July 30, 2023 - Pastor Message
04/30/2024THE YEAR OF MISSION
OUR VALUES (cont.)
“We are a parish who welcomes and enjoys fellowship with all people” (from our parish’s Values Statement).
Continuing our reflection on our parish’s Values Statement, we look this week at our commitment to forming an inviting community where all are welcome. This basic principle springs directly from the ministry of Jesus himself. Jesus’ entire life - from the Incarnation, when God took on flesh and entered into his fallen creation as one like us in all things but sin; to his public ministry, when he constantly reached out to those on the margins to bring them into the life of the faith community and shared table fellowship with outcasts and sinners; to his Paschal Mystery, when by his death he shared fully in our human experience and by his resurrection opened the way for us to share in his divinity - is one continuous act of welcome, one continuous invitation to all people to come ever deeper into the life and love of God.
Jesus’ mission of welcome continued with the Apostles and the early Church as they answered his call to “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20). To “all nations” they went, geographically - proclaiming the Gospel by to the four corners of the known world - and personally - sharing fellowship with people from all races, cultures, social classes, and ways of life. Their uniquely welcoming lives and limitless invitation to share in the life of Christ drew people in by the hundreds and thousands until Christian communities grew in every city, town, and village throughout the Roman Empire and beyond, laying the foundation of the Church that has continued to grow right to our own time.
As members of the Church, our lives must extend that same welcome and invitation to all people today. Like Jesus, we must enter into the lives of all our neighbors and beyond, building bonds of fellowship with them. Like Jesus, we must reach out to those on the margins and the outcasts to invite them into the faith community too so that none are left out. Like Jesus, we must share fully in our neighbors’ experiences, even those of pain and loss, so that we can share with them the hope of new life that can only be found in Christ. Like Jesus, our lives, as a parish and as individual members of it, must become a continuous invitation to all people to come ever deeper with us into the life and love of God. That is the meaning of our fourth Values statement and another core principle of all we do here at St. Boniface.
Fr. Marc Stockton
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