What Groups of People Are Not Represented in My Bible Studies? | Fr. Josh Johnson | SLS20

[Music] so I'm super excited to be with y'all I haven't been around this many college students in a long time I used to work at LSU at Christ the King y'all might know LSU we're kind of doing a good job in football right now whenever I was sent to elder's shoot by my bishop I wasn't a big fan of football at that time I played basketball growing up and and so I knew in order for me to communicate the gospel in order for me to share Jesus with these students on this campus I'm gonna have to learn football and so I began to just immerse myself in the football culture for the sake of discipleship and I ended up falling in love with LSU football but like only LSU football like don't ask me anything about any other football that's going on I don't know I know LSU I know everything that's going on with LSU and that's that's it whenever I was at LSU the coach wasn't that coach oh it was a guy named Les Miles shot Celeste miles and and recently I ran into Les Miles at a high school football game I was at a football game of my parish and les was there with the other team it appeared it so we're on the sidelines catching up he knew me and I knew him because I was a chaplain also it is his son's school when he was the coach of LSU football and so we're catching up about life and about just what's happening lately and so at one point I asked him I said are you here at this high school football game to watch like your your son play football your daughter cheer and and he said no he said I'm here to recruit but I didn't know that he meant like I'm here to recruit for my new college football team down the coach F which is I think Kansas University or something up north I don't know it's not LSU and and so I didn't like nobody was talking about it so I said oh so like you left Ella's shoe to be the football coach of this high school now and and he was just like no bruh like are you serious and so it became a very awkward moment but even though I didn't care that much about football outside of Ella's shoe whenever I was assigned to Christ the King I cared a lot about Jesus and making sure that every single student on our campus knew Jesus had the opportunity to fall in love with Jesus staying a little bit Jesus and abide in love of Jesus Christ and their walk toward eternity so when I got to LSU we didn't that have focus at that time focus is there now but we didn't have focus when I was there and so we looked at the focus model and we began to ask the question right who is not sitting at our table who is not coming to our campus ministry events we looked and we saw a specific demographic of people and so we were very intentional about going out to other students on our campus to invite them to Jesus Christ and our small group studies to Jesus Christ in adoration the Jesus Christ and praise and worship to Jesus Christ and the Holy Sacrifice of the mass and we experienced like a lot of super natural fruit from simply just going out to our geographical boundaries on our campus when I was in seminary one of the things that we learned was that every pastor is responsible for every single soul and his geographical boundaries this is really important for all of us to know who are involved in ministry we're responsible for every single soul and our geographical boundaries that means not just the people who are coming to our church who are coming to Mass and sitting in our pews were responsible for the salvation of everybody whether they're Catholic were their Protestant atheist Muslim Hindu Jew agnostic male female young old black white asian indigenous persons we are responsible for everyone which means we're supposed to go out to everybody and not just cater to the people who abide at our campus ministries who who come to the things that we offer most of the time we're supposed to by God go out and share Jesus with everyone with everyone right so there's a sister I'm friends with her name is sister Teresa Berlin she she was a sister with Mother Angelica for many years up at EWTN felt called by God in prayer the more time you spend with Jesus the more she perceived Jesus invite her to leave the cloister and come back out into the world as a sister and so she was given permission to do that when she came back to her hometown of Covington she she began to go to Mass out there she stood the full habit on and and she began to simply go out into a predominantly low-income african-american neighborhood because she recognized that many of these people in this particular community had been hurt by the church many years before during the civil rights movement and so she would just literally go and walk in prayer rosary and see people meet people where they were at sit on their porches listen to their stories and abide in relationship with them a very simple Ministry of just going out and being with God's beloved sons and daughters because she did this would eventually happen over the course of a few years was a lot of kids started coming to her and sitting at her feet and she was able to share Jesus with these kids these kids upon receiving Jesus and coming into the church drew their parents back to the church that they left many years before because of the ways of the church hurt their parents during the civil rights movement all because she simply went out she didn't stay with the people who identified as Catholics she went out to people who were the geographical boundaries of her community so whenever I left LSU I was assigned to one of the biggest churches in my diocese and this was a big church it was one of the biggest schools at the time it was the biggest school and the biggest daycare a lot of people came here but most people that came to this church looked the same most people that came to this church were all white but the geographical boundaries of this parish were not white was very diverse and so what I began to do was imitate sister Teresa and I would identify different neighborhoods in the geographical boundaries of the parish and I would go out for rosary walks right a couple of times a week I was praying my rosary I would meet people in their neighborhood outside of their homes and their apartment complexes and I would just listen to their stories and talk to them about Jesus when I was walking in one neighborhood is called Valley Park it's right across the tracks predominantly black neighborhood low-income a lot of my friend from high school live in this neighborhood when I was walking and praying my rosary one day in this neighborhood I ran into one of my friends Tracy and Tracy said Josh what you doing in my neighborhood and I said oh I met the church right down the street saying our wishes and Tracy he grew up in this neighborhood at this point she's in her 30s Tracy looked at me and she said st. Aloysius I've never heard of that church before the church is right across the tracks from the neighborhood and she never heard the church she never heard the school she never heard the daycare and said you never heard of st. Aloysius she said I never heard of you so I knew at that moment that God was calling me to spend a lot more time prioritize a lot more time in this part of my geographical boundaries to abide with this community of people and so I would do this and I'll meet people and I'll invite them to our Bible studies I'll invite them to relationship with Jesus Christ I would listen to their lives their stores and pray with them wherever they were at in their walk to war eternity and as I began to do this a lot of people who went to church who sat in the pews who were involved in ministry at the church they began to notice and one of the ladies who noticed this she was heavily involved in ministry at the parish she would worship every day almost every day at Mass she supported our missions to Honduras she supported our missions to other areas of Louisiana for our kids she