<\/p>\n
Christian Unity, Jesus is praying that we will be one in spreading His word to all \u2013people. \u00a0It is all over Jesus comments in this morning\u2019s Gospel.\u00a0 He says: \u201cI have given them the glory that you gave me so that they may be one as we are one.\u201d\u00a0 And indeed, we are all part of the body of Christ, those of us gathered here this morning.<\/p>\n
But there are so many so close to us that are not part of the Body of Christ- \u00a0those who have never heard of Christ; those who don\u2019t believe in anything; those who believe, but are weak; and those who have fallen away.\u00a0 They all need our help.\u00a0 They are our brothers and sisters, our extended family, our co-workers, our community at large.\u00a0 How do we evangelize them in this year of evangelization?<\/p>\n
Well consider this:\u00a0 What do they perceive when they think of Holy Family, because, perception is reality is to them.\u00a0 Are we a loving, welcoming, community?<\/p>\n
I have to tell you that the men\u2019s club fish fries this year really impressed me.\u00a0 My wife and I attended most of them and what struck me was how ecumenical they were.\u00a0 Our parish succeeded in attracting lots of folks from the other churches in the area.\u00a0 It seemed like we were seated next to Presbyterians one week; Lutherans the next, and so on.\u00a0 I thought it was wonderful that so many diverse groups were attracted and felt welcome.\u00a0 It gave us all the opportunity to mingle, and to show our brothers and sisters in other churches just how wonderful the people of Holy Family are; and welcoming, too.\u00a0 And I think the Fall Festival provides a similar opportunity.\u00a0 So yes, there are times when we are a very open and welcoming community.\u00a0 We need to more of these kinds of events.\u00a0 And we need to be united and truthful about our faith when we relate to our visitors<\/p>\n
Secondly, our first reading addresses another element of what it means to evangelize.\u00a0 Notice that Paul is brought before a hostile group and cleverly uses the absolute truth to escape.\u00a0 He is direct, uncompromising, and very truthful when he says that he belongs to a group that believes in the Resurrection.\u00a0 Paul doesn\u2019t make excuses; he doesn\u2019t deny his affiliation; he doesn\u2019t try silence.\u00a0 Rather, he speaks up boldly what he believes- and speaks the truth.<\/p>\n
But you know, we have to be as clever as Paul was about the way we do it.\u00a0 Perhaps an example would help.\u00a0 Many people deny the real presence in the Eucharist or the reality of the Resurrection.\u00a0 Well, in the last month alone our Parish has hosted the Eucharistic Miracles exhibit and a very fine detailed presentation on the Shroud of Turin.\u00a0 The evidence in favor of the Real Presence is very strong in the Eucharistic Miracles exhibit; and likewise, the latest developments on the scientific analysis of the Shroud are extremely powerful arguments that literally imply that the shroud is a pictorial proof of the entire Gospel- the death and resurrection of Christ.\u00a0 We can invite others to events like these.\u00a0 Challenge them with the truth; and at the same time project our belief in the truth.<\/p>\n
Christian Unity is a major problem today.\u00a0 Jesus Christ is still calling his faithful to spread the Gospel and the truth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thursday of the\u00a07th Week of Easter Acts: 22:30, 23: 6-11; John 17: 20-26 Dc. Larry Brockman Christian Unity, Jesus is praying that we will be one in spreading His word to all \u2013people. \u00a0It is all over Jesus comments in this morning\u2019s Gospel.\u00a0 He says: \u201cI have given them the glory that you gave […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[59,228],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=377"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":379,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions\/379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}