The Making Disciples Today Blog has reflections to help you grow in your journey of missionary discipleship, reviews on recommended Catholic evangelization resources, and practical insight on how to evangelize in your daily life.
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- Written by Burning Hearts team
In a way, Kristin Bird was a little surprised to find herself standing in a classroom at Mary Mother of the Church Pastoral Center on Saturday, Oct. 22, offering a breakout session entitled “From Encounter to Invitation” as part of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s Eucharistic Revival Preparation Day.
Bird, who runs Burning Hearts Disciples in Oshkosh, spent 15 years as a youth minister, DRE and confirmation director before starting her organization eight years ago.
“If you would have told me eight years ago that dioceses and parishes were going to want to re-think so much of what we do as a Church, I probably would have laughed at you, and said there’s no way,” Bird said.
During her time working in the Church, she has seen it use many buzzwords and programs to try to spread its message.
“I found myself thinking revival was kind of a pipe dream,” Bird said. “It is fantastic to see the Church at a place where we’re not only ready for it, but we’re also planning for it, preparing for it and intentionally looking at how we can bring about revival for our parishes and for our people.”
Ultimately, the goal of the Eucharistic Revival is evangelizing.
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- Written by Burning Hearts Team
Blessing a home recognizes God's goodness in providing for us a home to live in, invites God to be present within our home, and dedicates our home to God. A blessing isn't a magic formula that makes our homes holy; our homes become holy because of how we act inside them. Rather, it asks for God's protection over the mind, body, and soul of those who live there.
Having our home blessed helps draw us closer to God, to Whom it is dedicated; and acknowledges that our home does more than just benefit our bodies by providing the tangible things like warmth, heat, shelter, etc. A blessed home can benefit our souls as well.
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- Written by Kristin Bird
In this episode of the Transforming Parishes, Transforming Lives podcast, we explore the reality of conflict within parish life and discuss ways to navigate through it and strategies for creating an environment for healthy, instructive conflict.
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- Written by Edward P. Hahnenberg
Discernment is the process of finding God’s will in our lives. It is the process of listening for and responding to God’s call. It is the process of discovering one’s vocation. We get ourselves into trouble, however, when we imagine that God’s will is “out there” and apart from us.
We run into problems when we see our vocation as some kind of riddle that we have to decipher or some secret message that we have to decode. Such an approach transforms God’s plan into a set of arbitrary instructions -- directions for life that we cannot seem to find. Under such a view, discernment becomes scary. We don’t know what God wants. And so we search frantically for some sign telling us what to do. Or we just give up.
Discernment is difficult, but it is not difficult because it is a puzzle that we can’t figure out. It is difficult because it involves the coming together of two infinite mysteries: God and me. This realization helps us to see that whenever we learn something true about God, we learn something true about ourselves. And whenever we learn something true about ourselves, we learn something true of God.