Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Let me share with you a couple of reflections on the above Scripture passage.

First, there had been a three-year drought in Israel. No rain. It is a time of desperation that brings the people of God, who had gone after false gods, to their senses (remember the prodigal son who had gone looking for life in all the wrong places and then came to his senses? Luke 15).  In a season of drought, of severe need and hopelessness, the prophet gathered the people on Mt. Carmel to reveal the true God! You may remember that they then witnessed the vain attempts of the false prophets to call down fire for the sacrifice from their god.  When Elijah prays, the Lord’s fire not only consumed the water soaked sacrifice, but all the wood and stones of the altar! To which the people wake from the forgetfulness of sin and cry out, “The LORD, he alone is God!” A conversion has occurred among God’s people. What a gracious God! The same God and Father who Jesus reveals to us the parable of the prodigal son! 

I can tell you sincerely, that during several years where drought conditions existed in my soul due to personal circumstances, failure, sin (AND the Lord’s purposes), I had come to the point where I actually questioned if I wanted to be consumed by the fire of God as a living sacrifice of praise or just sit by the side of the road, lick my wounds and, trust in the grace and mercy of God to carry me across the finish line. I can now answer with gratitude, “let fire of the Holy Spirit fall afresh on me!” I want to be in the game. I want to continue in the adventure of following the Lord Jesus as a member of the Catholic Church! How about you? The Father is the One who waits in mercy to show compassion to each of us! See Luke 15:20ff. He doesn’t want us to settle for living lukewarm or just getting by, but wants us fully engaged as his servants who love him whole heartedly and want to obediently carry his Lordship wherever we are (his righteousness, peace and joy in us for the sake of others)!

Here in our offices we too hear the sound of heavy rain! We are being renewed during our prayer times as we gather in our chapel before the Blessed Sacrament experiencing Him drawing us closer to him, opening us to His presence and his word in Scripture and through the

Having seen Discovering Christ in action, I already knew some of the great fruits that would come from it: personal conversion for the participants, deepened commitments to the Lord on the part of the team, and renewed life in other parish ministries and activities. These fruits were evident again this year in wonderful ways, but an unexpected gift and fruit this year was the deep sense of unity fostered among those parishioners who formed the team. From the

I have always been a "Sunday Catholic". I feel I have led a moral life, considerate and helpful to others, but I have felt there was always something missing in my spiritual life.

When my neighbor asked me to join her to attend "Discovering Christ", I believe that the Holy Spirit was working through her to get me to take part in this wonderful event.
 
This came at a very stressful time in my life and I think the Lord knew I needed to attend and to hear and feel what I have so lacked in my life. I thoroughly enjoyed the weekly talks and the small group discussions during which I made new friends and shared with them things I needed to share.

Our former Pope, John Paul the Great, challenges us to step outside of ourselves and to reach out to everyone we meet with the love of Christ. He doesn't say that this duty is one of priests or religious alone, but of all believers in Christ! This has really challenged me in my faith to be more open to those opportunities in normal daily life to tell someone about Jesus.

Over the summer ChristLife and the UMBC Newman club co-sponsored Sharing Christ (an audio/video-based course) for young adults. This course is designed to train Catholics to evangelize, which is so needed in our Church today. Every Thursday evening for seven weeks 10-15 young adults came to UMBC’s Interfaith Center for worship, fellowship, small group discussions and teaching on evangelization.

Our goal is to finish development of Discovering Christ by the end of 2008, with the aim of rolling out the course at a Winter/Spring 2009 training conference.

In preparation for making this resource widely available, we are working hard this summer developing leadership materials so that others can present the course themselves.  The resources will include expanded teacher outlines, transcripts of the teachings that Fr. Erik Arnold and I present during the course and, the audio files of the talks on CD. We are also working on an administrator’s handbook to prepare for all that goes on behind the scenes to successfully pull off the course.

Please pray the Holy Spirit inspires our efforts and makes Discovering Christ fruitful!