. Are we growing deeper in love with Jesus every day? Are we passing on our faith to our children at Blessed Trinity and in our faith formation? Are we going outside our own walls and sharing our faith so that others can encounter the Risen Lord as we have? Those are the questions that ultimately must occupy our minds as disciples of Christ, even as we get used to this new structure.

Please know I have been praying for you, even before I knew where my next assignment would be. Please pray for me as we work out our salvation together.

Fr. Liekhus
(pronounced LICK-iss)

P.S. If you peek over at St. Richard’s bulletin, you’ll see largely the same message.

I will do my very best to make sure you are both hearing the same thing at the same time. Plus, it’s a lot less work for me to just replace “St. Richard’s” for “Assumption” and hit send.

Photo of Fr. Jim Liekhus