I say
'was' strong, because that's was years ago.
Somewhere along the line, Billy got interested in other stuff... Toys...
sports... girls...cars…education... job….Until Billy had completely forgotten about that little seed
of faith inside of him.
Many of
us are like Billy...when we were younger, we accepted our faith… it was just a normal part of life. We didn't NEED to understand it... (I was watching today as the little kids came
into church: they would follow Mom and
do what she did. Dip their fingers in
the water, make a sign of the cross, genuflect when going into the pew. They don’t understand it – they just accept it.)
As we got older, that childish faith just didn’t make sense anymore, so we didn’t pay much attention to id.
Yeah, we still come to church, but we never really thought of Jesus as
our personal friend. Our faith grew
weaker, rather than stronger, because we let the weeds of busyness choke out
that seed in our hearts.
Can
anybody relate to that? If so, I have
some good news... The Pope has declared
the next year to be the “Year of Faith”. It starts this
Thursday, the 50th anniversary of the opening of the second Vatican council,
and it’s also the 20th anniversary of
the publishing of the catechism. Why do
we care?
Here’s what the Pope said…
He calls
us to a renewed conversion to Jesus, and a rediscovery of our faith so that
"the members of our church will be credible and joy-filled witnesses to
the risen lord in the world of today -capable of leading those many people who
are seeking it to the 'door of faith'"
I know...
Too often the words of the Pope are a bit hard to interpret. What he's really doing is inviting every one
of us to re-discover our faith, to learn about it, to practice it, and to live
it in our daily lives. To use the
analogy of Billy, we are invited to water, fertilize, and nurture that seed of
faith that is inside each one of us to make it grow into something
beautiful. Why? The Pope offers a couple reasons... Mainly so
that we can be witnesses to the rest of the world who hasn't yet realized they
have that seed inside them. There are
people out there in the world who are badly in need of our witness of joy that
comes from our faith and our personal relationship with Jesus. Can you and I honestly say that we are ready
to share the ‘joy’ of our Faith? We
can’t share the fruits of a tree
that has not borne fruit. If the seed of
faith is still just a seed inside us, then we don't have that credible,
joy-filled experience to share with others.
Faith requires action ... action to keep it alive... And action to help
it grow.
How can
we do that? Our adult formation team
will be offering a variety of ways over the next 12 months specifically to help
us all nurture the seed of faith inside us.
The first
thing is a Small group study starting Nov 4th.
We have a little book put together specifically for the YOF. It’s a good start to help us to
learn about our faith with a strong emphasis on learning what the bible tells
us about it. Nov 4 is only a month away,
so we need to start signing up immediately...there are sheets at door. We need to know by Oct 21 so we can order the
books. They're $9 each, but if the cost
is an issue, just see me.
Other
things are listed in the bulletin: CD of
month, Food for Your Faith (you may remember this is where we have a potluck
meal followed by a speaker); during Lent, we'll have the Catholicism series led
by Fr. Eugene; we'll have family movie
nights here at the parish. We’ll offer retreats and pilgrimages, plus encouraging
participation in the sacraments and eucharistic adoration. We will also learn about our faith by putting
it into action. We will work with the
Grace Co-op... Serving meals, cleaning gutters, doing yard work, taking meals
to the homebound, plus more. We will be
going to Haiti in June. We continue to
serve the community meals every other month... (And by the way, we need people
to sign up to be called if we are short-handed….
Contact Leah Beckman). These are all
ways we can not only put our faith into action, but through our actions, we
provide that 'credible witness' to the world that the Pope talked about.
Being a
member of God’s family is more than just
being Catholic. Our faith requires
action: Action to learn, action to
experience, action to bring others to find joy like we can in our faith. Our theme for this next year is FAITH REQUIRES
ACTION. We will have a banner up here
pretty soon to remind us of that.
I mentioned
in my story earlier that Billy’s dad had been in the
hospital.... Now let me tell you the rest of the story. Billy's dad was burned when their house
burned down. He had tried a couple of
times to get up the stairs to Billy's room to save him from the fire, but the
heat and flames kept pushing him back and received some pretty severe
burns. Finally, he yelled to Billy to go
to the bedroom window. Racing to the
back of the house, his dad looked up as Billy struggled to open the window and
push the screen out. His dad yelled ‘JUMP’... and without a moment’s hesitation, Billy jumped...safely into the arms of his
father. Faith requires action. We gotta jump.
