Christ Discovered in Old School Hall!

So for the past 6 weeks about 55 to 60 young adults have been looking for Christ in the basement of an old school hall. They would all gather around 7 p.m. on Tuesdays, gain strength for the search by eating a delicious meal, and then spend the rest of the evening until 9 p.m. looking for Christ. Seems kind of weird, but the good news is that a good number of the young adults have discovered Him!

Ok, more seriously though, we finished up our last Discovering Christ course at St. Agnes and the wonderful news is that it drew a good amount of young adults to Christ. This conclusion was solidified by the testimonies given by various participants after the course and from the 45 evaluations we received. So praise God!


Another awesome component to the course was the retreat that we had this past Saturday. Through talks on the Holy Spirit, good food, small groups, confession, prayer, worship, and fellowship the participants were given the opportunity to receive the power of the Holy Spirit and just have a good time. Part of the talk given by Fr. Erik Arnold we've podcasted and below are a few comments from the course and retreat evaluations.

"[Through the course] I recognized that I wanted to spend more time with God in my busy life, and am willing to make more time for that. I really wasn't aware that I wasn't giving the time to be with him."

"I was able to realize the place that Jesus holds in my life, and that he is always there I just need to be willing to let him in....On retreat day I was able to let Jesus back into my life and allowed his guidance and help into my heart again."

"I went to confession for the first time in ten years."

"I became closer to Jesus and my faith has grown tremendously through discussions with other young adults."

If you would like to find out more about the Discovering Christ course you can check it out here and you can view the Photo Album here. God is good, all the time!

Receive the Power

"You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses." (Acts 1:8)

I don't know how anyone tries to witness to Jesus Christ without the Holy Spirit. That's like running a marathon through the desert without any water! I remember a great conversation on this topic that I had with Fr. Francis Martin, a Scripture scholar from the Mother of God community we did a podcast with, about evangelization. He said rightly that "evangelization" is never used in Scriptures - but the idea of "witness" is. And Peter and the other apostles were excellent at this (after being baptized with the Spirit at Pentecost). Remember in Acts after being persecuted by the religious authorities for preaching Jesus - they exclaimed "how can we not speak of what we have seen and heard!"

But you say: I have never seen Jesus physically, etc. I say: the Holy Spirit is the one who makes Jesus present to us - and in a way, through faith, just as tangible as seeing someone physically. Because I've seen extraordinary things - and the problem is that weeks, months, years later - the memory grows dim - especially if there is persecution - unless I have the Holy Spirit.

I write all this because the next World Youth Day's theme is the verse from Acts I started with in the blog - and the official theme song recently came out in a video form - check it out... what do you think? I think its a great inspiration for the Catholic Church.

Singing Rocks (literally)

You know when you are walking down the street or maybe just sitting at your desk at work and you just have to hum a little tune or sing a song. If you are anything like me - when you're happy either a dance or song comes out of it - it is just natural - i mean, just look at endzone dances.

Well yesterday I was sitting outside at Capitol City Brewing Company, a restaurant at the Inner Harbor with some friends after our victorious volleyball games and I just had to sing. Now my singing wasn't the result of winning our volleyball games or the good food and company, I had been like this since much earlier in the day.

So what was it? Jesus of course! I had spent the afternoon watching the movie "The Nativity" with my grandmother and was so overwhelmed by the love of our God and Savior that for the rest of the day I just wanted to worship Him with my whole being and, of course, sing. Do you ever experience this? You are so overwhelmed with the love of the Father that you just want to shout, dance, or sing, but because it is socially unacceptable at times you keep quiet? Well don't! How else will people know that God's love is real and very personal if you don't show it at all?

I remember when I was younger, one of my brothers would not stop singing worship songs and I was so annoyed and very rudely told him to stop. His response was the same as Jesus' to the Pharisees, "I tell you...if they keep quiet the stones will cry out" (Luke 19:40). So of course that didn't make the situation any better for me. But he is right! We should be publicly rejoicing in the Lord, especially in response to His great love for us. Our Pope, Benedict XVI is completely on board with our Lord's desire for us to proclaim him as he appeals to young adults in his recent address "All the Churches for all the world", to proclaim Christ. Hopefully I'll keep this in mind and continue to proclaim the good works of the Lord everyday whether in song or just with my life.

Who said evangelism can't be fun?

Well, the one-day 42-mile hike went very well. Four of us "knuckleheads" woke up around 3:30/4 am and drove out to the Mason/Dixon Line (border of PA and MD) and began the hike at sunup around 5:45am.

As I had already accomplished this "feat" in one-day I suppose I was a bit confident in my hiking skills - so I decided to bring 1) lots of food, 2) bottles of water and gospels of John to hand people, 3) a camera, 4) an digital audio recorder for the upcoming podcast on this expedition, 5) assorted survival gear (compass, rosary, bible, guidebook, cigars, etc.), and 6) water for myself. Needless to say, my pack was very heavy - my feet now "bear the marks."

So what does all this have to do with evangelization?

Well, as the last post explained we stopped hikers along the way and asked if they would like a bottle of water and, if the opportunity arose, a mini-version of the Gospel of John (called "The Water"). That went pretty well. We met about 15 or so hikers, most of whom were hiking the whole 2000 miles GAME (Georgia to Maine)! We even met a couple dudes with kilts on - interesting!? But, all were very thankful for water and several accepted the gospels - one dude, who had, I must say, distasteful music playing in his backpack ... accepted the gospel and said, "I'll read it in the next few days." Praise God!

As we left each encounter we prayed for them and went on our way. Who knows what the Lord will do through those random acts of kindness and the gospels?!

While the hike was a success - the physical toll it took on our bodies was quite heavy - as my feet now show. I think we have a greater appreciate of suffering now :) We actually ended up running about 40 - 50 % of the hike (mainly to make up time due to one of the guys getting injured and to slacking off early in the hike).


Anyway stay tuned for a podcast devoted to the hiking trip - with lots of fun details and some teaching on begin missionaries: anytime, anywhere. Also, click here for more pictures from the hike.

Finally, just being out in God's creation was awesome. Seeing the beauty in Brazil this past May, Pope Benedict told the youth:

"When we see the beauty of creation and recognize the goodness present there, it is impossible not to believe in God and to experience his saving and reassuring presence. If we came to see all the good that exists in the world - and moreover, experience the good that comes from God himself - we would never cease to approach him, praise him, and thank him. He continually fills us with joy and good things. His joy is our strength.”

Amen to that!

How beautiful are the feet...

The reference is Romans 10:15 (quoting Isaiah 52.7). The verse goes "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news!"

Well, tomorrow morning I'm getting up around, oh, 3:30am to go on a 42 mile hike (the whole Appalachian Trail in Maryland) in one day (sunup to sundown). Yeah, I'm crazy... and so are the 3 or 4 guys going with me. It's called the Maryland Challenge.


Besides enjoying the scenery and hiking, we will be spending time in prayer for evangelization AND engaging in a little servant evangelism. What? Well, it combines acts of kindness with evangelization. Specifically, we each will have 2 or 3 bottles of water to offer to fellow hikers as we pass them by. And even better, we have mini gospels of John called "The Water" that we are taping to the bottles. So we hope to bless them with a kind word or two, some physical nourishment and some spiritual nourishment - if the choose to read it.

So, pray that our feet are "beautiful" at the end of this long hike! I doubt they will be - at least in a physical sense :0 I look forward to sharing with the blog pictures and even a podcast from our trip. So long!