Each of us, at one or another point in our life, experiences some challenge or tumult that puts a strain on our faith. Just look at the gospel reading for Sunday: even the disciples who walked in the physical presence of Jesus, who talked with him and questioned him and dared to hope in him as the Messiah, even they questioned, feared, and became uncertain when the sea became violent. In our own lives, the initiating event for fear to surface might be an illness of a child, concern about the loss of a job, watching your spouse become less mentally engaged and less able to figure out solutions to routine problems, or seeing a relationship with a trusted friend disintegrate. These triggers, problems in their own right, can also prompt feelings of isolation and abandonment by God. The question is: “What do we do?”

We can give credence to the feelings of aloneness and helplessness and give up, or we can stake a claim on the promise of God that God will be with us always to the end of time (Mt. 28:20). Focusing on the former choice leads to a dead end and a faltering relationship with Christ. Choosing the latter, investing in faith in God’s promises to us, leads us to peace, wholeness, and a deepening relationship with Christ. Even though there was more than a hint of frustration on Jesus’s part when he asks the disciples, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?”, there is also an incredible and very important manifestation of honesty in relationship and trust in Jesus’s willingness to hear their concern when they ask: “Do you not care that we are perishing?”

The development of relationships, any relationship, is marked and shaped by a series of ups and downs, and this is no less true of our relationship with Christ. We delight in the positive events and work our way through the difficult times. The tenacity to stick with it is what enables the relationship not just to survive; but also to thrive, to grow and to deepen. The disciples’ ability to express their consternation gave Jesus the opportunity to assert his power over the storm and, more importantly, to exert influence on the apostles’ faith. We all have the choice to let our fears fester or to rely on the power and compassion of God to embrace us and free us from our fears. Each time we place ourselves in the care of God, in spite of any doubts or concerns we might have, our life in Christ gets stronger. Challenges will continue to come our way, and each time that we choose to trust that God is with us, our relationship with God will deepen.

In the gospel story, Jesus gives no verbal answer to the disciples’ query: “Do you not care?” The answer is in what Jesus does when he stills the turbulent waters and brings about calm. He does care and will continue to show that care when we invest in a trusting relationship with him. Having faith in God is a lifelong process, one that makes our journey through life richer, more peaceful, and more centered. So will you go it alone, or will you walk in the company of Christ?

~Sr. Kathleen

Take your next step:  As a means to create a readiness to trust in God’s goodness, for one week, try praying the following each morning upon waking: “Loving God, be with me throughout this day, leading and guiding me each step I take.” During the day, when you find yourself fearful, ask God: “Release me from the fear and anxiety that threaten to overwhelm me.” And each night, pray: “Thank you for being at my side all the day long.”

This Sunday we celebrate the solemn feast of the Most Holy Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity is not easy to grasp and certainly falls into the category of a mystery of our faith. Central to this mystery is relationship. Our God is a community of persons. Whether you think of the persons of the Trinity as Father-Son-Spirit, Creator-Redeemer-Sanctifier, or Lover-Beloved- and the Love between them, the three persons of the Holy Trinity are one God, and they exist in perfect union with one another.

Most of us, I suspect, learned at an early age that we are made in the image and likeness of God. If then, this is true, we are meant to be relational and to seek unity with God and with one another. We have heard repeatedly throughout the Easter season, which ended with Pentecost last Sunday, Jesus’s instruction: “Love as I love you.” In Jesus’s teaching, preaching, healing, and forgiving, he consistently sought to unite himself with the persons he encountered and to restore them to union with God. Even when he chastised the disciples or the Pharisees, Jesus was loving them in a way that sought to draw them into union with him.

As baptized Christians, we have been incorporated into the relational life of the Trinity and share in the mission of Christ. What are the implications of this? Just as Jesus’s mission focused on drawing those on the margins closer to him; so too, we are charged with reaching out and responding to those who are separated from the Church, those who have become discouraged and disenfranchised. Last week Rachel quoted Pope Francis in her column saying that “we can fear to lose the saved and we can want to save the lost.” That fear can paralyze us by letting it take over, or it can be a starting place in our prayer, asking God to deliver us from our fear and strengthen our resolve to follow in Christ’s footsteps, seeking those who are absent from our midst.

Our incorporation into the life of the Trinity and our sharing in the mission of Jesus—that all may be one—make perfectly clear what choice we must make. Let us not fall short of the goal of living out a love based in union with God that seeks to draw others to Christ. Let us make room not only in our benches in church but in our hearts for those who have left us for any reason in the past. As Jesus told us that he was leaving to prepare a place for us, let us prepare a place for our brothers and sisters. Let us put aside the fear that impedes our attempts to make disciples of all people.

~Sr. Kathleen

Take your next step: Each day for the next month (or year—whatever it takes!), ask God to give you the courage to reach out to someone you know who has left the Church, to welcome them to join you at Mass.