was very invested in the church community well one day when I came back from my time in Bali Park she said father Joshua I noticed you've been going on a lot of walks lately I think where are you going whenever you're going on those walks I said I'm going to Valley Park that neighborhood right across the tracks and she to me why like why are you going over there so much and I said well because I want to go over there and invite those people to come to church here because this is their church and they are in our geographical boundaries and she said but why did those people have to come to our church don't don't we already support them and give them money with st. Vincent DePaul don't we already pay their bills why do you want them to come here so we have the Eucharist do you believe in the Eucharist do you believe that when Jesus Christ said in John chapter 6 if you eat my flesh and drink my blood you will have eternal life do you not want these people to have eternal life in Jesus Christ is that was just saying to me she said look all I'm saying is you don't want to make too many changes around here too soon a lot of people might not like that around here see this this woman is somebody who went to church all the time she was heavily involved in many ministries in the church as long as those ministries did not make her have to be what proximate to people of color to people who came from different socioeconomic backgrounds then she did see whenever she answered God's call to worship him to be in relationship with God whenever she answered God's call to ministry she answered God's call to ministry only to white people to white people who are a certain socioeconomic status because she did not want to abide in relationship with people who were literally right across the tracks from our parish community I think this is a question that every single missionary disciple needs to ask ourselves whenever I said yes to going out and sharing the joy of the gospel whenever I said yes to going out and sharing Jesus did I tell Jesus that I would make disciples of all nations but really only some nations and specifically the nations that look like me that think like me they dressed like me that speak my language is that what I meant whenever I told Jesus I wanted to go and share the gospel was it was gonna only be with a specific group of people who are important to me and the rest really aren't that important the eternal salvation really isn't that important to me you see with this woman allowed was her fear her false expectations that appeared real to dictate who she was and who she was not gonna invite to sit at God's table she had stereotype which is simply a belief about a group of people stereotypes aren't bad are good they can be negative or positive there's a belief about a group of people but she had a negative stereotype about a specific group of people and her geographical boundaries a belief about these people that she didn't know because she wasn't close to because she wasn't in relationship with and her negative stereotype fed into a prejudice his feelings toward a group of people who she did not know that were negative that were dismissive that were not inclusive and that led her to discriminate and choose to not share the gospel and verbally and vocally opposed those who were trying to invite God's people to his table at his church that he founded not her this is something that I want to bite everybody to look at right now when you look at your pair of shoes when you look at your small groups who is sitting at the table what groups of people are sitting at the table of our Bible studies of your Bible study your specific small group who is sitting at that table and who's not who's not at that table dr. Martin Luther King jr. one of my heroes he said in 1960s he said the most segregated time in America today this was the 60s the most segregated time in America is 11 o'clock a.m. on Sunday morning a church that's the most segregated time in America I want to propose that potentially the most segregated place on some of your campuses is your small group Bible studies the most segregated place on some of your campuses just might be your small group Bible studies why because some people who I've walked with who I have a company who I've been invited to consult and help make disciples some people have these these fears about the other that they are not close to they're not in track cement relationship with a fear of what if you're the reason why I don't have any people of color in my small group Bible studies because I don't want to say something wrong I don't want to say the wrong thing I don't want to offend them I don't know their culture they they might think that I'm racist if I if I let them know some of my beliefs about certain things like we let fear false expectations that appear real to stop us from sharing the greatest gift that any of us could have ever received and I walked toward eternity and that's the person Jesus Christ do we have any people in our small group discipleship groups our Bible studies who are differently abled in us how many people in my small group Bible study are in a wheelchair how many people are not do have any people in our small group Bible studies who are actively right now on my college campus are struggling with same-sex attraction with acting that lifestyle out while there are college student am i inviting every person to relationship with Jesus or my only inviting some am i just inviting a few because because there's an idol of being comfortable I just want to be comfortable I want to become but I love Jesus a lot but I don't want to be this comfortable I don't want to experience rejection potentially I don't want to have to have any awkward conversations I want to remain comfortable I make this comfort my idol and people in my community who God entrusted me to share his son Jesus Christ with don't here Jesus don't know Jesus and aren't in a relationship with Jesus all because I'm staying in my holy huddle and the Acts of the Apostles Acts chapter 2 is one of my favorite scriptures to pray with we read the story of the Apostles the apostles who were all in relationship with Jesus they all had unique particular encounters with Jesus Christ up to that point and their walk with the Lord for three years most of them they were doing what they were abiding what I call a holy huddle they they had similar background experience at this point similar encounters with the Lord but were they bearing supernatural fruit at that point when they were all together in their holy huddle were they bearing supernatural fruit in their community no they weren't bearing that fruit and so what so the Holy Spirit came down upon them and when the Holy Spirit came down upon the Apostles what's the first thing that happened do they prophesy instead of a talker question did they prophesy what did they do what was the first thing that happened to the Apostles when the Holy Spirit came over them they went out they went out and encountered people and their geographical validate they encounter people who were different from them of diverse nations people from Africa people from Europe people from Asia it's all in Acts chapter 2 and they did what they listened to these people who were different from them they listened to them speak they heard their stories and then they did what they shared Jesus with them in a way they could understand in a way they could relate to they heard them speak and they share their stories of God in their own language they went out to people who were different that's the very first thing that happened to the Apostles when they received the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 2 and that's what God's calling us to do is to get out of our comfort zones to get out of being with people who look like me and think like me and vote like me and act like me and go share Jesus and receive Jesus with them from them and for them