GOING HIGHER AND DEEPER - Sean O'Neill

The main goal of the Church of the Resurrection is to provide an environment in which our parishioners can become intentional disciples, and ultimately, saints. In addition to the sacramental life, we aim to provide opportunities to personally encounter the Lord, beginning with our Resurrection Life course. The Resurrection Life course lays out the wonderful good news of salvation through a presentation of the death and resurrection of Jesus, and introduces participants to the experience of baptism in the Holy Spirit and the spiritual gifts.

At the end of the course, attendees are invited to join a Connect group, in order to benefit from the authentic community we are working to foster in the parish. But once they have heard the Gospel message proclaimed and are finding new relationships in our parish, what’s next for someone who wants to go even deeper?

We have been developing a four-year formation program which will equip our brothers and sisters in the parish to love God in a more profound way, and spread that love to those around them. The formation program consists of fifteen courses, each with three talks. The courses are divided into two types: Love of God and Love of Neighbor.

“But once they have heard the Gospel message proclaimed and are finding new relationships in our parish, what’s next for someone who wants to go even deeper?”

Over the past two years, we have offered three courses focused on prayer. In November 2018, a member of our formation team, Brian Fink, gave an overview of the Catechism’s wisdom about prayer, including: The Revelation of Prayer; The Tradition of Prayer; and The Life of Prayer.

In March 2019, Fr. Steve gave an introduction to the Christian discipline of mental/contemplative prayer. He addressed the theology and practice of mental prayer, and gave “homework” to help us open our hearts and minds to the Lord in prayer.

In May of 2019, Jeannette Barbacane and Tesa Fleming, founders of the Heart of Christ Spiritual Direction Program, explained the valuable lessons found in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Jeannette and Tesa discussed the basic movements of consolation and desolation as developed by St. Ignatius, including his fourteen rules for discernment of spirits.

In January of this year, it was our honor to welcome Ralph Martin to give our fourth formation course entitled “The Journey to God.” Ralph is president of Renewal Ministries, director of Graduate Theology Programs in Evangelization and professor of Theology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, and consulter to the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization. Ralph’s three sessions were based on his book “The Fulfillment of All Desire” and described the three stages of the spiritual life according to the wisdom of the doctors of the church: The Purgative, Illuminative, and Unitive Ways. The course was very well attended and provided an excellent introduction to the life of the Spirit.

Our next course will begin at the end of April and is entitled “Holiness and Wholeness.” In this course, we will explore the kind of life God wants for us, and identify potential barriers to living that life. God wants us to be holy as He is holy and yet, as we grow into union with Him, the wounds and hurts of the past can create obstacles. The talks in this course will explain how to address these difficulties, how to find relief from the distress they cause, and how to find healing as we grow in wholeness, holiness and, ultimately, sainthood.

We are hoping to offer two further courses this year: one, “Love of God and Neighbor,” during the summer; and another, “Family Part One - Building Family According to the Church’s Vision,” in September.

Our prayer is that these courses will encourage our brothers and sisters in the parish to enter more deeply into the life of prayer and a lived relationship with God through the practice of heroic virtue, sacrificial service, and love of each other. We look forward to offering further courses over the next few years and developing a catalogue of video presentations that will be available on YouTube and on our parish website: corlansing.org.

- Sean O’Neill is Director of Outreach, Formation, and Ministry at Church of the Resurrection.

LUMEN VERITATIS LECTURE SERIES

Begun in 2016, this parish lecture series exists to enrich the mind and love of the good, true, and beautiful through the study of art, literature, architecture, the human person, and more. The Lumen Veritatis YouTube channel is home to over twenty high quality recordings of lectures from the series, including “The Battle for True Education,” by Joseph Pearce, “Rebuilding American Culture,” by Dr. Anthony Esolen, and most recently, “The Psychology of Healing,” by Resurrection parishioner Jim Owens.