Pastoral Congress calls laity to become missionaries

IC photo/Marie Mischel

+ Enlarge

Joined by many priests of the diocese, Bishop Oscar A. Solis celebrates the Sept. 15 Mass for the Pastoral Congress, which drew hundreds of Catholics from throughout the Diocese of Salt Lake City. At the Congress the Pastoral Plan was introduced. The plan expresses the commitment to carry out the mandate of Christ to preach the Good News, Bishop Solis said. ?The words of the Scriptures give us the inspiration and confidence to pursue this calling.? Also among the concelebrants at the Mass were priests who were presenters at the Congress.

DRAPER — Hundreds of people from throughout the Diocese of Salt Lake City gathered Sept. 15 at the Skaggs Catholic Center for faith formation and Catholic community at the 2018 Pastoral Congress.

“This is a special day and moment when the local Church of the Diocese of Salt Lake City, when people of different sectors and parishes … throughout the diocese  gather together as a faith community,” said Bishop Oscar A. Solis in his welcoming remarks. “We are one Church, professing one faith in one Lord, and we have one mission. It’s no secret: Our mission is to proclaim the Gospel or the Good News of salvation to all people.”

Only a small percentage of Catholics are priests or men and women religious “so we rely on the gift of the laity to help us carry out the work of evangelization in our local Church in the entire state of Utah in the Diocese of Salt Lake City,” he said.

To be missionary disciples, “we need to invoke the blessings of God and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to open our hearts and our minds to be able to discern God’s will in our lives,” Bishop Solis said.

“There is nothing more special that God wants us to do other than to become missionary disciples of Our Lord, always ready and eager to proclaim the Gospel of love and salvation to all the people, especially the people we meet, especially the people we have in our own homes, in our own church communities,” he added.

At the Pastoral Congress  the bishop also launched the diocesan Pastoral Plan “that will guide us and direct us in all our efforts in seeing to it that our mission of evangelization is carried out in every nook and corner of the diocese here in the State of Utah,” he said. (See Pastoral Plan outlines five priorities for the Diocese of Salt Lake City.)

Acknowledging the clergy sexual abuse scandal and the recent release of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report, Bishop Solis said, “The Church is not the church of the priests, the Church is the church of Christ, so don’t lose faith, don’t lose faith in our Church.”

He asked for prayers for the priests and bishops “that they may be more responsible and faithful in their sacred duties and obligation to become the good shepherds of God’s people entrusted to our care” and called on the faithful to be ambassadors of peace, healing and forgiveness in the Church.

“We can only overcome this scandal, we can only overcome the failings of some of the members of our Church, especially our leaders, if we put ourselves in the loving and tender arms of Jesus, praying and pleading with God to heal us, to heal our priests, heal our bishops, and heal the Church, that the world may come to know that the Church is the Church of Christ,” he said.    

In his homily at the Mass, the bishop said, “The unity between Jesus and his disciples was the cornerstone of the missionary activity of the Church,” and this understanding is essential to the work of evangelization.

“Each of us counts and has an important part to contribute in the mission of evangelization,” he added. “St. Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, reminds us of this. He said the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one of us. He said that even though we are many parts, yet we are one body, the Body of Christ, for we share one Spirit, we share one faith, we share one baptism, and one profession: that Jesus Christ is Lord.”  

The missionary spirit must be anchored in Christ, Bishop Solis said. “As we carry out the mission of Christ in our diocese and our local Church, my dear friends, let us all be united in prayer, to be of one heart, one in faith, one in open-hearted love so together we can proclaim the goodness of salvation as one faith community.”

In addition to the bishop’s remarks, the Pastoral Congress included keynote addresses in the morning and the afternoon for both the English and Spanish-speaking congregations. Dr. Patricia Jiménez presented “My Life and My Ministry” in both Spanish and English. The presentation “The Gifts of the Laity” was given in English by Dominican Father Jude Siciliano and in Spanish by Dominican Father Cristóbal Torres.

Fr. Jude, who is a fulltime preacher, reminded his audience of the teaching of Vatican II that all the baptized are called to evangelization. Clergy and the laity alike “share the call to holiness, we share the gifts of holiness, we share the gifts of proclaiming God’s word,” he said.

He quoted Cardinal Henry Newman, that preaching is a breathing together of the faithful and the pastors. “It’s a breathing together with God and in God. The whole Church, Newman said, participates in handing on the faith,” Fr. Jude said.

Focusing on the baptismal call to be a prophet, he explained that a prophet “is someone who is called to proclaim God’s word in the present moment, in the light of the present moment. … The prophet speaks the word of God.”

In the Old Testament, he pointed out, prophets first heard the word of God, then responded.

“What’s the first thing you do as a prophet? You hear. What’s the first thing you do as a preacher? You listen,” he said.

Fr. Jude noted that the diocese’s Pastoral Plan “calls all people in the diocese to their vocation. It emphasizes the lay calling to each person. How might you preachers discern your lay calling as proclaimers of God’s word? You could begin by keeping silent and listening in the silence. What is God saying in that silence? So we stop, we read, we listen, we reflect, we pray and then we act or, in light of what we’re talking about, and then we preach. Through words and actions, we proclaim God’s kingdom.”

In her presentation, Jiménez shared her story of how she grew from a timid child to become the communications leader for the National V Encuentro and a resource person for the Congar Institute.

As a child, she was told with disdain that she couldn’t be an altar server, and “it was very painful to me,” particularly because no one suggested other ministry for her. She did become a catechist and served her parish in other ways, so “I found my place in the Church,” she said.

However, it wasn’t until after she attended college that a friar suggested she study theology, “and my world just opened up because I felt like, ‘Whoa! This is something I really want to do. This is what I want to do with my life,’” she said.

Someone called her and she responded, she said, and suggested that those present do the same.

“Our gifts are not just for us. We’re supposed to be good stewards and share them with everybody else,” she said.

Because she did so, she was able to meet Pope Francis through a fortunate encounter while she was in Rome for the National V Encuentro.

“When I was a little fifth-grader and I said, ‘I want to serve,’ I never in my mind expected that I would be working with the bishops, traveling, meeting the pope in an elevator and shaking his hand. … This journey of lay ministry is so powerful,” she said. “When you say ‘yes’ you have no idea where it’s going to lead you.”