Dear
faithful Pastor:
First of all, thank you so much for
giving your life to the God, His Church, and to us. Your work is so important and crucial in
being another Christ in bringing us Mass, the sacraments, counseling us,
teaching us, overseeing parish groups, and managing the parish, an enterprise
just as challenging as running a business enterprise or other
organization. Your duties in running one
or two or even three parishes often with a school and other services can be
overwhelming while keeping up with the indispensable Liturgy of the Hours. Through your most noble vocation over your
career you will have brought the Lord’s mercy to hundreds if not thousands of
souls and help them along the narrow and often difficult road to salvation. May God reward you richly and use all of the
trials, crosses, and frustrations of your crucial job to make you a saint. Again my deepest gratitude.
May I ask your help in promoting it
through a parish representative and other laymen. A deacon or associate pastor can also
help. We realize that you cannot do it
alone with all of your many responsibilities.
Please permit me to impose upon your time with the following write-up of
mine on the importance of the Diocesan Men’s Day of Renewal and resources for
promoting it. By now you should have
received at least one poster and packet of brochures for each one of your
parishes. If not please contact Roger
Huck by e-mail at huck4816@roadrunner.com or call him at home 740-
984-2234 or his cell at 740-336-9128.
BACKING OF THE
PASTOR CRITICAL TO THE MEN’S CONFERENCE
It is the role of
the father to assume spiritual leadership in the family, but in many if not
most cases, the mother assumes that role.
As Danny Abramowicz, 2012 Conference speaker and former All-Pro wide
receiver for the New Orleans Saints, says, “The men have dropped the
ball”. If the father takes the spiritual
lead, the probability that the children will remain faithful to the Church in
later life doubles or triples. The
Church in American may be losing a generation of youth. The men must become the pillars of the
parish, not only the women. The men must
step up. Thus it is crucial to reach the
men and the Diocesan Men’s Day of Renewal plays an important part because the
enthusiasm generated is contagious as the men witness to each other. Setting the men on fire means stronger
families which in turn means the renewal of the parish.
The
Diocesan Men’s Day of Renewal will be held on Saturday March 3 from 9 am to
3:30 pm at St. Stephen’s Church in Caldwell. The Conference will open with a Holy Hour
before the Blessed Sacrament. The
featured speaker is Mike Aquilina, nationally known expert on the early Church,
author of over 50 books, and speaker. His morning talk is titled
“The Strength of Heaven”, which will show how the angels were effective
witnesses and can teach us much to apply to our daily lives. In the afternoon, he will show how the
witness of the martyrs of the early Church can teach us to be witnesses today
in secular America. Mike Aquilina will
challenge the men to follow the example of the early Church Fathers and martyrs
and be effective witnesses in their homes, in their parishes, on the job, and
in their communities.
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Mike Aquilina
Aquilina is the executive
vice president and trustee of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, a
Catholic research center, based in Steubenville. Drawing from his diverse experience as a
journalist, prolific author, conference speaker, and father of a family of six
children, Mr. Aquilina can speak to the needs of the men.
This background
puts Mike Aquilina in a position to speak on the theme of this year’s Diocese
of Steubenville Men’s Conference, “Being a Cloud of Witnesses”. That is through the power of faith rise up
to be the spiritual leaders of their families, to do their part in renewing
their parishes, be servant leaders in the community, and to make a difference
for Christ by applying the social teachings of the Church to their
professions.
Bishop
Monforton will preside at the Mass and give the homily. Confession with a Penance Service is also
offered and you are asked to be one of the confessors. A bag lunch will be served. This is a hard sell for many men, but the Lord will help
us. If we can mobilize an average of 10
men from every parish in the diocese, this event would be a smashing
success!
The Ideal. We have found that when the
pastor enthusiastically backs the Men’s Conference, participation of the men significantly
increases. The ideal is for the pastor
to accompany his men. This is a great
opportunity to become closer to the men and know them better. This helps parish solidarity as the men also
get to know each other better. For those
in the southern end of the diocese, the distance might be great, but that makes
the Conference a Lenten sacrifice and gives it a pilgrimage flavor with
enjoyable fellowship, discussion about points brought out, and prayer such as
the rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet.
For example, Fr. Walter Heinz, pastor emeritus of Sacred
Heart Pomeroy was an imposing figure.
According to one of the men of the parish, he simply told the guys:
“It’s all paid for and we’re going”.
They did. It was hard to tell
him, no. He heard confessions while
there and returned in time for his Saturday evening Mass.
