Actions do speak louder than words. People inspire me and teach me more by how they live than by what they say. Actions also give meaning to the words we speak. I think this is especially true in giving witness to Christ.
While on an immersion and service trip to the tiny, remote village of Galena, Alaska, Dianne LaScotte approached an older resident outside St. John Berchman church to thank her for sharing her life story at a parish event. The woman, an elder in the Athabascan Indian community to which most of the village’s 470 residents belong, responded with curiosity, “Why are you here?”
When Marta Pereira visited St. Antony’s Pilgrim Shrine during an immersion trip to the Diocese of Vijayapuram in India, she was awed by the thousands of faithful who gathered for the sacraments and eucharistic adoration on a Tuesday, the Church’s traditional day to honor and pray to the saint.
A forlorn-looking woman standing outside her small shack near Mandeville, Jamaica, caught the eye of the van driver who was taking Grant Rabuse and nine others from the archdiocese to a mission site in the south-central Diocese of Mandeville.
All the meetings Debbie Keller attended in Kitui, Kenya, during a Center for Mission partnership trip started in a surprising way — whether they were about community building and resources or gatherings with local women.
The Center for Mission helps unite individuals, parishes and the entire Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to the universal mission of the Church, which is carrying Jesus’ saving message of love and healing to all corners of the world.
Sometimes in life we have to speak up and act. We feel compelled to respond to someone in need or we cannot remain silent to a situation of injustice. Our hearts become restless for something more or something new, and we have to listen. These moments can move us beyond our comfort zones and even beyond our normal understanding of good sense. We just know there is something we have to do and cannot ignore it any longer.
Following the official end of the Vietnam War April 30, 1975, more than 750,000 refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos resettled in the United States.
Pope Francis will finally fulfill his desire to be a missionary to Japan when he visits that country, as well as Thailand, Nov. 20-26, the Vatican announced.
