Well, OK. The Scriptures don’t actually say “Belmont, Watertown, and Waltham.” Technically the passage says “Judea, Galilee, and Samaria.” That’s who St. Luke was writing to and about, so of course those are the areas he mentions. But we believe that the Word of God is alive and active, speaking to us and our situation today just as surely as it spoke to the earliest Christians. We recognize in this description what God also desires for our community--God wants us to be at peace and consoled by the Holy Spirit, to be built up and growing in numbers, to be worshipping God in all that we do--and we trust that God is present among us, actively working to bring about his vision. It is up to all of us together to try to understand God’s vision, and to recognize what God is currently doing in our community to bring about that vision, so that we can cooperate with God’s action and try not to get in God’s way!

One large part of understanding God’s vision for our community is looking at why we exist as a community at all. Like all the other collaboratives formed by Disciples in Mission, the pastoral plan for the Archdiocese of Boston, our collaborative’s purpose is to help our two parishes become better at two things: 1) reaching those who have become disconnected from the Church, and 2) helping those who are already connected to grow as intentional disciples. From the local level to the global level under the leadership of Pope Francis, our Church has been growing in recognition that we must take seriously Christ’s call to seek the lost and to make disciples.

There are so many pieces to figuring out what this means on the local level--how will our partnership actually help St. Joseph and St. Luke to respond to Christ’s call more effectively? From worship to sacraments to service to communications, there are so many ways that working together can help our two parishes reach more people and help more people grow, and we have a long way to go in figuring out all the details. One thing that became clear early this year was that the working name for our partnership, “Saints Joseph and Luke Collaborative,” would not help us to reach people who had become disconnected from the Church, who knew of the existence of either St. Joseph Parish or St. Luke Parish but were convinced that Catholic churches had nothing to offer them.

In considering this, we were particularly struck by these words from Pope Francis in his September 2013 interview in America magazine: “Instead of being just a church that welcomes and receives by keeping the doors open, let us try also to be a church that finds new roads, that is able to step outside itself and go to those who do not attend Mass, to those who have quit or are indifferent. The ones who quit sometimes do it for reasons that, if properly understood and assessed, can lead to a return. But that takes audacity and courage.” 

That is exactly what we feel God is calling us to be: a community that finds new roads, new ways of reaching out. We chose the name New Roads Catholic Community (and accompanying logo) for our partnership as a way of signaling this new perspective to those who have become disconnected from the Church--that perhaps there is more to the Catholic Church than they think there is; that if they give us another look, they will find that we have something more relevant and meaningful to offer than they had previously imagined. Our name also signals something important to those of us who are already actively participating in the life of our community: each of us is called to new roads on our individual journey of faith; we are all called to growth and discipleship.

Yes, using a new name and logo takes some getting used to, but as Pope Francis says, journeying down any new road takes audacity and courage. We will have many new roads to travel together as we try to bring about God’s vision of growth for our community, but we are confident that God will be with us.

~Rachel

Take your next step: Spend a few minutes reflecting on Pope Francis’s call for “audacity and courage.” As a member of the New Roads Catholic Community, what step might you take to reach someone who has become disconnected from the Church, to help someone grow as a disciple, or to grow as a disciple yourself? Ask God to give you the gifts of audacity and courage to take this step.

Why have we been offering message series? In recent months, we have shared three- and four-week message series on God’s invitation to relationship, how people come to know Jesus, and why we choose to follow Christ. As we continue to grow and move forward, we thought it would be important to have a conversation with the community about why message matters, what we hope to accomplish by focusing so intentionally on message, and where we hope to go with message in the future.

Pope Francis said, “We know that the faithful attach great importance to it [the homily], and that both they and their ordained ministers suffer because of homilies: the laity from having to listen to them and the clergy from having to preach them! It is sad that this is the case. The homily can actually be an intense and happy experience of the Spirit, a consoling encounter with God’s word, a constant source of renewal and growth.” Since renewal and growth are exactly what our Church needs, we need to be intentional about our focus on the power of God’s word. It provides an amazing opportunity to help people reconnect to faith, and to challenge all of us to grow and change. 

What do we hope to accomplish by focusing intentionally on message? We believe that meaningful worship experiences are key to helping people encounter Christ and become more intentional disciples, and that a relevant message is one of the most important elements of a meaningful worship experience. One of our major goals is to make the experience of Mass more relevant and engaging, especially for anyone who has become disconnected from the Church, but who is open to making a new connection. Message is particularly important for those who do not yet have a full appreciation for the meaning of the Eucharist—it can help people find a sense of meaning and belonging, to reconnect and grow in relationship with God. But message is also important for those who are further along on their journey—it is one of the most effective ways that committed disciples are challenged to grow and change. Connecting themes and ideas from week to week builds awareness that the spiritual journey is continuous, that growing in faith is a process, and that the new steps we take are built on the foundations of our previous experiences. 

When a community has a shared focus, guided by the readings we hear at Mass, and the message is reinforced in the prayers, in the bulletin, on our blog, and reflected in our worship environment, this facilitates conversation and supports the growth of members at every age level and at every stage of the faith journey. Message is a starting point, intending to feed the conversation and growth that leads people to strive for their full potential. That’s what the Church is for! 

