Mission Matters: April 11, 2017

This week’s “Parish Table Talk”: Marriage and Family Life upcoming events; Evangelizing with Hispanic tradition of Holy Week; Good Friday Way of the Cross; Shrines for evangelization; Adoration and young people; plus this Thursday’s blog post.

Watch for this Thursday’s post:

Atlas and Christ by Natasha Wilson, Coordinator of Education and Outreach, Office of Respect Life

Parish Table Talk

•  Office of Marriage and Family Life Reminders: A reminder about upcoming events from the Office of Marriage and Family Life.  April 22nd is the Prepare Enrich training at St. Joseph in Sykesville.  April 29th is the Single Again Conference at Our Lady of the Fields in Millersville. May 11th is the Catholic Divorce Survival Guide Training at St. Ursula in Parkville. May 12th is Living Marriage in the Image and Likeness of God at OLPH Ellicott City. June 10th is the next Given Retreat at St John in Severna Park. July 23-26 is the National Association of Catholic Family Life Ministers Conference in Washington DC. Contact Chris Mahaley at 410-547-5406 with any questions.

•  Evangelizing with Hispanic Traditions of Holy Week: Lia Salinas, director of Hispanic Ministry, shares some rich traditions of Holy Week that immigrants have brought with them from Spain and Latin America. How can their Catholic cultural heritage be a means of evangelization for our whole parish?  Read Lia’s article and see what services are offered throughout the Archdiocese.

•  Good Friday Way of the Cross: The Office of Respect Life, with the Offices of Vocation and Hispanic Ministries, will be hosting the Good Friday Way of the Cross/Viacrucis del Viernes Santo on Friday, April 14^th starting at 8am. Archbishop Lori and Bishop Brennan will lead us in the Stations of the Cross from St. Alphonsus Church to the Planned Parenthood facility on Howard Street. This is a bilingual event (English/Spanish). For details, see the Facebook event here and use these printable flyers (English/Spanish).

•  Shrines for Evangelization: Last week Pope Francis spoke about how Catholic shrines are key places for evangelization.  How can you better utilize the many shrines in and near the Archdiocese of Baltimore to bring our parishioners to a deeper encounter with Jesus Christ and an experience of the beauty of the patrimony of our Faith?

•  Taking young people right to the Source: In this article from the National Catholic Register, Nicole Wolfram Smith writes about several ministries that evangelize through Eucharistic adoration. One of the young adults interviewed said: “It was the right amount of guidance, and also freedom, to have a personal experience.”  How can we better and more often facilitate an encounter for our young people with Christ in the Eucharist?

Questions? Feedback? Please leave a comment below.