More than 1,500 people from across the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis gathered in Minneapolis May 20 for Mass, speakers, music, prayer, adoration of the Eucharist and personal testimonies as Archdiocesan Synod implementation took a big step forward.
Archbishop Bernard Hebda, Bishop Joseph Williams, priests and deacons, religious sisters and brothers, and lay women and men heard Mary Healy, a professor at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, share her talks on “The Holy Spirit in the Life of a Disciple” and “Clothed with Power from on High.”
The archbishop introduced Father Michael Becker, pastor of Sts. Joachim and Anne in Shakopee, as the recently appointed vicar for charisms, charged with providing opportunities for the faithful to experience a greater outpouring of the Holy Spirit and put into practice the gifts of the Holy Spirit to build up the body of Christ.
The event, labeled the Activated Disciple Seminar, was the capstone of seven weeks of formation in the School of Discipleship and a 40-Day Challenge to act on the promptings of the Holy Spirit and daily share Christ’s love.
Nearly 2,000 people in the archdiocese — many of whom attended the seminar — participated in the School of Discipleship, either in person at Our Lady of Grace in Edina or via livestream. They were chosen by pastors in each parish and formed into groups of about 12 called Synod Evangelization Teams. Now, those teams will help each pastor pick leaders to form parish-based small groups built around evangelization, service and understanding the Mass and Christ’s presence in the Eucharist. Small group leaders will be sought in each parish in the coming months and trained in September.
As described in Archbishop Hebda’s post-synodal pastoral letter released in November, “You Will be My Witnesses,” as the love of Christ spreads, the 12 will grow to 72, and the 72 will multiply into still more activated disciples; those equipped with knowledge and inspired to share the faith.
Bishop Williams, who attended the School of Discipleship when he was pastor of St. Stephen and Holy Rosary parishes in Minneapolis, encouraged people to be bold in sharing Christ’s love and teaching and encouraging others to do the same.
“You can only be a disciple by doing discipleship. Right? You have to do it,” Bishop Williams said. “That’s why you have to practice the disciplines. That’s why you need a 40-Day Challenge. You have to put it into practice. Mary Healy mentioned that one word: boldness. And it’s wonderful to contemplate boldness here, but you can only be bold by doing boldness. And that’s what the archbishop is asking of all of you over the next four months. Can you imagine if an arena full of Catholics were in small group leadership formation this coming September? Can you imagine that? Not just preaching Jesus from the temple, but Jesus being preached from house to house without tiring. That was the vision of the early Church. That’s the vision of our archbishop.”
In his homily May 20, Archbishop Hebda asked for prayers that the Lord’s work would continue to bear fruit in the archdiocese. “There is a need to go forth and to preach and to teach and to baptize,” the archbishop said. “It’s the way in which our Church grows.”
And the Lord’s desire is that everyone evangelize, “not because of our gifts, but because of his mercy, for the way in which God invites each of us to be part of his plan,” the archbishop said.
Healy spoke of Mary as the first disciple of Jesus, for she “was the first to hear the good news of the Gospel and to share it.” The Apostles followed, as well as St. Paul, who in essence proclaimed, “the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk, but of power,” Healy said. That power is manifested in the ability to heal the sick, drive out demons, cleanse lepers and raise the dead, and that power remains today, she said.
Invited to share their experiences in the School of Discipleship and through the 40-Day Challenge, more than a few described feeling the Holy Spirit’s presence as they helped and prayed for people in need.
Barbara Pena of St. Ambrose in Woodbury stood up and said, “This has been to me one of the greatest invitations for love, trust and relationship.” With a big smile she proclaimed she feels not only like an activated disciple, but an “ignited disciple.”
Jim Cahill of Our Lady of Guadalupe in St. Paul described being alert to his surroundings as looking for “tickles” of inspiration, and as a result recently praying for people in a restaurant, in a liquor store and in a men’s group. Prayers in the liquor store were for a man’s girlfriend who was dying of cancer. Cahill and the man remained in the busy checkout line while they prayed, “but you’re not aware of that, I mean, you’re just there in the moment,” Cahill said.
Later in the parking lot, the man rolled down his truck window and the two talked some more, Cahill said. “I said, ‘How about the sacraments?’” for his girlfriend, and the man replied they would probably “take care of that.”
“So, I just prayed again,” Cahill said, “and he looked up and he was crying. And he said, ‘thank you for bringing the faith back to me,’ because it had been 21 years.”
Before the seminar began, Viviana Sotro, Latino ministry coordinator at Guardian Angels in Chaska, told The Catholic Spirit that the School of Discipleship inspired her to evangelize more than sporadically.
“I was doing things here and there,” Sotro said. “Now, I feel like, it is ‘blast off!’ This experience is not for me, but for the Church, to bring people to Christ.”
