SPEAKER_01: Good morning.
SPEAKER_01: Just uh one announcement before I give my homily on the Word of God today.
SPEAKER_01: This Wednesday, we begin our third season of Alpha from 6 30 to 8 30 p.m.
SPEAKER_01: Uh with free food, with uh a film on the faith and fellowship, a time to talk about uh things of the faith.
SPEAKER_01: I would just like to extend a cordial invitation for you to uh come to our experience of Alpha or to come back to serve.
SPEAKER_01: We are in need of a lot of people to come back to serve.
SPEAKER_01: So far, we have about 150 adults who have registered, as well as 80 teens who will be with us as well.
SPEAKER_01: So if you have gone through Alpha, please consider coming back uh to serve.
SPEAKER_01: Um, before I give the homily, one of those participants of Alpha today would like to share a brief testimony about their experience going to Alpha.
SPEAKER_01: So I'd like to invite uh Isaac and Connie Ford to come forward at this moment to share a brief testimony about their experience on Alpha.
SPEAKER_01: Could you please help me to welcome them, please?
SPEAKER_02: And we're here to share our Alpha testimony with you today.
SPEAKER_00: Before we begin, can we take a moment to praise God, everyone?
SPEAKER_00: God is good all the time.
SPEAKER_00: And all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Before Alpha, my life took a sudden turn.
SPEAKER_02: I woke up one morning in a medical emergency and was rushed to the hospital in a speeding ambulance, sirens blaring.
SPEAKER_02: It felt so unreal.
SPEAKER_02: That began a year of being in and out of hospitals for me.
SPEAKER_02: One night, I was laying in the hospital bed lonely, uh, in pain, and I reflected on how I ended up there.
SPEAKER_02: And then something unexpected happened.
SPEAKER_02: I found that I wasn't alone at all.
SPEAKER_02: God was with me, and I felt his presence.
SPEAKER_02: In that moment, I realized that his promise was real.
SPEAKER_02: Over that year, I healed physically, but I also healed spiritually.
SPEAKER_02: One Sunday at Mass, just like all of you today, Father Martin talked about Alpha.
SPEAKER_02: I joined to know Jesus more deeply.
SPEAKER_02: I remembered my Alpha leader saying to me, Connie, you can't be a Christian alone.
SPEAKER_02: So after Alpha, I chose to serve as a volunteer.
SPEAKER_02: In serving, Jesus gave me even more.
SPEAKER_02: During Alpha, we had open, judgment-free conversations about faith.
SPEAKER_02: We shared our experiences of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02: We prayed together, ate together, and laughed together a lot.
SPEAKER_02: We had so much fun.
SPEAKER_02: Alpha also drew me closer to him.
SPEAKER_02: And you'll often hear me saying now that I'm on fire for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Before Alpha, I thought my relationship with Jesus was already strong.
SPEAKER_00: And the idea of weekly meetings for 11 weeks made me hesitant.
SPEAKER_00: Though the Bible was part of my everyday life growing up, I didn't grasp that Jesus wanted an ongoing, living connection with me.
SPEAKER_00: Just like with any relationship, I needed to work on it.
SPEAKER_00: After thinking it over, I decided to join.
SPEAKER_00: The experience surprised me.
SPEAKER_00: Dinner, which were very good dinners, I will say.
SPEAKER_00: Knowing he is always by my side, my constant advocate, gave me comfort I didn't know I needed.
SPEAKER_00: I'd been wanting to get more involved in church, and those conversations stayed with me.
SPEAKER_00: I enjoyed Alpha so much that I served in the second session.
SPEAKER_00: After that, I joined the men's ministry and Catholic 101.
SPEAKER_00: One step turned into many.
SPEAKER_00: I still have much to learn, but Alpha was the gateway, an incredible beginning to my faith journey.
SPEAKER_02: So wherever life has brought you at this very moment, we invite you to open your heart and come and see what Alpha is all about.
SPEAKER_02: Whatever you're facing, Jesus changes things.
