Church of St. John the Baptist
We are most grateful for the funds we receive at St. John the Baptist Parish in Trenton. Because of this most generous grant, we are able to carry out some evangelization efforts that we normally could not do. As the pastor of three parishes, I am convinced of the importance of getting valuable resources to our parishioners, many of which I believe change hearts and minds. Just recently I have placed another order of cd’s and books with Augustine Institute. Three of the pictures that I sent are some of the new books that I ordered and that have been available for our parishioners to read. I promote these books a lot and people love to take them home and read them. It is also good to hear stories of people who have read them and how they enjoyed them, and how it has helped them in their spiritual life.
The two resources that I am most excited about this quarter include the powerful cd by Abby Johnson, the former director of the largest Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas. On the Sanctity of Life weekend in January, I had 400 copies of that cd available for our parishioners. I challenged each one to take home a cd and listen to it…..and if it moved their hearts, to absolutely pass it along to a loved one or friend. Well, the good news is that I ran out of cd’s and I have received multiple powerful testimonies of what that cd did to people’s hearts. Through this cd people are coming to know the evil of abortion but also the beauty and dignity of each human life, from conception to natural death.
The other resource which I am excited to get into the hands of our parishioners comes from the Institute For Priestly Formation. It is entitled, The Journey to Jerusalem. This is a Lenten retreat where each day there is a wonderful meditation on the scriptures. The meditations also use the ARRR prayer formula of acknowledging our thoughts, feelings, and desires; then relating them to God; receiving back from God whatever it is God wants to give back to us; and then have a disposition of heart to respond to whatever promptings he may be giving us. These 500 booklets, which I will be handing out on Ash Wednesday, also fits in beautifully with one of my Lenten talks which I will be giving in March. I believe this resource is going to help people pray more deeply and relationally with Jesus. And I believe that is critical because many people do not know how to pray like this.