whenever I was assigned to my current parish pastor now of holy rosary and Santa mo a lot of people in my family and a lot of people who I'm very close friends with expressed to me a lot of concerns because this town that I was sent to what it was known nationally because of a group of people who were still active for many years in the 2000s called the KKK they were still very active up until just a few years before my assignment began they had a huge compound right down the street from the church so I'm the only black priest in my diocese a Baton Rouge and so when my bishop sent me there a lot of my family said you need to tell your bishop you're not gonna go you you can't go to that parish because that's that's where the KKK has been active for all these years the Bayou Knights were active for all these years so you know this institution of racism but you must also know that there's like gonna be a lot of racially prejudiced and discriminatory things that are gonna happen to you if you go in that community with those people but I chose to not care about my comfort all right one of my good friends bishop Shelton five he said Josh whenever you go to share the gospel with anybody he said it's not so much about whether or not the people in that particular community wherever they're at is not so much about whether or not those people accept you that's not what God created you for he said it's more about can you accept them and all their brokenness and all their limitations and all their sins that can you abide with them wherever they're at see I could have had this this stereotype this belief about an entire community because this very prominent group of people the KKK who were active in that community for so many years and that stereotype that belief could have led me to say you know what I I'm gonna have negative feelings towards everyone in this community and I'm not going to share Jesus with anyone in this community but what I did when I got to this community the only black piece of my diocese and at this point pretty much in all white community was I went and I listened to everybody I went out to their homes I went to their stores I went to their public schools I went out to where the people were at and I listened to them and I prayed with them where they were at and some of the people I prayed with were related to the KKK and some of the people I prayed with and I invited to the table some of them supported the KKK some of them told me father Josh you should not exist we don't believe that blacks and whites should be together some of them were extremely extremely offensive to me when I got there but some of the people who were actively opposed to the KKK and were actively working for racial reconciliation some of the people in this particular community didn't even know they existed but all the people whether they were related to the KKK whether they supported institutional racism and also racially prejudiced behaviors and thoughts and feelings whether they were opposed to them whether they did not know they existed everybody who I encounter in this community they were all universally invited to small groups to Bible status even the ones who offended me because I would rather I would rather be offended and I would rather be rejected and I'd rather be persecuted and know that I tried to share Jesus with somebody than to be comfortable and know that I chose not to share Jesus with anyone Jesus wants to be known what's been the fruit of this supernatural people have repented people have reformed that everyone but many have and there's so many intentional disciples of Jesus Christ now in this community who are going out making more disciples falling in love with the Lord addressing their own stuff all because they were invited to Jesus where they were at going out to them in their community there's a social psychologist her name is dr. Christina Cleveland and she was approached a number of years ago by a number of white mothers who their kids went to a school it was like 50/50 it was half white and it was half Hispanic and so these white mothers got together and they said hey let's start like a prayer group like an intentional intercessory prayer group because we love our kids so much we just want to get together and just plead the blood of Christ over them and pray for them and fast for them and sacrifice for them let's start this intentional discipleship group of moms at our school for our sons and our daughters so they started the grouping and they invited everybody they sent out emails through the school that fliers made but after a while of doing this prayer group this is this discipleship group only white women came and and they were very intentional like they were asking for everyone to come they were open their doors to everybody all the moms but only the white moms came to this particular prayer group of intercessors for their sons and daughters so they reached out to dr. Christina Cleveland and they invited her to sit at the table with them and they asked her like how how can we get these other mothers in our school to come to our prayer group we want all the moms to be invited we want all the moms to participate we want all the moms to pray for all of our kids and so she asked him a question she said like what time do you had this Bible study and they said we have our Bible study and our prayer group at 11 o'clock a.m. on Thursday mornings and so she said to them what is it about your life that makes you available at 11 o'clock a.m. on Thursday morning to have this prayer group it's intercessory discipleship group for your kids we don't know I mean we think we just we love our kids no we chose to stay at home because we wanted to be available to our kids and to be able to pray from that that's why we do this and she said that's not the right answer that's not the right answer but I want to encourage y'all to do she said is this find out what those latina mothers worship find out their church parish and I want to invite y'all to go to their church for a couple of months four months and worship with them on their campus with their community and their language go to them where they're at abide with them and then come back to me we can continue the conversation so the moms did that about five of the moms is about twenty five moms five moms and their families began to go worship at the predominate latina church and the community and as they're worshipping with these families they began to have conversations after worship with these families and they asked the moms hey I don't know if y'all know this or not but we had this we had this this prayer group that meets on Thursdays at 11:00 we just we want to know why why don't y'all want to come and the latina mother said to them they said we know about it we've heard about it and we would love to come the only problem is is we can't come at that time I see because most of us in our community most of us have multiple jobs and we work we work at that time so that's just not gonna work for us and they said oh so you want to come though they said yeah we would love to come we just can't come at that time I said well what time would work for y'all and what would work for your community for y'all to come and pray with us and abide in relationship with us what would work and said well we could do a Lebanon clock p.m. on Thursday nights great all right cool so here's what we're gonna do we're gonna host the prayer group Bible study 11 o'clock p.m. Thursday nights at our house no that's not gonna work either you see because see many of us in our community right we we don't have on cars right we take the bus and that's just not gonna work for us to get to your particular neighborhood at that time of the night that's that's dangerous we can't do that so oh so well then would one of y'all be willing to host it at your place yeah yeah we could do that 11 o'clock p.m. Thursday nights at our place and so these mothers