Hello everyone!!
Marc-André here again
posting about past week on the Revive mission, and boy, was it ever an eventful
one!
Last Thursday, we had
Lesson 5 of the Discovery faith study where we look at how we must personally
choose to have a relationship with Jesus and that we are all called to participate
in this intimate relationship. We start the lesson with a question, perhaps the
greatest question you will ever face. If you were to die today, and God asked
you, “Why should I let you into heaven?” what would you say?
When I first heard this
question, I just listed a bunch of good and virtuous deeds I had done; the fact
that I had never committed any really bad sins; and that I always strived to be
a good person. I hoped that that would be enough.
The truth is, no matter
how righteous a person is, this cannot overcome the infinite barrier between us
and God because of our sin. In order to overcome an infinite barrier, we must
place our faith into an infinite being. That being is Jesus. He is the reason
why we can return to our Father in heaven. And Jesus does not care about what
we’ve done or who we are. As long as we are repentant of our sins and humble
enough to place him at the centre of our lives, we experience God’s grace in a
way like no other.
Lesson 5 is what led me
to have a relationship with Jesus and to know God personally. I am sure it has
led many of our participants’ lives to encounter Jesus in a personal way,
perhaps for the first time!
We also challenged our
participants to lead their own faith study group when we begin our second round
in July. As you read this, the Holy Spirit is entering the hearts of our
participants and making them become leaders in the New Evangelization and the
renewal of the world. What a grace!
Also, this past Friday,
we had a presentation at the Espanola High School for our youth group starting
in July. We weren’t very sure what to expect at this school; it is the only
non-Catholic school where we were planning on presenting at, but it is also the
biggest school in Espanola. We served free pizza to attract students, and they
came, about 15 – 20 of them. We presented a small sample of what youth group
would look like. We played a game to start off, and then we asked them a number
of faith questions, such as, Who is God to you? Do you think religion is
relevant? If you could know God personally, would you want to?
After these questions, we
led a couple of praise and worship songs. It was all our first time leading
worship, so we were definitely a bit nervous, but it all went really well!
Angèle led us wonderfully, and hey, even some of the kids sang along!
After the music, Angèle
shared her testimony of how she came to know Christ. This was her old high
school, so her story was pretty relatable to the students there. She spoke of
how, on the outside, her life may have seemed perfect, but on the inside, she
always felt empty during high school and her first year of university. It was
only when she let Jesus into her life at a retreat that she felt truly filled,
inside and out.
Some, if not all, of the
students were definitely struck by her testimony; one of the students talked to
me about how he could relate to her story a bit. We ended up getting seven
phone numbers of interested students for our youth group. Not bad, considering
we have three more schools to go to, all of which are Catholic!
And finally, today at the
mass, God graced us with some notable events! Before the French mass, Angèle
went to ask one of her faith study participants to see if she would like to
share her experience of the faith studies. At first, she said no, but about
five minutes later, she approached us and said that the Holy Spirit was telling
her that she should go speak after mass. And so she did, and it was awesome!
She shared about how the faith study allowed her to deepen her own personal
faith and encouraged others to join the next round! We need more people like
her at the parish for when we leave in August!
Also, today being Father’s
Day, we had a soup luncheon after the 11 am mass for all of the fathers at the
parish and also as a fundraiser for our mission. We had about 80 people come
have soup and raised about $500! This money is going to help us with our youth
programs for the months of July and August. It was also a wonderful event for
parishioners to socialize and build community.
Well, that’s it for this past
week, but stay tuned! This coming week, we have three school presentations, the
last lesson of Discovery, and Michael Dopp is hosting a “School of
Evangelization” retreat this coming weekend! God’s done so many wonderful works
on this mission so far, and much more has yet to come! Thank you, God! And
thank YOU all for reading this blog!
God bless,
Marc-André
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