theROCK

Joyful Witness

Our VISION: To be a spiritual home that radiates the love of God, overflows with the power of the Holy Spirit, and joyfully leads others to Christ.

“Proclaiming Christ means showing that to believe in and to follow Him is not only something right and true, but also something beautiful, capable of filling life with new splendor and profound joy, even in the midst of difficulties. To be evangelizers of souls, we need to develop a spiritual taste for being close to people’s lives and to discover that this is itself a source of greater joy. To be Mission is at once a passion for Jesus and a passion for His people.” ~ Pope Francis

Does this quote from Pope Francis enlighten your understanding of the last part of our vision statement?

The Body of Christ, the Church grows through witness; a particular kind of witness – one that is joyful and also authentic. It is this type of witness to Jesus that will lead other people to seek, know, and become Christ.

Fr. Ben J. Cameron, C.P.M. in his article, “Joyful Witness to Christ or Proselytism?” shared what his idea of witness includes: 

• Evangelization: bringing the Gospel to those who have not received or accepted it yet.
• New Evangelization: bringing the Gospel again to those persons and societies that had once embraced it, but have essentially lost the Faith.
• Catechesis: education and formation of those who have the Faith so that they grasp it more deeply and live it more authentically.
• Apologetics: being ready “to give reasons for the hope that is within you” (I Peter 3:15), which can be a powerful way of bringing people to Christ and our Catholic Faith.
• Christian Charity: a life which is truly based on the teachings of Jesus Christ and His Church should be attractive to others, and lead them to Christ.
• Martyrdom: the martyrs are the ultimate witnesses to Our Lord Jesus Christ; the word “martyr” means “witness,” and the willingness to die for Christ has led many, many souls to embrace our Catholic Faith – “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christians,” as Tertullian said in the second century.

Pope Francis has called each and every one of us to live and witness to Christ much more authentically and joyfully. And this joyful witness to Christ will attract other people to the Church. In the 17th century, St. Francis de Sales said that you “attract more flies with a teaspoon of honey than with a whole barrel of vinegar.” A true joyful witness will attract many persons to the truth, beauty, and goodness of our Catholic Faith.

May we all be such joyful witnesses, leading other to Christ!

Rejoice in the Lord Always

Gaudete Sunday in Advent is a day to celebrate the joy of anticipating Christmas. The name comes from the Latin word Gaudete, which means, "rejoice." The day's theme is a shift in focus from "The Lord is coming" to "The Lord is near." The excitement for the birth of Jesus was tangible in Mary and Joseph, let us recall our own excitement when we were children, anticipating the beautifully decorated church with lit trees adorning the sanctuary. There is a certain peace in knowing the church draws us into the real reason for Christmas, namely the birth of Jesus. How do we celebrate Advent and the coming of Christ in the form of a newborn child?

Amid the stress of cleaning, baking, decorating, shopping, wrapping, and getting ready for company, often there is little time to experience the joy and peace of Christ’s coming.  Living in a culture of immediate satisfaction, it is very hard for us to slow down, to immerse ourselves in silence and prayer. 

This past summer, as part of a course I took, we attended a 10-day silent Ignatian retreat. We participated in daily Mass, Adoration, and an hour of spiritual direction. Outside of that. . . total silence. Of the five chapels on campus, I found a tiny chapel dedicated to the Annunciation of Mary. A simple but beautiful tabernacle was in the center. I had to silence so many things I carried into the retreat: work, and what was not completed before I left, the news of my younger sister, diagnosed with cancer, and suffering multiple injuries after being hit by a car, and the shock that her 30-year-old son had died unexpectedly. I knew I had to focus on what God had in mind, not what I was carrying. After all, he knew what was heavy on my heart.

I was reminded of today’s scripture from the second reading: “Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition…then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and mind in Christ Jesus” (Phil.4: 6-7). When the 10 days were over, there was an amazing wealth of PEACE in my heart, a peace that I have never experienced. In that peace, I experienced, to this very moment, unexplainable JOY.

It is counter cultural to slow down and place ourselves in silence before Jesus. I invite you dear friends to come to the church or chapel and just sit quietly before the tabernacle and allow God to silence your heart and fill you with JOY. He is waiting, and longs to fill you with his love.

The Joy of Easter

How is your Easter going? Are you still celebrating the joy of this season?

Sometime I think we, as a Catholic church, don’t put enough emphasis on the Easter season. The same is true of the Christmas season. We put so much emphasis on the preparation, the repentance, the waiting of the purple seasons. We fill our calendars to the brim with ways to engage Lent, to dive in and dig deep. And then the Day comes – Easter, Christmas – and it’s over and wrapped up like a wedding day. No more programing. No diving in or digging deep together. Just life as usual, as if nothing happened. As if nothing changed. As if we hadn’t changed.

That’s not the way it is supposed to be, right? Lent is not more important than Easter. But the way we engage the two would suggest that it is. We only “do” Lent for the purpose of better “doing” Easter. We practice repentance to allow our hearts and spirits to more fully embrace the fullness of Easter…that is all seven weeks of it. Easter is almost twice as long as Lent. So why do we treat it like it is a single day?

It is the fifth week of the Easter season, but I invite you, challenge you even, to look at how well you are celebrating – or not celebrating – the Resurrection. You have a few more
weeks to go. What is something you can do to reignite the joy of Easter and celebrate Christ’s victory over sin and death? What were the practices you took up for Lent? How have you seen a change in yourself through those practices? How can you carry that transformation forward throughout the Easter season and beyond?