about 25 of them went and started this prayer group in the homes of these latina mothers at 11 o'clock p.m. on Thursday nights and a lot of the women in the community in this particular neighborhood began to see there's a lot of cars that are in our neighborhood at 11 o'clock p.m. on Thursday night what's going on they finally there was a prayer group Bible study discipleship what we wanna we want to pray we want to pray for our kids even if our kids don't go to that school we want to be a part of this group can we can we join too yeah so now more women from this neighborhood for this community we're now abiding at this Bible study at this prayer group at 11 o'clock p.m. on Thursday nights we're now more women in the community heard about it and they wanted to come too but they didn't speak English very well but they wanted to participate they wanted to be a part of what was happening with all his other latina mothers in their own community and so it was brought to the table hey look there's some other women who want to come and join us but but like they they don't speak English too well and so some of the white mother said that's cool we can hire an interpreter so they they hired a translator that come to their their prayer groups and after a while doing that they were like this is pretty impersonal to have somebody translating for us what's happening in our conversation why don't we take the time to learn another language like the Apostles did in the scriptures they learned another language to share Jesus and so that's what they did they went and they began to study another language and now they were able to to share to listen to speak to abide in Jesus together as a community and it completely transformed all these women they then began to work together to overcome some of the institution justices that were happening to this specific group of women in their town and there to this day great friends they're more than friends they're their family in Christ all because these these women got out of their comfort zone and they shared the gospel in a way that was conducive for these women to receive the gospel and in turn share Jesus with them as well and transform their lives they got out of their their comfort zone their their holy bubbles and their holy Huddle's all for the sake of of Jesus of Jesus and what they did it's really imitation of Jesus because that's how Jesus proclaimed his message he didn't wait for people to come to him he didn't wait for people to show up at the synagogue or the temple right he went out to people where they were ads he got out of where everyone else was to go meet people where they were at so they can hear his name and enter into relationship with him think about Peter the first time Peter heard about Jesus was from Andrew Andrew disciple of John the Baptist John the Baptist says behold the lamb of God and then what happens is and who recognizes this is the land that we were traded for I'm gonna follow him hey Peter come and join me Peter's following Jesus for a time and then we can imagine during that time period is whenever John the Baptist was imprisoned John the Baptist is now in prison he's suffering Peter doesn't like suffering we all know that from his story so maybe that's why Peter left he left Jesus and went back to being a fisherman it was a way of life it wasn't a hobby it was his job that's how he made a life a living was out of being a fisherman Peters fishing now and where does Jesus do Jesus goes to Peter where he's at which is by the water by the lake catching fish and he invites Peter to walk with him to share life with him he didn't say hey Peter you want to come to a Bible study the Old Testament he invited Peter to share life hey Peter let's go on road trips together that's going appear when it's come a mountain together let's go fishing together let's go to parties together let's go to the wedding of Cana together he invited Peter to share life with him so Paul writes about his writings I want to share my life with you she said that with Peter and Peter shared life with Jesus Peter still doesn't like the cross though he made that very clear in his relationship with the Lord and so when things got really difficult when things got pretty messy when things got uncomfortable what if Peter do again he left Jesus he walked away and what did Jesus do he went back to Peter where Peter was at Peter was now with the with the others in a room and Jesus went there and said peace be with you but maybe Peter didn't think she's as Christ was speaking specifically to him maybe Jesus Christ you're saying peace to everybody else but me because they didn't do what I did I denied you three times so what if Peter do after he heard Jesus Christ say peace be with you he went back to being a fisherman catching fish way of life and what did Jesus do Jesus went out again to Peter where he was to invite him to relationship with him Jesus Christ goes out whenever we go out whenever we encounter people who are different from us who think different who look different when we simply go and be and dwell with them wherever they're at wherever they're hanging out we will see super natural fruit we will see transformations happen in communities so now we look back at our small groups again how diverse is my small group not just ethnically but certainly that's very important how diverse is my small group how many people are my small group are living in irregular marriages how many people are differently abled how many people come from a different socioeconomic background than the majority of us here how many people are different hey where you gonna find these people that father Josh I hear what you're saying I hear Jesus didn't hear the Apostles did I hear we're supposed to do it but like where am I gonna find somebody who's who's different from me start with mass when you go to your campuses when you're at mass the first few weeks of school people are going to mass and they're noticing a lot of us are noticing but there's very few of us worshipping together most people who leave the Catholic Church do so after going to a Catholic Church for mass on their Student Center and never being invited to abide in a community so first look at Mass people who you know are already Catholic and they're worshiping with you what about them I don't know you hey I know you're Catholic though do you want to get coffee sometime I would love to share my store with you I would love to invite you to a Bible study start work Mass unless we want people to leave the sacraments because we chose to not invite them now after math class you have class on campus and in your classes there's a lot of a lot more diversity in your classes than there probably is extra students in there so look in your class you have the same subjects that you're studying that's the point of conversation go out and talk to the person in your class go to the Student Center go see where people are hanging out look for specific groups to say okay if this particular group is not represented in my Bible study or any other Bible study on my campus where does that particular group hang out go find out where they hang out and simply go and dwell there go spend time there go abide and relationship with them on their terms where they hang out that's what Jesus did and that's what Jesus wants to do through each and every single one of us when we do this the fruits will be supernatural when I was assigned to this parish Holy Rosary which I loved to death it's becoming a lot more diverse since I've been there a lot more people are falling in love with the Lord becoming radical disciples it's a very beautiful beautiful parish some of the fruits that we've experienced have been I've been radical I mean people who are living lives away from the sacraments have been coming back to abide with Jesus in the sacraments and the great gifts that he gave to his church one specific group of people that I noticed