What a great weekend in Espanola! This past weekend was the best weekend of the summer so far! It was also the first weekend of the summer but you get my point.
I got a chance to meet so many wonderful people! It was great getting the chance to witness so many people interested in the New Evangelization. Think about it. If we all just give a little bit of our time and effort to evangelizing, soon the whole world will hear the basic gospel message proclaimed!
So many people contributed in different ways. Some contributed by their hospitality. Others contributed by their music, others by their welcoming and friendly attitude, others by their organizing, and others by preaching the gospel!
I can’t think of a more rewarding project to give my time to. We were blessed to have Michael Dopp as our speaker. Like I told him at the end, it is rare that I can listen to someone talk so much in such a small amount of time and not go crazy! Well, not only am I not crazy (or am I?) but I am super motivated to evangelize!
One of Michael Dopp’s themes is that our earthly life is short. No one is going to care in two hundred years who won the Stanley Cup this year, who has the best job or who Justin Bieber’s next girlfriend will be (I would if I were still alive). So instead of being so focused on worldly things, why not be focused on God? Why not spend our life preparing for eternity and building up God’s kingdom instead of things that won’t really matter in the end? We should put our focus, especially in our parish life, on evangelization. Evangelizing is at the heart of the Church’s identity and so we should be focused on that, in our personal lives and in our parish activities. That’s what Michael Dopp reminded me of this weekend. What a message!
What always blows me away is how fulfilled I feel when I evangelize. Sure, I get nervous and uncomfortable. But the more you do something, the easier it gets! God has a plan for each of us and that includes sharing the gospel!
There’s so much more I could say....it was so great seeing my good friends, Angele, Marc-Andre and Mary-Claire again. What a job they are doing! It was great getting to know Angele's parent's, Vince and Nicole too! Props for building such a great house and for filling it with such loving people! And I’m happy to report that Espanola looks so much greater than it smells. Indeed, what a fine paper town it is.
Godspeed,
Zak
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