SPEAKER_02: We know this to be true because He changed us.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, and God bless you all.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Connie and Isaac, for your beautiful testimony.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what we're all about here is we're about changing lives through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And uh maybe their testimony, their sharing, touched some of your hearts to maybe consider trying out Alpha for this third season.
SPEAKER_01: God has something prepared for you, something special for you here.
SPEAKER_01: I want to share one other thing, especially for parents of young ones.
SPEAKER_01: For this season of Alpha, we're also doing something new.
SPEAKER_01: We're offering child care uh from preschool, uh potty trained, please.
SPEAKER_01: Pop pot preschool, um, all the way up to sixth grade.
SPEAKER_01: So for families with little ones, we're offering something new to help you in this third season of Alpha.
SPEAKER_01: So I hope to see uh some of you there.
SPEAKER_01: And I would encourage signing up as soon as you can because if we don't find enough hosts for the many people that we have, we may have to do a cutoff for this third season of Alpha.
SPEAKER_01: So love to see you guys there.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, for homily on the Word of God today.
SPEAKER_01: Uh the theme of my homily today is My Way or God's Way.
SPEAKER_01: My way or God's way.
SPEAKER_01: Um, there is a song that I really like.
SPEAKER_01: And uh I love the song, but I'm a little bit torn on the lyrics, and you guys might know this song.
SPEAKER_01: You may have heard this song before.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, can I share the words with you?
SPEAKER_01: Should I sing it?
SPEAKER_01: And now the end is near, and so I face the final curtain.
SPEAKER_01: My friends, I'll say it clear, I'll state my case of which I'm certain I've lived a life that's full.
SPEAKER_01: I've travel each and every highway, but more much more than this.
SPEAKER_01: I did it.
SPEAKER_01: I love this song by uh Frank Sinatra.
SPEAKER_01: I'm a little bit torn on the lyrics though, and the reason why I'm a little bit torn on the lyrics, even though I love the song so much, is the very last line, which is the heart of the song, right?
SPEAKER_01: says, I did it my way.
SPEAKER_01: And for all those who follow Jesus, we know that following Jesus is not about doing it my way, it's about doing it God's way.
SPEAKER_01: That's why I love the song, but I'm so torn about the lyrics, you know?
SPEAKER_01: And so uh I was debating whether I should sing it or not, but since you guys gave me an applause, I okay.
SPEAKER_01: Um so today for the homily, what I'd like to do is to help us take one step away from I did it my way for those who are open, and to take one step towards I did it God's way.
SPEAKER_01: What's God's way for my life?
SPEAKER_01: Now, in order to do that, I'd like to share with you these three words to help us reflect on this.
SPEAKER_01: And these are the three words belong, believe, and become.
SPEAKER_01: Could I invite you to say that with me?
SPEAKER_01: Belong, believe, and become.
SPEAKER_01: I believe these are three important steps to move towards more of what God wants for our lives, God's way for our lives.
SPEAKER_01: I want to dive into what each of these words means.
SPEAKER_01: Let's begin with the first one, the word belong.
SPEAKER_01: Here at St.
SPEAKER_01: Joseph, we believe that we're not meant to walk the journey of faith alone.
SPEAKER_01: We heard that in your testimony, right?
SPEAKER_01: We're not meant to do this alone, we're meant to do it in a family, in a community, to be seen, known, loved, and welcomed.
SPEAKER_01: You know, by the way, this is why here at St.
SPEAKER_01: Joseph, we're trying to create this culture of radical hospitality.
SPEAKER_01: How many people in here have you ever been received as you're coming in from the parking lot by someone with a yellow umbrella?
SPEAKER_01: How many people have been received by one of them?
SPEAKER_01: You know, or or somebody in the parking team helped you to find a parking spot?
SPEAKER_01: Or hopefully somebody in our hospitality team greeted you with a smile or gave you a bulletin.
SPEAKER_01: What are what are we trying to do there?
SPEAKER_01: We're trying to create a culture of radical hospitality so that we belong.
