2022/03/06 Renew My Church REFLECTION

-Fr. Matt Litak, Associate Pastor & Director of Formation

During one of our RCIA meetings one of our presenters was sharing on the paschal mystery. As he presented, he spoke to one of the great Truths of the paschal mystery: the idea that we don’t suffer alone, God suffers with us. He then shared how he came to know that truth in a unique way when he started leukemia treatments. With tears in his eyes and voice quaking, he told our participants of Jesus’ Love. He had ‘known’ that Jesus was with him, but now he experienced it in the deep powerful ways of the heart. It was a witness statement that only someone who has been held by God through trauma can give. When I was talking to him later about it he told me that he himself had been inspired to share vulnerably by one of our other presenters sharing her own experience of faith as she dealt with the loss of a loved one. I bring this up because I think it’s a prime example of renewal. Renewal has many definitions and nuances and pieces to it. But, essentially it comes down to someone having a powerful encounter with the Lord and being vulnerable enough to share it with someone else. That witness then reverberates out and frees others to share their own encounters. Renewal is nothing less than the Body of Christ falling in Love with Jesus again and again in its many members so that they can bring others to fall in Love with Him in their own ways. Joy, freedom, energy, these are the hallmarks of renewal. Renewal is a Good News that we can’t wait to share, a Person we can’t wait for others to meet.

            Yes, I see it in RCIA, but I also see it in Alpha when someone comes to faith in a personal way, with the freedom to ask and ponder questions that they had assumed they knew the answers to or which they hadn’t even thought about. They remembered the rote answers, but had failed to meet the God who loved them. At Alpha I’ve seen people praying over others, hugging others, being free to express and experience the Holy Spirit for perhaps the first real time. I’ve seen renewal in Following Jesus when people tell me how much it impacts how they see scripture, how they see themselves as Mary Magdalene, or Peter, or Matthew; a broken person brought to a new way of being by Jesus. The tears are real and beautiful. The conversations are truly good and impactful and so many people have a deeper sense of God’s call towards following Him. I see renewal happening with the Lydia women’s groups with so many women becoming so very energized by their deep prayer and sharing on Tuesday nights. Renewal happens with the greeters at the doors of Mass who come and share and smile making others feel at home. There is a greeter who told me that they don’t know what they would have done without Saint Clement, because they knew home here, they knew this is where God wanted them to be. As a greeter they share that sense of belonging, helping someone else to feel at home.

            Renew My Church is the Archdiocesan program of renewal. What makes the newspapers is the news of mergers, closures, and angry people. There is real pain there, and I do not want to dismiss that. But, the thing that will change Lincoln Park, Cook County, the Archdiocese of Chicago; is authentic renewal. There are 9 and half million people in the Chicago Metro area; imagine if all of them encountered the love of God in a transformational way. Renewal is having places for people to come where they don’t feel pressure, where they can explore without prior knowledge, feel at home, feel like they belong, and fall in Love with God. I see it happening at Saint Clement.