How many times have you heard the suggestion made—whether in a homily, or at sacramental preparation programs for baptism, Eucharist, or confirmation—to pray regularly? I know I have heard the suggestion a lot and made the suggestion as well. But, I haven’t often heard how to go about it. Apart from taking the time to say prayers that someone else composed, how else might we go about praying to God?

It is simpler than you might think. Consider prayer a conversation with God, one in which you share with the one who loves and cares for you more than any other what you are thinking, feeling, and experiencing in the dailyness of life. The words from Matthew’s Gospel—“Come to me!”—are an invitation to each one and all of us from God, to be with him and receive the refreshment and grace we need.

Begin by finding a quiet comfortable space within which to pray. Let this become your sacred space, setting it off by lighting a candle and perhaps playing some soft, quieting instrumental music. Pay attention to how you feel as you begin your time of prayer. Are you agitated? Confused? Thankful? Full of optimism and energy? Hopeful? Hurt? Lonely? Fatigued? Peaceful? Looking for guidance or direction?

Spend a few moments thinking about what you might be looking for during this time in prayer. Begin to share with God what you feel and what you hope for during this time. Then take a few moments of quiet before reading a passage of scripture. You could read the Gospel of the day, or some people might decide to read sequentially a particular book of the Bible, for instance, the Gospel of Mark. Some texts lend themselves more readily to imaginative prayer than others do. For example, suppose you choose to read Mark 8:22-26, the story of the blind man of Bethsaida. Picture the scene. You may choose to be an observer of what is going on, or perhaps you see yourself as the blind person needing healing, or you are one of the group of people that led the man to Jesus. Let your imagination go, and have the story unfold. Perhaps the friends are eager and persistent in their request of Jesus to restore his vision, or maybe the blind person wants to speak his own mind. Imagine what Jesus is saying or doing before the man has his sight restored. How might you respond?

Before you end your time of prayer, notice once again how and what you are feeling. Has your affect changed? Did you gain any insight? Spend some time sharing your feelings with God, and remember to thank God for any graces you may have experienced. A final step in your prayer could include taking the time to recount briefly in a journal what happened during your time of prayer. For example, having prayed with the passage about the blind man’s healing, you may note: “I came to prayer feeling disturbed and unsure how to see a situation in my family life. I asked God to give me the insight I need to deal with the situation. Having witnessed that it took two times laying hands on the blind man before he was healed, I realized that God was letting me know that it may take more time and effort for me to resolve the situation that had me disturbed. With that awareness, I found myself more relaxed and peaceful than when I began. Thank you, God, for once again helping me to see more clearly.”

There are many ways we can enter into a prayerful, life-giving relationship with God. This is one way that has a long history of helping followers of Jesus grow closer to him and helping us to notice the ways in which God communicates with us. Try it. You might really like it.

~Sister Kathleen

Take your next step: At least twice this week, engage in imaginative prayer. If you are looking for a place to start, try reading about the cleansing of the leper in Matthew 8:1-4 or the call of Simon in Luke 5:1-11. Pay attention to the ways that Jesus responds to you as you tell him what you are feeling and what you hope for from him.

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.

Lent is a great time to begin a relationship with Christ or to deepen your relationship with him. This Lent we are exploring together why one might choose to follow Christ and what it really means to be his disciple. To help us to do this, we are inviting several members of the New Roads Catholic Community each week to respond in an honest and personal way to the reflection question for the week. We hope that seeing the way a variety of parishioners respond to these questions will help you to reflect more deeply on the questions yourself. This week, four parishioners share their reflections on the question: Are you ready to follow Christ? 

In my wallet I carry this quote with me: "It is never too late to be who you might have been." I think we all reflect on what has gone on in our past spiritually and emotionally and think what we should have, could have, and would have done differently. Some things can never be changed....however, opening yourself up to a relationship with a forgiving and welcoming Jesus Christ always remains before us. In some strange way, time stands still when it comes to our relationship with God. Not too long ago, after a lengthy absence from a spiritual reconciliation, I was immediately accepted back without judgment and greeted with two of the most underrated words one seeks to hear: "Welcome back." For me, it proved that Christianity in its loving and forgiving nature, is always there waiting for us. Regardless of where you are, who you are, and what you do: now is the perfect time to open your heart, de-stress your soul, and reach out to the love and freedom that a relationship with Christ presents.
--Tim Stratford

I feel like I have a strong faith in God and that I am, for the most part, a good person. I pray and I try to think about my actions and attitudes. But having a relationship with Christ is not an active part of my life. I know from past experience that, when I have been called by God to do something, his request of me can feel incredibly difficult. But when I do it, an entire world opens up inside me. I don’t actively follow Christ right now, but this question resonated with me so I thought, okay, maybe I should try this. Ready or not, I’m going to step into it. It may not be easy, but I know that if I can do it, it will lead me someplace new and amazing.
--Marie

Are you ready to follow Christ? I think inherently, most of us will say yes. Of course I am ready to follow Christ!! But two things stop us from beginning that journey--first, I often think many of us are waiting for a sign that Christ is here and we are to take the next step. And secondly, we don't know how to stay on that path, without getting off at the next exit.

