Wishing you all a New Year filled with God’s blessings!
I hope you all had wonderful Christmas celebrations and are healthy and well.
One of the traditions of starting a New Year is to make New Year Resolutions. Our resolution as a parish for 2023 is to be more intentional in fulfilling Jesus’ command before ascending to heaven,
Go, therefore and make disciples of all nations,
Matthew 28:19
For the last nine months some of our staff members have been working with the Archdiocesan Office of New Evangelization and Lay Parish Life to develop a pathway, a road map, to form not just disciples of Jesus but missionary disciples.
A missionary disciple is someone who does not only follow Christ but shares his/her faith with others so they too can become disciples. If Peter, Paul, Mary Magdalene, Andrew, and others did not share their faith story, we will not know about Jesus today. Our last three Popes have been calling us to become missionary disciples, to make sure that future generations, including our children and grandchildren, know Jesus and develop a personal relationship with Him so they can inherit eternal life. So, we developed the following four step process:
Discover Jesus Faith is not knowing about Jesus nor just following the teachings of the Church. Faith is having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Encounter Jesus Having experiences of God’s presence in your life or God’s unconditional love for you. Then, making the decision to follow Jesus as His disciple.
Celebrating Jesus As a disciple of Christ you are willing to share your time, talents and treasure in worshipping God by celebrating the Sacraments, time for personal prayer, and serving others.
Proclaim Jesus Share your own faith story, how the Risen Lord is present in your life, with others.
During the coming weeks and months, we will share with you more information about each one of these steps and how you can help someone grow from step to the next. We will also be providing training as well as experiences to help all of us encounter God’s love and mercy and surrender our lives more to Him.
I have one request to ask of you. For now, please pray that you and we as a parish may grow as a community of missionary disciples and ask the Holy Spirit to guide us as we make this pathway the main ministry of our parish.
Blessings of love, joy and hope for the New Year,
Fr. Albert