weren't at this parish weren't abiding in our in our Bible studies were people who were were living in irregular marriages people who were married and divorced and remarried and divorced and remarried without any annulment so I know these people were not active in our community but they were they were there so we began to intentionally invite them hey like we want you to come to our Bible studies come to our Bible studies come and do well with us and relationship with us we want to walk with you we want to invite you to our retreats who want to invite you to just hang out so we began to do that and last year in October was the first week of October the the reading the Gospel reading that Lasher is now two years it was 2020 now right so 2018 the reading was about marriage and divorce and there were a number of people in the parish who were married divorced remarried he said it but two specific people that were at that mass that they had a profound encounter one that was really positive and one that was that was really negative they heard the gospel proclaimed and one of them who had been abiding in relationship with a community of other disciples who welcomes him who accepted him and who encouraged him to go deep in his relationship with Jesus one of them was in love with the Lord at this point and when he heard the gospel his heart was convicted was convicted oh my goodness hi right now I'm living in sin according to the Word of God according to the Bible what I need to do is I need to get my stuff together I need to repent I needed reform I need to repair this stuff I've done I need to get back and relationship with God and get my marriage annulled and live in a sacrament that easy because he was invited to walk with a group of people in a Bible study you have an opportunity to fall in love with the Lord right there where he was at another guy who also came to that mass he heard the gospel proclaimed and the second the gospel was proclaimed he stood up and he walked out he said I'm never coming to the Catholic Church again I cannot believe that that Deacon would say what he said to him it was a personal attack because he was married divorced and remarried divorced and remarried and so his buddy came to me said father Ashley told us to invite people he chose to invite people to our to our Bible study so I figured I'll start with master I figured I started by him buddy this guy in my life to mass and and he came to Mass and is this his gospel was proclaimed and he left what do I do I felt like he left because of me I picked the wrong sunny inviting a mess I said what did Jesus do what did Jesus do and someone walked away when someone said they didn't want to come back what did Jesus do he said he went after him I said okay well go invite him to life again invited a relationship with you and bite him to just hang out and bite him to your house for coffee and vitam to spend time with you and by him to be your friend don't give up on him you did to invite him to the relationship and the guy started hanging out with him more and eventually after a number of months of hanging out having coffee breakfast going her games together he invited this guy to a Bible study guy said no so then a few more months go by he invites him again guy says yes to a Bible study not to the Catholic Church not to Mass to Bible study comes to Bible study dwells in the Bible study falls in love with the Lord in the Bible study and through the Word of God in this community who accompanied him right there wherever he was at what he was going through he then recognized God's Word God's rule the rule that he heard before but he didn't have a relationship and he rebelled because of it now he had a relationship now he accepted the rule now he came to abide in our community now he's at daily Mass every day at my church now he's in ministry now he's leading Bible studies all because his friend wasn't concerned with being a little bit awkward with being a little bit uncomfortable he kept going out over and over and over again so we're invited to imitate the Lord and the Apostles if you look for somebody who is not here whose voice is not being heard whose face is not being seen that's who I need to go out in a company because the reality is this who you choose to invite to your Bible studies and who you choose to not invite to your Bible studies will have eternal consequences eternal consequences how many of y'all in this room believe that the Eucharist is the body blood soul and divinity of Jesus Christ just so I can have an understanding all right and how many of y'all believe that if we if we receive the Eucharist state of grace we receive the body plus on the vanity of Jesus Christ that we will have eternal life okay so now recognize there are people who God has placed us my God has set us in particular communities there are people that he's placed us to be in their communities so that we could be the one to invite them to the Eucharist so that we could be the one to invite them to eternal life in Jesus Christ and in through sharing life with us and our small groups and there are people who may never know the Eucharist who may never know life eternal in Jesus because we chose to say no only this group of people is the ones I'm going to dwell with whenever we go out of our holy Huddle's whenever we go out of our comfort zones and meet people where they're at on campus where they're at transformation happens sanctification happens so just a few pointers you're looking for please show hands how many are in smoger Bible studies you're sucking on my audience all right all right for the for the white people in here how many of y'all have a number of people of color in your Bible studies praise God all right cool all right for those of you don't some of you may wonder what fella Josh like all right my mass doesn't let me why people mask my classes I'm not seeing him there so I where am I gonna find like black people so I can buy a black you were gonna find Hispanic Latinos Latinos where I'm going to find those people the people of color indigenous people Asians all right it's a few a few places for y'all to look and just write your black priests friends about to hook you up all right if you're looking for people of color most campuses have what we call predominantly black frats and black sororities all you have to do is go to the black frat and go to the black sorority and do this all right you're bout to like blow your mind ready knock on the door hey can I invite you to a Bible study can we be friends it's not that hard what if they say no then what okay cool well I would just love to get to know you like I just want to dwell with you I want to buy with you I want Jesus with you I want eternal life with you hey most college campuses have multicultural diversity sinners go there and sit there and hang out there and listen to their stories fast from speaking hear their story share life with them where they're at and once you develop relationship then invite to Bible study on their term when it works for them and their families and their communities you don't know of anybody right now who is experiencing the same since attraction go look for this this is revolutionary go look for a car or go look for a book sack on your campus that has a rainbow flag line I am you see that you say hey can we hang out sometime I I want to dwell with you I want to buy with you you're looking for somebody was differently-abled go look for someone who's in a wheelchair right and reach out to them invite them to dwell in a way that it's conducive for them to not only grow in holiness but to help you become a saint as well so what I want to do now because I figured time is very precious so I want to invite you to ask me any question so that we can dialogue with each other about your specific campuses and your specific situations about what you can do to share the gospel and accompany disciples of all nations and not just