Anything important is not easy, and we have a long way to go. We want to offer message series throughout the year, consistent messages at each Mass on the weekend, and age-appropriate messages to the children in Kids’ Church that are based on the adult message for the week, to facilitate conversation in families.  We have been experimenting with different ways to focus intentionally on message, and as with anything new and experimental, some things have been effective and successful, and some haven’t. We will continue to learn, make adjustments, and experiment with message, and we welcome and invite your participation in this process. Our strong belief in the power of God’s transforming word inspires us to continue to find ways to incorporate message into engaging and relevant experiences of worship. 

~Fr. Thom

Take your next step: Spend a few minutes praying with this week’s message and the whole Glimpse message series if you have time. What do you remember about this message? Was there a certain part that touched you? Did it invite any change in your life?

One of our goals at New Roads is to offer a relevant, engaging message each week, and to connect the message from one week to another in a way that helps people to grow as disciples and facilitates conversation in the community. On Easter we began a new four-week message series, Glimpse, about learning to recognize the ways we have actually experienced the Resurrection ourselves. As we plan for future message series and work to discern what messages our community most needs to hear, it would be really helpful to hear from you--what message series topics do you think would most help you to take your next step? We invite you to fill out a one-question survey that lists ten message series topics we are considering for the coming six months. We are grateful for your participation!

~The New Roads Leadership Team

Click here to view the survey in a new browser window. Questions? E-mail Kathy O'Leary.

As we continue to reflect on the joy of celebrating Easter, we are so grateful for what so many amazing members of our community did as we came together for worship during Holy Week and Easter. We are astounded by the number of people who pitched in, and we are sure that we don’t even know about everyone who helped! We feel that it’s really important for us as a community to pause for a moment after such a big celebration, both to thank all those who helped, but also to reflect together on why we poured so much time, energy, and effort into these liturgies.

From the music ministers, altar servers and masters of ceremonies, lectors, Ministers of the Eucharist, greeters, and the many who contributed to decorating our worship spaces, to the volunteers who coordinated Kids’ Church, the teens who provided the Living Stations of the Cross, and those who coordinated screens and projectors, there were so many people who worked to make our parishes warm and welcoming and helped us create meaningful experiences of worship for people of all ages, wherever they might be on their faith journey.

As we prepared for Holy Week and Easter, we saw various members of our community doing amazing things:

• spending five hours taping down lights in St. Luke’s church and braving 45-mph wind gusts to prepare the fire for the Easter Vigil
• putting up custom-made boards in St. Joseph parish hall to block light that would interfere with projecting song lyrics and showing the welcome video
• fitting thirty balloons into two cars as part of an incredible setup for Kids’ Church
• stepping up with courage and generosity as a last-minute substitute to be in the welcome video
• scraping wax off the pews at St. Luke Church after the Easter Vigil
• coming to lector rehearsals to be as well prepared as possible to proclaim the scripture readings for our various liturgies
• serving as greeters at nearly every gathering
• rehearsing music for hours on end
• spending all day making sure everything was ready and all night making sure everything ran smoothly during Holy Thursday and the Easter Vigil
• many people doing triple duty as liturgical ministers, greeters, and serving as part of the liturgical tech team
• teens serving as “bouncers” for Kids’ Church
• even the Belmont Police Department escorting us on our Holy Thursday procession with the Eucharist from St. Luke’s to St. Joseph’s

Why did our community do all these things? Why did we put SO much time and energy into this? Because Holy Week and Easter are such important experiences of worship, and such great opportunities to welcome people who are not regularly here. Because we want to offer experiences of worship that help people to feel God’s presence and to grow in relationship with God. Because we want to help people to see New Roads as a spiritual home, a place that is welcoming, open, and meets people where they are. The efforts of so many members over Holy Week and Easter are an extension of our goal of turning all of our time, energy, and attention toward two things: welcoming those who are not here, and helping those who are here to grow in relationship with God.

Striving to become a growing community of growing disciples has meant combining our two parishes for worship during the Triduum, enabling us to use all our resources to create meaningful worship experiences; providing age-appropriate worship experiences for children at Kids’ Church through our Tiny Disciples and Children’s Liturgy of the Word; experimenting with different music to help us come up with a clear vision for music as a component of worship; and using a collaborative name and logo, a new Web site, and social media to reach out to people who may think they know what St. Joseph or St. Luke parishes are all about, but may give the New Roads Catholic Community a try. The New Roads Catholic Community exists to offer experiences of worship, welcome, and conversation through which people can encounter God and grow in their relationship with God. We can only do this through the work of our members, so we thank those of you who served during Holy Week and Easter, and invite those who have not yet served in an active role to take that next step.

~The Pastoral Service Team

Take your next step: Reflect back on your experience of Holy Week and Easter at New Roads. Was there something that stood out to you? Something that sparked your interest or curiosity? Something that made you think: I could help with that, or I have an idea to make that better? Spend some time reflecting on how you might want to serve in our community. Try bringing that reflection to prayer. Whether you aren’t sure how you want to serve, or you know exactly what you’d like to do, reach out to any member of the Pastoral Service Team to learn more about how to get involved.