When Bishop Hying first called parishes in the diocese to embark on the Go Make Disciples initiative, we knew that we had a great opportunity in front of us at St. Mary Parish in Pine Bluff.
The parish has been growing steadily, and new families, often young couples with children, are joining every day.
There is no lack of zeal for the Catholic faith at St. Mary but we know we could all stand to become better equipped as workers for the kingdom. The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few!
‘Striving for Holiness’
Our evangelization team began meeting with Pastor Fr. Rick Heilman in Phase One, diving into materials and growing closer as a team.
We discovered in our meetings how much inspiration and encouragement we received by sharing and listening to each other’s stories of conversion and encounter.
We knew that we wanted to be able to share that experience with members of the parish as we moved forward in this effort.
In Phase Two of the initiative, the parish was inspired by the seeking holiness title from the diocese plan and began hosting “Striving for Holiness” events on the first Fridays of the month.
Five events were planned to coincide with the five goals of this phase: Discovering Christ anew, Confession, daily prayer, personal mortification, and reclaiming Sunday.
The nights begin with Adoration, Confession, and Benediction. Then the group moves to the gym for a short video reflection or encouragement followed by dinner with discussion questions at each table.
We kicked off the series with the powerful story of conversion from Fr. Donald Calloway.
When the video ended and the discussion began that first night, the room lit up.
This kind of witnessing to each other, sharing testimonies of faith, or even talking about seemingly ordinary faith experiences is so edifying to the body of Christ but we often fail to carve out the time to make it happen.
One of our goals as a team has been to model this behavior, sharing the good news, sharing the “reason for our hope,” among the members of our parish and with the attendees of these Striving for Holiness events.
After all, who better to imitate than Jesus, himself, who gave us the example with his disciples?
‘90 Days to Peace’
Father Heilman took this effort one step further at the beginning of Lent by inviting all of us to participate in a “90 Days to Peace” journey with the leather-bound Peace Through Strength Prayer Journal he authored himself.
The journal is assisting us in making the very best spiritual practices of our Catholic faith a daily habit for our everyday lives.
The journal emphasizes mental prayer which is a time of silence (usually 15-plus minutes) focused on God where you love God through dialogue, meditating on His words, and contemplating his face.
We want to “get strong in God’s love” which as St. Paul says, “brings the peace that surpasses all understanding that will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7) and be a “peace through strength” in God’s love.
It is our hope that in the weeks and months ahead, we will begin to identify individuals in the parish who are inspired and are hearing the call to join the effort.
The Striving for Holiness nights have given many individuals and families a small taste of a deeper level of Christian fellowship and modeled the behavior of witnessing our faith and sharing the gospel.
The next steps in this are yet to be determined but will surely address our desire to make this a more regular thing at St. Mary Parish regardless of what form it takes.
As we all deepen our relationship with Jesus through this initiative, it’s impossible not to be inspired to share what we’ve found with others!
John Shoemaker is a parishioner at St. Mary Parish in Pine Bluff.