some nations because it's really important that we feel convicted by this because if we don't there will not only be eternal consequences for others but there will be eternal consequences for us if we choose to not share Jesus with somebody because of their color because of their Cree their socioeconomic status their gender sexuality or whatever it might be there will be eternal consequences for us as well so what questions is man yes European yeah yeah that's a great question how can we incorporate our cultural traditions in the mass and in in the whole Catholic community as well right the whole environment so that involves first of all making your pastor aware so a lot of guys go to seminary they love the Lord they they love God they love the Eucharist and they want to go out and they want to they want to form Saints but a lot of guys come from particular communities like some guys I was in seminary with they came from all white neighborhoods they went to an all-white church there was an all-white Catholic school they go to predominantly Bishop as you know all white seminary and then they get sent to our communities with diverse group of people and their geographical boundaries so they have no idea what's not there they have no idea that when they walk into their church every Saint is white in every depiction of Jesus Christ is white that every crucifix is white that every the picture of Mary the mother of god whose solemnity we celebrate today is white every angel is white and the only dark image in most of their churches and most of our churches in our country is of who Satan the devil st. Michael is blond hair and blue eyed he's stepping on Satan who's depicted as a brown person or a black person who has never been depicted in any in any church as a white person and saying Michael depicted as a black person imagine how radical that would be right that would catch everyone's attention and people will say oh my gosh like that that's not right exactly it's not right right so we have to do first is we have to lean into a relationship with our pastors and our small group leaders and the people who are in leadership and invite them to sit at our table say like we want to invite you to see something you might not see to hear some of the you might not you might not be aware of this but there's nothing about your sermons father there's nothing about your sermons as there's nothing about your homilies there's nothing about your teachings that speaks to anyone outside of people from Europe right do you are you aware of any of the the black Saints the Asian Saints the indigenous Saints are you aware of that father because potentially what you could do to make us even feel more like welcome when you come here is preach about the lives of the Saints who looked like us and we have stories like us can you father can you please they put some artwork up in this church that our background like that has Jesus who looks like me I mean Jesus just so we're clear I think everyone knows that Jesus wasn't blind here in blue why does everybody know that right he wasn't he wasn't right King Jesus please like be depicted as as he probably looks historically right like father kit can you please invite us to sit at the table to share our cultural traditions with you and what we do in my home parish what we do if we come from a different country because a lot of universities have diverse nations like literally that come can we share we've done and our liturgy is that potentially with us sitting at the table with you we can incorporate here on our campuses a lot of priests honestly they're good guys they're nice guys they just don't know they don't know they have no point of reference because they're not in relationship with anybody who's different from them as well and so until they're in relationship with you and I they're not going to know one of the things that I do my diocese I'm the Commission co-chair for our Commission on racial harmony and so I sit with a bunch of priests who are good guys and I just help them to see things that they've never seen before like father when you said this that was totally offensive all right like my super where's my sister right there with the beautiful hair right some people just don't know like you don't walk up to a black girl and say hey can I touch your hair but like one of my sisters somebody did that to her at this conference you don't do that all right those are just things you don't do like you know is that real don't ask that question all right don't do that right but there's things that sometimes we don't know and so they're in relationship with us there they're not gonna know so we have to be in relationship with them as well and sit with them and invite them and if we don't see the change right if we don't see any fruit we pray for that we fast for that but then we also can go above their heads too right so if you're in Archdiocese of New Orleans and your campus isn't doing that you go to the bishop right you go to someone else just like in the Bible and it says you fraternity correct people you start with one on one and then you do what you go above their head eventually as well because it needs to happen there was a school I was working with who they had a student at this school and the student wrote a paper and she said I she hates black people I don't think black people have contributed anything to our nation and it's this letter she wrote went viral and so the principal called me and hey like you know can you help us out can you help us out here so I went to their school and before I gave it presentations to the faculty I won their Chapel and when I was in their Chapel they prayed a pretty generic prayer over the intercom not praying about anything that was happening in the school and not praying about the division that was very apparent in the student body because of this letter when I looked up I saw everything in the chapel at this very diverse school and everything in the chapel that was holy again was white and everything that was unholy was black and so I went to go talk to the teachers and every single person on faculty on leadership and administration they were all white as well even though the school is a very diverse school and I just call to mind a few things that they might not be aware of and by them to look at their handbooks their policies on that's where the institutional practices and can still discriminate and alienate against a group of people and I buy them to look at their handbook policy and your are there any any rules in there that that are discriminatory right and as we had this conversation the most beautiful thing happened within weeks the the school was praying over the intercom every single day a prayer for racial harmony within a few months they had diverse images of holiness throughout the entire school the handbook policy there was something in the Hamburg policy that the principal was able to address herself because she invited black students to sit at her table with her and their moms she said sit with me and help me to read this through your eyes and they were able to tell her hey this posture says and nobody would braids can come into school if you have braids you get suspended and so she did what she changed the policy to accommodate these students like all these things happen and they began to also look for active you look for diverse faculty as well after just one conversation that they just weren't aware of so sometimes we don't we underestimate how powerful a simple conversation can be with people in leadership and the supernatural fruit that can come from that because now that school kids who go there for the next four years they're only gonna know that my school has holy images of saints from Europe and Africa and Asia indigenous saints and saints from afar my school prays for racial harmony my school has diverse leadership my school has handbook policies that accommodate me and they