Announcing:
Saint Mary's Press winner for the week of May 28, 2012

Congratulations to Tillie Aessie

Tillie will receive a copy of The Catholic Faith Handbook for Youth, Second Edition, a $19.95 value.

The Catholic Faith Handbook for Youth, Second Edition is an understandable and down-to-earth guide to all things Catholic. This book is an eye-opener and a page-turner, whether you are brushing up on specific Catholic terms and concepts or learning them for the first time.

The Ad Hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, has found this catechetical text, copyright 2008, to be in conformity with the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Now Available! Online correlation to the U.S. Bishops' High School curriculum frameworkClick here!

The Catholic Faith Handbook for Youth, Second Edition
ISBN: 978-0-88489-987-7, paper, 480 pages

"Getting Ready for Summer"

Summer is upon us. It is time for rejuvenation, vacation, and hopefully a little rest. The Servant Leader will be switching to its “summer schedule” for the next few months. For June and July, The Servant Leader will be coming out once a month (June 11 and July 9). We will return to our regular weekly schedule on August 13.

Summer is a great opportunity to pause and take time for spiritual reflection and growth. With that in mind, I asked several people from around Saint Mary’s Press to suggest a few books for a summer “spiritual reflection” reading list, books that they found particularly inspiring or life-giving. I encourage you to take time to nurture your faith life, whether through reading one of these books or in another way, so that the summer can be a time of growth and renewal for you and your ministry.

Catholicism, by Fr. Robert Barron – This book is based on the script for the five-disc DVD series of the same title. The book explores in depth the content of the videos. It is a review of basic Catholic theology and practice, illustrated with references to great religious art and great Catholics (Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Edith Stein, etc.). This is a portrait of the Church at its best.

The Courage to Teach, by Parker Palmer – This book is a moving reflection on the spirituality of teaching. At its heart it explores the truth that the integrity and identity of the teacher directly impacts the quality of teaching. This book can be an inspiring read for teachers getting ready for a new school year.

Everything Belongs, by Fr. Richard Rohr – In this book Father Rohr calls us to a deeper commitment in pursuing a contemplative, Christian life. Read it slowly and thoughtfully; there is much to be savored and integrated into daily life and prayer.

Introduction to the Devout Life, by Saint Francis de Sales – Although this book is complex in its theology and spirituality, it is also accessible and relevant for Christian readers in all walks of life. This book is available free online.

My Life with the Saints, by James Martin, SJ – This book provides an excellent presentation of the role of the saints in our lives, written in an autobiographical and engaging style.

Rediscover Catholicism, by Matthew Kelly – In this book Matthew Kelly explores the way in which the Church is designed to enliven God’s people. The person who suggested this book concluded her recommendation by saying: “Sometimes we don’t realize how Catholic we are, and what we have to pass along to others. This book is a great reminder!”

The Violence of Love, by Archbishop Oscar Romero – This book is a collection of radio sermons and homilies of Archbishop Oscar Romero. In this book Romero speaks in a very real and human way about our own daily challenge to live an authentic Christian life.

Thank you for allowing us to journey with you and your ministry through The Servant Leader. I pray that summer goes smoothly for you and is filled with grace, and, as always, I pray that God will continue to bless you and your ministry.

Peace,
Steven McGlaun

    
Click Here for More Information

“Doing Justice to Service: Transformative Outreach Activities"
From Justice and Service Ideas for Ministry with Young Teens

This strategy suggests a spiritual framework for service activities and some creative ways to engage the young people in outreach experiences that are transformative. Based on the understanding that we become seekers of justice through experiences of service, those ideas are aimed at connecting the young people, on a spiritual level, with those who are on the edges of their world, giving names and faces to realities of injustice and need.

Suggested Time
Outreach experiences can be tailored to a variety of time periods ranging from 2 hours to a week or more. It is difficult to develop effective and meaningful service experiences that require less than 1 to 2 hours.

Group Size
Outreach ministry with young adolescents takes place ideally in small groups of between five and ten young people under the guidance of one or two adults. Small groups increase the potential for the participants to make personal connections and may enhance the quality of the sharing after the event.

Choose a Focus
One helpful image for defining service is that of a pilgrimage, a quest to uncover the face of God or encounter Christ. This quest has two distinct movements: outreach (an outer journey to connect with a situation of need) and inreach (an inner journey of reflection and prayer that investigates the meaning and implications of the experience). Both movements require attention and preparation.

Outreach involves crossing personal and social boundaries. In every city and county, one can find borders of every kind to cross, including those that surround prisons, shelters, the homes of shut-ins, nursing homes, hospitals, and facilities for refugee and immigrant populations. Here are some questions you can ask yourself to help shape and discern a particular outreach activity:

• God, to whom should we go?
• Where are the boundaries that the young people need to cross?
• Where would Christ be found today?
• Where would Jesus take the young people today?
• Who would Jesus want them to know and be touched by?