As I see it, there is no clear-cut route you need to take. Not all of us end up on the same road, as following Christ can take on a different meaning for each of us. Sometimes, we are looking for guidance in helping with a problem or difficult situation we are going through. Sometimes, we need to feel loved or comforted when we are alone. Sometimes, we want to be good disciples, following in the footsteps of our Lord. 

For me, it was a combination of all of those things that led me to get back on the road to follow Christ. I was someone who got off the wrong exit years ago, but I can assure you that getting back on that road is easy--you just need to turn around and start the journey, because Christ is waiting for all of us to take his lead. I remembered the feeling of fullness, completeness, warmth, and love that surround me when I am following in his footsteps. 
Being involved in ministry at St. Luke has been my re-entry to a journey I started long ago, and it was just like seeing an old friend who loves and knows you for who you are, always accepts and believes in you. 
--Christine Regan

I love the way this Sunday’s Gospel starts: “The Spirit drove Jesus into the desert....” I clearly see Jesus as a passenger, with the Holy Spirit behind the wheel heading into a world full of temptations and wild things but yet always protected. That’s today’s world too. I trust the Spirit will show me the next road to take, but first I need to strengthen my relationship with him. This year I feel as if I am returning from the desert, and I need to pray, talk to him, and ask for the courage to open myself more to his loving guidance. Lent is my special time to do this and be renewed. I say “yes” to his invitation and look forward to a new road trip with the Holy Spirit as my guide and friend. How about you?
--Nancy Mitchell

Are you interested in offering one of these responses in the coming weeks? We’d love to include you! Please e-mail Kathy O’Leary ([email protected]) for details on how to participate.

Take your next step: Find fifteen minutes when you can be uninterrupted. Grab a piece of paper, or a journal if you have one, or open up a new e-mail and address it to yourself. At the top of the page or e-mail, write: “Am I ready to follow Christ?” Write what comes from your heart. If you feel ready to take this step, take a few more minutes to talk to God about what you have written.

If you were one of those first followers of Jesus, you’d realize pretty quickly that Jesus astonishes and amazes people. What astonishes and amazes us today? The amount of money Bill Gates or Warren Buffet has? How much time gets devoted to deflategate? The amount of snow that can fall per hour in New England? Despite the flippancy of my suggestions, it’s a serious question that deserves some serious reflection. One way to enter into that reflection is to spend some quiet time imagining being present as a tentative follower to observe the Gospel of Mark’s first story of the public ministry of Jesus, in the passage we hear this Sunday. I find it pretty interesting that Jesus didn’t set about trying to prove anything, or even really to convince or coerce people. He simply let them encounter him, which offered a challenge that left them asking, “What does this mean?” So what was that encounter like?

Jesus has entered the synagogue, the sacred space of the people. While that has obvious religious meaning, it also means that he is treading into the intimate areas of peoples’ lives that they hold sacred, the things that we carefully guard and resist letting others challenge or influence. Sometimes these are commitments, sometimes prejudices or biases, sometimes things we value or cherish. Sometimes they are lifegiving, and sometimes they are things we have never questioned that have a hold on us.

In this sacred space, Jesus takes a role that invites those present to size him up. Any man with knowledge of the scriptures could be invited to comment on the readings. Mark doesn’t tell us anything about the content of Jesus’s teaching, so we can’t know anything about it at this point. So we have to ask what we do know. Mark has previously given us the insider knowledge that Jesus is the Son of God. We know he has a strong and intimate connection with God. He spends time in prayer. He is filled with God’s spirit. Knowing only this much, we know that like his Father, he is filled with love for the poor, the marginalized, the suffering and the searching.

I imagine that what was astonishing for the people when they heard Jesus is that a “nobody” who is hanging out with a bunch of fishermen isn’t just offering opinions about which traditional biblical interpretation is best, like the scribes--the people educated and employed to do this for them. What they notice about him is that he speaks with authority, as if he was the author of the scriptures and knew the real meaning. As if this wasn’t enough controversy, in the midst of this experience a heckler yells out, interrupting the service, “a man with an unclean spirit.” He is no match for Jesus, who is in complete control, and “all were amazed.”

I suppose that could describe any one of us when confronted with the authority of God’s love for us. Although this is an extreme and dramatic case, it is intended to make the point clear. Mark’s Gospel is asking us to consider the experience of being challenged to let God’s love, God’s spirit of life, enter our sacred spaces and drive away our unclean spirits, our demons, and to set us free to ask, “what does this mean” for us?

There’s a directness and honesty in relationship with Jesus that affects people in different ways--people are challenged, people are healed, people are taught. Some are frightened, some are amazed, some feel threatened. How does witnessing Jesus’s ministry make you feel? How do you want Christ to affect you?

…what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled—to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world. I want to believe that I am looking into the white fire of a great mystery. -Mary Oliver, “The Ponds”

~Fr. Thom

Take your next step: Read this Sunday's Gospel and imagine being present as a tentative follower in Mark's first story of Jesus's public ministry. How does witnessing Jesus’s ministry make you feel?