Waking Up Every Day in the Acts of the Apostles

Pentecost: The Apostles and the Blessed Virgin 

Somehow, another academic year is coming to its conclusion.  It kind of snuck up on me.  I met with a wedding couple today and I told them that I keep thinking, "Their wedding isn't until May."  I forget that this week  is May.  This afternoon I met with our current FOCUS team leader, next year's team leader, this year's intern, and next year's intern. We did a review of the year and started putting things in place for next year.  The new Pastoral Board has been elected.  The two student leaders for next year's Fall Retreat, the Liturgical Committee chairperson, and the Catholics on Campus (our weekly formation night) team are all in place.  First Week events for September are being planned and students leaders are already getting geared up for next year.  It is shaping up to be a good year ahead.

When I first came to the Catholic Center, the rabbi next door to us asked me how things were going.  I said, "I have these meetings with the students.  They show up, come up with ideas, assign people to implement the ideas, and then . . . then they actually go and do everything that they said they were going to do."  The rabbi said, "Yeah . . . where else does this happen?!"  I had this same sense all over again today as I participated in our meeting.  The young men and women at the BU Catholic Center, the interns, and the FOCUS Missionaries all know what they are doing.  For them, evangelization is not theoretical.  It is something that is happening.  My FOCUS team talked today about how dozens of students are in discipleship.  This is a one on one relationship between a missionary and a student where they discuss growth in the life of being a disciple of Jesus.  Then, those students go out and enter into similar relationships with other students and help them to grow in discipleship.  Additionally, there are approximately 25 Bible Studies being hosted on campus this year by FOCUS  Missionaries and/or students at the Catholic Center.  

During our meeting, the missionaries and interns were interested in making sure that we do a better job advertising our daily Holy Hours and making students feel more welcomed.  They wanted to broaden our use of the Liturgy of the Hours, make sure that a Daily Rosary is part of the Catholic Center schedule, and that confession times are convenient.  They want to encourage students at the Catholic Center to be more involved in other campus activities, to build up strong one on one friendships, and to reach out, reach out, reach out.

Tonight after the Catholic Center spaghetti dinner, a group of students was heading off to play in the intramural softball playoffs.  As two of the players were finishing dinner, they decided to go pray a Rosary in the chapel first.  (I think this was purely for spiritual reasons and not to gain a competitive edge in the game.  But either way, I'm okay with it.)

I wake up every day and go to a place where people love God, love the Sacraments, love the Scriptures, love the Church, love each other, serve others, and intelligently and joyfully evangelize. Evangelization for them is not driven by some external and impersonal program.  It is driven by their own personal encounter with Christ and His Church. During the Easter Season, we read every day from the Acts of the Apostles.  In those readings, we see what the Church was at its very beginning.  We sense that it was filled with love, with joy,  with zeal, and with awe. The Church was exploding with witnesses who were bringing the Gospel to others and were helping others to know Jesus and to become His disciples.  Where I go to work every day, it's still the same. It's still the same.