Small groups have been important to his faith, vocation and continued community building, Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Williams told Kayla Mayer, producer of the “Practicing Catholic” radio show, for a program debuting at 9 p.m. Feb. 9.
“First of all, the family, coming from a beautiful family, that’s the primordial Christian community, and that was the school of charity in my life,” Bishop Williams said. “Realizing how much we grow and learn from our parents. But we have to learn to share and work together and forgive and continue on staying in a community. All of that matures us.
“It matures not just the community life we’re living, but as individuals, as individual Christians.”
Bishop Williams said a small group Bible study in a welcoming home while he attended the University of Minnesota Morris, and living in Christian “households” similar to a fraternity or sorority while he attended the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Steubenville, Ohio, were impactful experiences for him.
“Father Michael Scanlon, who renewed the mission of that university, was so prophetic to realize that boy, when we’re in small groups, we’re better as students, we’re better as human beings, we’re better as Christians,” Bishop Williams said. “There’s accountability. People don’t get lost in the crowd or fall through the cracks.”
Bishop Williams touted small groups as the implementation of the Archdiocesan Synod urges all parishioners to join small groups at their parishes.
Bishop Williams will address the same topic at 7 p.m. Feb. 29 at Assumption in St. Paul as part of the Catholic Center for Social Thought’s “Rebuilding Catholic Community” speaker series. The series begins Feb. 15 and runs Thursday nights through March 7.
To hear Bishop Williams talk about small groups as one way to draw young people to Catholic life, and how community plays a key role in salvation through Christ, listen to the “Practicing Catholic,” which repeats at 1 p.m. Feb. 10 and 2 p.m. Feb. 11.
Produced by Relevant Radio and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the latest show also includes a discussion with marriage and family therapist emeritus Kate Walsh Soucheray on the Lenten journey of repentance and hope, and the story of a Catholic family that took a big leap of faith and started a winery in the west metro.
Listen to interviews after they have aired at PracticingCatholicShow.com or choose a streaming platform at Spotify for Podcasters.
