What Happens When a Priest Stops Fighting the Holy Spirit?

SJE
13 minutes ago
4 min read

Father Sammie Maletta shares

The Dance You Can't Win — And Why That's Good News

Father Sammie Maletta will be the first to tell you: he didn't want to write this book.

For years, priests, bishops, and friends urged him to put his leadership principles and personal growth stories on paper. He resisted. Then, eventually, as tends to happen when the Holy Spirit is involved, he ends up saying yes!

Father Maletta describes his involvement with the Holy Spirit as a dance. One in which the Spirit always leads. And the Spirit always wins.

That surrender, humble, hard-won, and deeply honest, is exactly what his new book is about.

Eight Principles Born From Real Life — Including the Failures

Be Disciples, Make Disciples: Eight Leadership Principles to Build a Spirit-Driven, Vision-Focused Parish draws on Father Maletta's decades of ministry at St. John the Evangelist Parish in St. John, Indiana. But don't expect a polished highlight reel.

"You have to look honestly at yourself, admit your mistakes," he told the more than 500 people gathered for his book launch on March 4. "And then renewal will take place."

He even has the word for it: metanoia — a change of heart. A cultural shift, starting right in the pews. The eight principles aren't theories. They are fruits, things learned along the way, sometimes through getting it wrong.

The Mission Was Always There — He Just Opened the Bible

At some point, every parish has to ask itself: why do we exist? Father Maletta went praying for the answer and found it in Matthew 28:19.

"Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

There it was, simple and clear. Stay on task and rely on the Holy Spirit.

He is not seeking a change in dogma, nor dismissing tradition, rather he is seeking a new style and implementation of structures to better serve the mission.

One of the most countercultural ideas he shared that evening: why he sets standards such as Mass attendance. Answer: because men, the heads of families, respond to standards. and because of that many men fill the pews at SJE. Spiritual growth, he reminded the crowd, doesn't just help your soul. It helps you with all of life on the way to your ultimate goal of heaven.

Belong First. Then Believe. Then Behave.

One of the book's most memorable frameworks flips the way many churches think about welcoming people. The old model expects people to believe and behave before they truly belong. Father Maletta reverses it: belong first, then believe, then behave.

There's a big difference, he noted, between a club member and a disciple. The word disciple appears 269 times in the Bible. It was never meant to be a casual title.

He also challenged the crowd to rethink how they pray. Instead of choosing a plan and asking God to bless it, ask God first — then follow. It sounds like a small shift. It isn't.

The Most Surprising Moment of the Evening

Near the end of his talk, Father Maletta asked his parishioners to do something unexpected: begin praying now for the priest who will one day fill his shoes.

That future pastor may never read this book. He may be similar to Father Maletta or completely different. It will be up to God, Father Maletta explained simply.

The room went quiet for a moment. That's the kind of humility that stops you cold — and also the kind that builds something that lasts.

Read It, In Five-Minute Increments If You Need To (And disregard the typo's)

Father Maletta described the book as an easy read — "like listening to me," he joked, before suggesting with a chuckle, reading it in five-minute increments just to be safe. The crowd loved him for it.

This first publishing has some typo's and misspellings of which we are not proud, definitley more than we would like to see. We even know what pages they are on. For example, on page 32, Divine has the D in italics and on page 95, there should be a period instead of a comma at the end of the sentence “his son, Isaac.”

We're guessing you won't notice many of them, but some you will, such as page 137, where an entire sentence was cut off during printing of the first paragraph: “ Third, priests should not only discern what we are good at and seek to be employed in that area, but we also need a sense of autonomy as adults.”

We will be addressing all these issues and more during the second publishing, so please "disregard the typo's!"