SPEAKER_01: We belong to a family of faith.
SPEAKER_01: And if you hadn't seen that picture before, that was at my installation mass as pastor when we had about 40 of our, they call themselves sunshine greeters.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't give them that name, they named themselves that.
SPEAKER_01: Sunshine greeters, welcoming people from the doors of their cars to the doors of their church, radical hospitality so that the first beast so that we can belong to a family of faith.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's go to our next word after belong is believe.
SPEAKER_01: Once we belong to a family of faith, we have a place we can call our home, we feel welcome, seen, known, and loved.
SPEAKER_01: The next step is to believe.
SPEAKER_01: To believe in who?
SPEAKER_01: Who do we believe in?
SPEAKER_01: We believe in Jesus, right?
SPEAKER_01: To take that next, and that's why we're so big on alpha around here.
SPEAKER_01: Because alpha creates a space where we can belong without having all the answers to the questions in our lives and say, I want to take this next step and believe, just like Connie and Isaac said, I want to believe in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We have a picture of our, I think this is our inaugural alpha when we launched this in January.
SPEAKER_01: We had over 300 people uh come to our first alpha for our second alpha.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, we had over 200 people for our third third alpha.
SPEAKER_01: How many are we gonna have for our third alpha?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, but we have 150 adults so far in 88, so we're gonna see what it turns out to be.
SPEAKER_01: But this is a place to explore the big questions of life and faith and meaning so that we can take that next step from belonging to believing, believing in Jesus, the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, last step after belong and believe is become.
SPEAKER_01: Once we belong to a family of faith, once we believe in Jesus, the Son of God, then we begin a lifelong journey of becoming fully who God wants us to be.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm on that journey myself, and I make many mistakes and many area errors in my life.
SPEAKER_01: Just ask my staff, they'll give you a laundry list and they'll probably make copies and give it to you.
SPEAKER_01: So these are all of Father Martin's mistakes and errors and stuff.
SPEAKER_01: We'll give it to you.
SPEAKER_01: But we're on this lifelong journey of becoming fully who God wants us to be.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: So three things belong to a family of faith.
SPEAKER_01: Second, belief in Jesus, the Son of God, and third, become who God made us to be.
SPEAKER_01: You know, just this past Saturday, we brought a big group from St.
SPEAKER_01: Joseph to the event There's More at the Honda Center.
SPEAKER_01: It was like a sea of blue.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see the sea of blue there?
SPEAKER_01: And what we were doing there, we were trying to become fully who God has called us to be.
SPEAKER_01: Fully who God's called us to be.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: So I began the homily by asking the question: My way or God's way?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe there's some of you here.
SPEAKER_01: You're in that first, the first B, belong.
SPEAKER_01: And you're asking the question, do I belong here?
SPEAKER_01: Do I belong at St.
SPEAKER_01: Joseph?
SPEAKER_01: Do I have a home here?
SPEAKER_01: Am I accepted here?
SPEAKER_01: And if that's you, you're sitting in the pews, that's where you are.
SPEAKER_01: I just want to say to you, as the pastor of this church, you belong here.
SPEAKER_01: You're welcome here.
SPEAKER_01: We're happy you're here.
SPEAKER_01: You have a home here.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to say that to you as your pastor, you belong here.
SPEAKER_01: So if there's some of you that are discerning, I don't know how to you belong here.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe there's some of you are on that second step.
SPEAKER_01: You have questions and doubts, you're not sure if you believe yet.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe today is the day you take that next step and say, I believe in Jesus, the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: I receive him into my life.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe I'll explore some of my questions at Alpha.
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe you're on that third step.
SPEAKER_01: You've you belonged to this community for some time, you believe in Jesus, and now you're on that lifelong journey to become fully who God wants you to be.
SPEAKER_01: You can ask God for the grace to become uh all that God wants us to be.
SPEAKER_01: So when we reach the end of our lives, we might say to God, God, I didn't do it my way, I did it your way, God's way.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.