want me here they want me to be a part of the community all from a conversation a simple conversation our mission happens so encouragement is lean into relationship with the leadership and invite them to them by either sit at the table and feel worth the decision-making table some things won't happen it's ma'am Austin what's your name mm-hmm yeah so I so st. Bernadette but I love st. Margaret Mary Alacoque wears on my figure but st. Bernadette at Lourdes she said this and I thought was very very profound she said I'm sorry her question was my bed her question was how do you invite your coaches in your faculty your administration who are living in same-sex unions to relationship with Jesus to deeper relationship with the Lord according to his word right so I wouldn't propose this the st. Bernadette says this is one of my favorite quotes she says it's not my duty to convince anyone of anything it's only my duty to inform on my duty in forum right so I can't convince anybody and so what I want to inform people about first and foremost is that God loves them and God has a plan for their life that God is the kerygma is what we want to inform them of and we want to invite them to if it's appropriate hey look do you want to come to a Bible study maybe have another teacher or another person their age in that way it's not kind of awkward because sometimes the coach might not want to do stuff with students but invite them to simple relationship with Jesus to walk with Jesus what I have experienced over and over and over again is that God is alive and God is sufficient and Jesus Christ is enough Jesus in his word and scribe the sacred scriptures and using the Blessed Sacrament and people can enter into relationship with Jesus in His Word and in the Blessed Sacrament he does the transformation right and so what we do eventually is we just inform them hey this passage says this in his word it's informed him what God said and let them go to God with that and over and over and over again what I've witnessed for people who have been invited to sit in the presence of the Lord in the Eucharist and to spend time in community with his word as I've seen complete transformations happen on his terms in his will and his way and in his time right not everyone has been able to see it some people have never seen it but but in many cases God blessed me to be able to see through the other side of people living out discipleship but it's also very difficult right and we have to be able to walk with people who even choose to say no if someone says no I'm gonna live in this same-sex Union and I'm gonna do this like we don't say okay well then I can't walk with you we say okay cool well can we still grab coffee next week can i still be your friend can still buy with you because God doesn't leave us we're all broken every person in this room we all have imperfections we all have vices that we struggle with we all have some bad habits and Jesus Christ never left us whenever the apostles betray Jesus and whenever their Peter denied Jesus and whenever they abandon Jesus and when Thomas doubted Jesus Jesus didn't say oh because you you sinned against me I'm done with you he stayed with him he said peace be with you and he remained with them and what happened is because Jesus remained with them they had transformation over time right some of them are not longer it took than others but they had this transformation over time and so Jesus is the same yesterday today and forever and so he dwells with us right he delights in us always in our mess and our perfections and if we can receive his love and be transformed by his love over time then how can we not imitate the Lord and abide in him and do that for every person on our campuses who are also broken and imperfect and in need of renewal and restoration in Christ yes sir yeah mm-hmm yeah so you said why would they solve a different colored person matter that more than a white person every soul matters I Gallants everybody to be a saint the thing to look at is statistically on college campuses in this country in campus ministries most campus ministries are only serving predominantly the white students and they're not serving the people of color and so you have to be aware of who is not at my table and in most of our campuses on our country we're not serving people of color we're only going out after people who look like those in leadership which are white why disciples and so we want white disciples to be convicted to say I need to also both end go out for people who have European descent but also have African descent also of Latino descent right because we're not doing that right now we're not seeing that and that's a statistic fact that the people of color are not being invited to leadership and into discipleship right now so both end yeah yeah right but the white people the the whole the to talk so yes the point talk is that we're assuming that most of our small group discipleship Bible cities are already predominately white and so you don't not knock at the white one but we're trying to encourage people to get out of their comfort zone and go through the predominantly Hispanic one the predominantly black and brown one as well does that make sense yeah yeah what's not so he said how do you avoid the patronizing our white campus ministers gonna reach out to the black people the first thing to recognize this is not our white campus ministry it's God's ministry that we're all invited to participate in right so it doesn't belong to anybody here it belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ and so he's allowed some people to experience the gift of the sacraments and so if we have the sacraments if we believe that the sacraments are where we say they are then we have an obligation to share the sacraments with everybody on campus and we need to be aware of who currently is not receiving the sacraments and that's who we prioritize right going out to make sure they have an opportunity to receive that gift so yeah doesn't belong to us belongs to him wants a guy a good question yeah and also sit at the feet of people right like the the white mothers did the with the latina mothers they said their feet they listen to them and so like be willing to listen to the wisdom of people who are different all right to people who are different than us and and to do that we have to fast I we fast from what speaking I'm gonna listen I'm gonna we only fast was speaking in conversations with people when we fast was speaking in conversation with the Lord many people go to Jesus every day in adoration they do this the whole time they're talking they never listen if we don't listen to the Lord then we're never going to go to people and listen to guy speak to us through them yes sir yes yes yeah beautiful question how do I reach out to the evangelical mainly probably white Protestants same way you do with the way a white guy would reach out to a black community our person of color in Hispanic community he's gonna be their friend alright first and recognize that we're called to reverence to friendship one of these that we have in common with evangelicals is our love for Jesus and so like you can always start there like one of the things that that I've done as well and my ministry is I focused on like really prioritizing reaching out to people who are already disciples of Jesus Christ and other Christian communities because for three years I was an evangelical and I was attending nondenomination that I have to walk with them toward eternity and so like recognize what we have in common is Jesus and a love for the scripture a lot of them enjoy praise music you might enjoy praise because you out on though but you could start with what you have in common in abiding relationship there and then we always just propose we never impose he proposes hey what do you think about the scripture about John six have you ever read John 6 like what is that what do you think about