Step into Service with Care
Once you discern the path the pilgrimage will take, it is necessary to plan the best possible use of the time available so that the experience will have the greatest possible effect on the young people. Following are ten guidelines for broadening and deepening an experience of outreach for young teens:

• Plan it! Match the gifts of the young people and the needs and opportunities for service available in your area.
• Choose it! Look for the margins, that is, opportunities for personal connection that will challenge, question, and clarify a young person’s faith.
• Prepare it! Organize the logistics for the service component of the project, and also be sure to organize prayer, scriptural connections, music, a theme,symbols, reflections, and a rationale for the experience.
• Make it connect! Ensure that you and the young teens meet people in the service area, introduce yourselves and accept introductions, and politely ask questions.
• Learn something! Help the young people collect information about the life experiences, needs, and issues of the people being served.
• Reflect on it! Gather with the young people after the event, to share memories, impressions, prayer, and reflections on the experience and its implications.
• Revisit it! Frequently bring the experience to prayer or sharing at subsequent youth gatherings or liturgies. Encourage the young people to send thank-you cards and plan a return trip to deepen the relationship.
• Value it! Refer often to the issues that the young people encountered in their outreach project.
• Vary it! Ensure that the experience engages the whole person with activities for the hands, thoughtful discussion for the head, and prayer and faith sharing to touch the heart.
• Spread it! Invite the family and the parish to be transformed with you and the young people.

Deepen the Experience
Service becomes prophetic when it challenges the young people to readjust how they think and act and what they believe as Christians. The following questions may be valuable for concluding or deepening an outreach experience:

Why do you need to serve?
Why were you there, and who was with you?
What did you see and hear?
Who did you meet, and what did you feel like?
What happened to you as you served?
How were you served?
Whose company did you keep, and what did that person or persons teach you?
What connections did you make?
What difference did your serving make to you or others, and who will serve tomorrow?
Why are there suffering and needy people?
Where did you see the face of Christ?
What report will you take to God in prayer?

Random-Acts-of-Kindness Cards
Group acts of kindness such as wiping windshields, cleaning alleys, mowing lawns, and sweeping sidewalks can be transformed by leaving reminders of the gift of service. Guide the young people in making cards that inform the recipients of the gift they have been given and invite them to pass on the act of kindness.

Light-the-World and Afterglow Rituals
Ritual and prayer provide a framework for outreach. Give small candles to each individual or service group, and focus on sharing light in a prayerful opening ritual and concluding reflection for the service activity.

Diaries of Young Prophets
Prayer and reflection are deepened when the young people are challenged to write their thoughts, memories, and prayers quietly in a journal. Distribute small blank notebooks and encourage the participants to use them as creative diaries that may later be shared with the parish or school.

Bridge Builders
Outreach provides excellent opportunities for the young people to span social, religious, and ethnic divides. Help your group connect with a church or youth group of a different denomination or with young people from different economic neighborhoods, in order to transform your outreach into justice building.

Prophetic Profiles
Service activities are transformed into experiences of justice when a relationship is formed. Suggest that young people who are active at social service agencies such as soup kitchens, shelters, and hospitals develop their relationships with staff and clients by interviewing them and sharing their stories in youth newsletters, bulletins, and Catholic papers.

Bread of Life
Sharing food is an important symbol for service and outreach. Rather than simply asking the young people to serve a meal at a community kitchen, deepen the experience by inviting them to share the meal. Also consider encouraging them to contribute to the meal by baking bread to share.

Prophetic Postcards
The young people can become prophets by inviting others to share in their outreach. Help them to create postcards from photographs of service activities, and to use the cards to invite other young people and adults to join them in serving others.

• Joel 2:28 (I will pour out my spirit on everyone so that they will proclaim my message.)
• Matt. 20:26–28 (If a person wants to be great, that person must be the servant of the rest.)
• John 12:26 (Whoever wants to serve me must follow me.)
• Gal. 5:13 (Serve one another in love.)

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
June 3, 2012
Matthew 28:16-20


Opening Prayer
You may use the following short prayer or the prayer on page 6 of the peer leader's guide, or any member of the group may want to pray in his or her own words.

God, you invite us into the most profound mystery of knowing you as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We give you praise because you are God. Together we praise you as the Trinitarian God.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Context Connection
The passage chosen for this Sunday's Gospel reading is very short. In order to understand it better, we need to explore the bigger picture of the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew's frequent referencing of the Hebrew Scriptures (more than 130 times) and of Jewish traditions indicates that he was predominately writing to a group of people who had converted from Judaism to Christianity (they were likely Jewish Christians who had been rejected by the Jews) and who believed that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures.

In an attempt to establish a clear link between Jesus and his Jewish roots, Matthew often depicts Jesus using uniquely Jewish words and phrases. He uses "Kingdom of heaven" rather than "Kingdom of God." And he uses the words righteous, almsgiving, prayer, fasting, sons of God, and the day of judgment. Another unique word choice in Matthew's Gospel is the use of the Greek word ekklesia, which means "the gathering of the brethren." This gathering of brethren is Matthew's understanding of the local church. In general, the Gospel of Matthew portrays the Church as being made up of a select group of people, "the brethren," who were Jewish converts to this new way of Jesus.

