A blessed and joyous Palm Sunday to all of you! Some of you are regulars, and you have read my musings in the past about our Parish Family of Saint John the Evangelist. Others of you may be visiting family and friends down here in sunny Florida, escaping the colder climates of up North. Still others of you may be here for the first time, dipping your toe into the faith called Catholicism. No matter where you are on your life journey, you are welcome here at our church.
Our Holy Father Pope Francis has given the Catholic Church a wonderful blueprint for how we are supposed to inject our faith into the world with our positive actions. It is called AMORIS LAETITIA, or The Joy of Love. It is a sweeping document, and it touches on many of the core facets of how we bridge the difficulties in our lives with the joy of a deep personal relationship with Jesus, who asked us all to love God and each other as we would want to be loved. The key word we use here at Saint John is: accompaniment. Cardinal Wuerl, who has put together a “Pastoral Plan to Implement AMORIS LAETITIA” for Washington, DC, provides a great definition of accompaniment:
The ministry of accompaniment is a collaborative effort of priests and laity who understand themselves to be missionary disciples, who experience the love of the Lord in their encounter with him and who seek to share it with others. Pope Francis invites all of us to this practice of accompaniment, noting, “In addition to the small circle of the couple and their children, there is the larger family, which cannot be overlooked. … Friends and other families are part of this larger family, as well as communities of families who support one another in their difficulties, their social commitments and their faith” (AL, 196).
But what does that mean for us? Here at St. John, we focus on caring for each other without judging. We help each other while laughing or crying together because we are all hurting, or distracted from what is important, or feeling anonymous. We all need each other’s love:
Some people have focused much of the attention of Amoris Laetitia on people in so-called “irregular situations” as divorce and remarriage. A honest spiritual assessment of marital and family life recognizes that it could be said that each one of us is in an “irregular situation” when it comes to our relationship with true God. Each of us is a sinner in need of wholeness who has fallen short of the great plan God has laid out for us. Yet we are people of unending hope because our own shortcomings are not the end of the story. It is through the encounter with Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit that we are reconciled to God and to one another. Each of us is in need of this healing, and so we journey together as brothers and sisters united in our common need for the love and mercy of God that heals every broken human heart. – Cardinal Wuerl
And it is our responsibility as a Parish Family to welcome and accompany every single person who comes to our doors, and to go out into the community and provide that same hospitality:
Often the first person who gives witness to the joy of the Gospel is not the pastor but the parish staff member or volunteer who answers the phone call of an engaged couple, welcomes a family into religious education or the Catholic school, or who greets a couple before Mass. The fundamental attitude of an accompanying community is hospitality, in particular, that offered by the parish office. Pope Francis points out in a very practical way that the parish office should be prepared to deal helpfully and sensitively with family needs and be able to make referrals, when necessary, to those who can help. – Cardinal Wuerl
So, once again, welcome! We look forward to walking on this journey together with you.