that and how do you interpret that what do you think about Jesus in John 17 saying I desire unity like the final prayer of Jesus Christ in John chapter 17 before he enter into his passion death and resurrection he said father I desire that they be one as we are one he wants unity so if God wants unity what does the devil one disunity he was disunity where in the body of Christ that's what we have right now in Christianity in America we have disunity in the body ever since Martin Luther and Zwingli and then Calvin and John Smith and John Wesley and now every single week a new community is being formed and fostered that is in division and disagreement with other brothers and sisters in Christ over some pretty serious fundamental matters so do you think it Consol's the heart of Jesus that we have all these different communities have different beliefs about His Word and what he says about baptism and about communion and about salvation and about faith and about could works you think that God really wants that for us to be in disagreement or do you think that we can have a conversation and a dialogue with each other and accompany each other to finding out how we can together consults heart and bring about authentic unity in his body in the church most people have I've had that conversation with have responded very well because what I did not do was I did not say you're wrong and they not go to them and say you're ignorant they're not gonna say you're misinterpreting the scripture I just said what do you think about it I'm proposing that we have a dialogue when we pray into the Word of God together yes sir I'm sorry then use our that's a great question how do we make black people feel comfortable whenever we invite them so that's one of the big big problems we have to address in the church and one of the things again that I really strongly encourage that we do and we go back to our campuses is encourage the leadership on our campus ministry in the churches and in the places to not just black people but for Asians and for other people of color as well to put up diverse artwork and those sacred spaces in those sacred places that way when we see ourselves represented in those places it makes us feel more comfortable right so even something as simple as the environment is transformation or whenever we invite them to come as well as invite them to leadership soon my invite from the leadership and then when as leaders then we're empowered so they can go out as well and have a voice at the table to make decisions that are going to affect our people because I'm gonna know things about my community that you might not know and so it's best for me to sit at the table with you to help you to see what you don't know on what could be best for people that are dwelling with us on our campus does that make sense yeah sir family trees yeah mm-hmm yes yes so there are specific parishes within our diocese that are community specific to our ethnicity because of this fact the fact is like we have like in my diocese we have about ten predominantly black parishes they're not exclusively black just like the Korean church they're not exclusively Korean it's predominately Korean because whenever we went to the predominant white Catholic churches we weren't invited to sit at the table we weren't invited have a voice we were not welcome to our accepted and we didn't hear things that were relevant to to our story to what we were going through as a people and so many bishops have have permitted so that we can hear our story and hear message that's relevant to our life when we go to worship Him on Sundays and we do all the community for there to be predominantly black or Hispanic or Asian communities and so and at one point before the parish system was what it was there was a Jeremy in Irish weather that changed and so that's why we had the predominant is because whenever we go to the the the larger mm and the America mostly Catholic Church lesson leadership was white when we go to those churches those parishes we weren't accepted or welcomed even even even up to recent years there's been parishes that have been very discriminatory and some of their policies to people of color and so that's why we have to have those communities that are present so that we can still grow in holiness whenever members in the body of Christ aren't being Christians yeah yes ma'am yeah what university you a cool cool [Music] back to their parishes mm-hmm yeah yeah so how can our young adults enter back into their communities and have communities with other young adults as well um who are disciples of Jesus Christ I always say this like whenever like start stuff and then later presenting to your pastor as far as like your discipleship stuff like his pastor shut stuff down way too soon so like start your small group Bible say so like you just get a couple young adults like even three like recently I had a group of three of my parish two groups of just three people one of them became a nun with the Carmelites she just entered this past December the other ones becoming Catholic right now I'm an RC because it doesn't matter sighs but like basically you take the model that you're learning now the tools the formation and it's apply in your own homes in your apartment complexes and your trailers in your houses and do that first there the Bible studies there with people who are young adults with people of color with people who are differently abled with uh with whoever that with people who are evangelicals all right start those small group disciple ships there I mean and as it grows then you could present to your pastor say hey can we formalize this as well and like let the entire parish coming through this and if you says no it's cool you can still do it on your own apart from the institution of the parish because it's a Bible study it's a small group that you can just have on your own those always bear a lot for always so I'll just encourage you take your tools and techniques and bring them to your parish locally first and your settings and then to everybody else yes sir yeah how do you respond to people who are in higher-ups in church leadership who are giving you pushback when you're trying to be more inclusive you can pray you can fast for them you can dialog with them and then if you don't get any response from that then I would say we go above them all right to the pastor if not the pastor it's not the pastor then to the bishop it is the password just to bring it to his attention because he might not be aware of the reality of what's happening in the community but you first have to pray fast and have the conversations in turn to a relationship with that person to bring about transformation eventually I'm not sure we're doing on time is it that was it oh we're good sweet no we're no way to go wait oh right time oh good Oh my bed okay sweetie I was like sorry communication barrier okay let's go ahead and pray name a father and his son the Holy Spirit amen Heavenly Father we thank you we praise you for the gift of this time I ask that you seal any Grace's that were received in our conversation in our dialogue and inspire us convict us to go out and make disciples of all nations according to your word so that we can together fulfill the demands of discipleship and not only become Saints but help our brothers and sisters who live in our community and in our boundaries to help them to become Saints as well for the kingdom of God we entrust the rest of our life to your daughter our Blessed Mother as we pray together hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb jesus holy mary mother of god pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death amen the Lord be with you may Almighty God bless you the father and the Son and the Holy Spirit amen go in peace thank you [Music]

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Length: 69min 3sec (4143 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 03 2020