In this context, the final verses of chapter 28 in the Gospel of Matthew, verses 16-20, are striking because of their contrast with the reality of the community described in the whole of the Gospel. When Jesus gives his last commissioning to the disciples, he takes them to a mountain to proclaim: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. . . ." (verse 19). Just as Moses had presented the Law from a mountain, Jesus, the new Moses, presented the new Law from a mountain. Only in the Gospel of Matthew is Jesus shown as the new Moses giving a new Law that includes everyone willing to make a commitment to follow Jesus.

This proclamation challenged Matthew's community to be inclusive of all peoples, even non-Jews--the Gentiles. This must have turned a few heads and caused much discussion among "the brethren." Now all who believed in Jesus were to be welcomed into the Church.

Another important fact about verse 19 is that it gives us the first Trinitarian formula in the New Testament. This was quite likely the formula used in Matthew's community for Baptism. Scripture does not, however, contain a mature doctrine of the Trinity beyond this and similar formulas found in Scripture. In fact, the word Trinity never appears. Instead, the reality or sense of the Trinity lies deeply embedded in the New Testament and has emerged over time.

If you are interested in exploring this topic further, read and study the following list of Scripture passages: John 14:26, 15:26, 16:13-15; Acts 2:33-36; Romans 8:9-11; 1 Corinthians 2:6-16; 2 Corinthians 13:13; Ephesians 1:3-14; 1 Peter 1:2; and Revelation 1:4-5. You may find these passages helpful in your quest to understand the three persons of the one, true God.

Tradition Connection
This Sunday we celebrate the mystery of the Holy Trinity. It is a mystery we perhaps will never fully grasp. The reality revealed to us is that the Trinity is a community of three persons--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--that exists eternally in a relationship of mutual coequality. It is community of love.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the 'hierarchy of the truths of faith'"1(Catechism, paragraph 234 ).

In the Gospel this Sunday, Matthew writes in verse 19 that we are baptized into this mystery. To be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is to be immersed into relationship with the Trinity. In Baptism we are baptized into the loving community of the Trinity and then emerge to live that relationship with the triune God in our particular parish community. It is these communities, modeled on the same loving community as that of the Trinity, from which we learn what it means to live a Christian life. Through Baptism we all are immersed in God's infinite love, which we experience concretely in our parish communities--a group of individuals who live as a community of self-giving love. In turn, then, we are to be the extension of that love to others.

The understanding of the Trinity permeates our very essence as Catholic Christians. Our entire creed is structured around a confession of faith in the triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each time we make the sign of the cross and say the words, "In the name the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," we profess our belief in the triune God. The simple prayer of the Glory Be is a profession of our belief in the Trinity, "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and forever shall be, world without end. Amen." This is a prayer you may want to use often in your personal prayer life.

The Trinity, then, lies at the heart of what we believe as Catholic Christians. We believe in a God that is in relationship with us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Sometimes we might refer to the persons of the Trinity as God the creator, God the redeemer, and God the sanctifier.

Wisdom Connection
The core of our faith is packed in this short passage from Matthew's Gospel that is read on Trinity Sunday. We are baptized into the Trinity through the baptismal formula used by Matthew's community. This rite of initiation places us in direct relationship with our triune God. The significance of this particular relationship unfolds throughout our whole life as we gain understanding of and insight to our God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To fully comprehend this mystery takes more than a lifetime. We believe that in our life after death, we will continue to grow in our understanding of the triune God in new and exciting ways.

The closing words of Matthew's Gospel today hold great consolation for us. Jesus assured his original disciples and his disciples today that he is with them always. In our continued loyalty to live our lives as followers of Jesus Christ--promised at Baptism--we know that our constant companion is the triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Acknowledgments
The scriptural quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition. Copyright © 1993 and 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

The quotations labeled Catechism are from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America, second edition. Copyright © 1994 by the United States Catholic Conference, Inc.--Libreria Editrice Vaticana. English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Modifications from the Editio Typica copyright © 1997 by the United States Catholic Conference, Inc.--Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Used with permission.

The Glory Be is quoted from The Essential Catholic Prayer Book: A Collection of Private and Community Prayers (Liguori, MO: Liguori Publications, 1999), page 13. Copyright © 1999 by Judith A. Bauer.

The Lord's Prayer is taken from Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers. Copyright © 1988 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Inc., Washington, DC. All rights reserved.

Endnotes Cited in Quotations from the Catechism of the Catholic Church
1. General Catechetical Directory 43.

Copyright © 2009 by Saint Mary's Press, 702 Terrace Heights, Winona, MN 55987-1318, www.smp.org. All rights reserved. No part of this newsletter may be reproduced by any means without the written permission of the publisher. Thank you.

Saint Justin Martyr

June 1 is the memorial for Saint Justin Martyr.

Saint Justin was a philosopher in early second-century Rome. Through the witness of Christians and the reading of Scripture, he converted to Christianity. He is recognized as the first Christian philosopher, and he became an active defender of the faith. He was beheaded for his Christian beliefs in AD 165.

For more information on Saint Justin Martyr, go to http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-justin-martyr/.