We
cannot expect the already busy and overworked pastor to constantly promote the
Diocesan Men’s Day of Renewal. We are
grateful that many promote the Conference as bulletin blurbs, the brochure as a
bulletin insert, including a prayer for its success in the Offertory Petitions
at daily and Sunday Mass, give plugs from the pulpit after Sunday Mass,
etc. The pastor cannot do it alone; he
needs the help of the laity. However
there is much the pastor can do with little effort on his part.
Useful Resources. You can utilize our Conference Blog at http://diosteubmen.blogspot.com. The 2018 series of
resources began with Blog #136 – Overview; and continued with 137) Ad Form;
138) Diocesan Press Release #1; 139) Possible Short Bulletin Announcements;
140) Promotion Ideas; 141) Functions & Crucial Importance of the Parish
Rep; 142) Sign Up Sheet; 143) Sample Bulletin Insert; 144) Diocesan Press
Release #2; 145) Backing of the Pastor; 146) Role of the Deacon; 147) Example
of an After Mass Talk By a Layman; 148) Possible Pastor Announcements; 149)
Diocesan Press Release #3; 125) Catholic Newspaper Press Release; 126) Secular
Newspaper Press Release; 127) Appeal to the Diocesan Councils of the
Knights of Columbus; 128) Invitation to Parishes in West Virginia; 129)
Invitation to Veterans; 130) Invitation to College Students; 131) My Ad in the
2017 Program Booklet; 132) Highlights of the 2017 Men's Conference.
Numbers 125 to 132 are from last year. I'll update them in the next few days.
The
bottom of the home page of the diocesan website at www.diosteub.org has a link to the brochure and Additional Information. You should have received by now a poster and
a packet of brochures for each of your parishes. If not, please inform me. For your convenience you will find attached 1) the Conference brochure with a 2)
registration forms, 3) Additional Information, 4) Sample Bulletin Announcements,
5) Promotion Ideas, and 6) Functions of the Parish Representative.
There
are also interesting articles on men’s spirituality at diosteubmen.blogspot.com, along with summaries of past talks, and other
information. After the Conference and
throughout the year, articles will be added to help the men keep in good
spiritual shape. Clergy, Religious, and
knowledgeable layman are invited to submit articles.
Many
if not most men will hardly notice the brochure as a bulletin insert, poster,
bulletin blurbs, etc. although they are indeed important and helpful. What they can’t miss is the one-on-one
personal selling by their peers, i.e., talking it up. The most effective form of advertising or
promotion is word of mouth. Most
effective is the witness of men who have gone to a previous Conference. What is needed is a little “arm twisting”
figuratively. And of course there’s
Facebook, Twitter, texting, and the old fashioned phone calling.
The
Parish Representative is crucial. As in any organization, the executive must
delegate as much as possible. The key is
to ask one or two good men to be parish representatives. If one of them is a knight, he could have
access to the local council of the Knights of Columbus. The main job of the parish rep is to promote
the Conference, mainly by one-on-one personal selling, register the men, and
organize them to go together in the parish van, car pool or bus. He also helps the pastor to utilize the
resources mentioned in the previous paragraph as submitting blurbs and an
insert for the Sunday bulletin. The
parish rep can try to talk to each man in the parish before and after Mass or
Stations of the Cross or other devotions, during fish fries, at parish or
Knights of Columbus meetings, and other activities. Please send the names, e-mail address, and
phone number of the chosen parish representative(s) to both “Don Coen - Chair Diocesan
Men's Day of Renewal” donandmargcoen@yahoo.com and to me at paulrsebastian@yahoo.com.
The deacon may be the parish representative as in the
case of St. Paul’s and Christ the King in Athens. Or the deacon may supervise the promotional
efforts of two or three laymen.
Men
may register individually or the parish representative may collect the
registration forms with payment and send them to Roger Huck; %Men’s Day of
Renewal, P.O. Box 54; Beverly, OH 45715.
This would save considerable time waiting at the door on the morning of
the Conference. Checks for the
Registration cost of $25.00 per person
are to be made payable to the Diocese of
Steubenville with “Men's Day of
Renewal” written on the memo line of the check. If any man would like to go, but can’t
afford it, we’ll find a way.
Once
the Conference is over, the clergy and religious of the diocese are invited to
submit for the Conference Blog at http://diosteubmen.blogspot.com
articles or copies of homilies that are particularly appropriate for men’s
spirituality.
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