When I was with the Notre Dame group in Rome, we classmates spoke a lot to each other about our various ministries and the reality in the parishes and Dioceses in which we serve. Some of them shared experiences of large flourishing parishes that revolved around the charismatic personality of one priest that really struggled after that priest retired or left that parish. We are not to make the ministries or parishes in which we serve all about us. St Paul tells us that we do not preach ourselves but rather our Lord Jesus Christ. Our preaching and our Gospel message is to be the message of our Lord Jesus Christ, which the Holy Spirit inspires us to do. But, indeed, the Holy Spirit inspires us in different ways. I think of St Paul who was called by God to bring the Gospel message to the Gentiles, to inculturate the Gospel message in a way they could understand, at a time when Peter and many of the other Church leaders wanted the Gospel message to be directed entirely to Jews.
When we were on the immersion experience in Rome, we visited the places where St Dominic and St Francis of Assisi stayed when they were in Rome. Both of those men founded mendicant religious orders in the early 13th century, where members of these orders took a vow of poverty and traveled to different places, especially cities, where they focused on preaching, evangelization, and ministry. This was very different than the monastic orders that dominated Europe up to that time. It is the same Gospel message of our Lord Jesus Christ, but that message can take different shapes and forms. May we be true to this same Gospel message.
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