Gulf Pine Catholic

12 Gulf Pine Catholic • September 15, 2023 Twentieth century Dutch Catholic priest, professor, and theologian Henri Nouwen wrote, “Nobody escapes being wounded. We all are wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. The main question is not ‘How can we hide our wounds?’ so we don’t have to be embarrassed, but ‘How can we put our woundedness in the service of others?’” These words reveal what it means to follow in the foot- steps of Christ, who, through His redemptive sacrifice, meets each of us in our suffering. When we join our strug- gle to His suffering on the cross, we allow Him to help us carry our burden and offer up to God all we are left to bear for the good of others. Becoming a Wounded Healer is a Christopher News Note that explores the stories of those who have learned how to move beyond tragedy so they can shower blessings on those around them, such as U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Travis Mills. After an I.E.D. explosion took parts of both of his arms and both of his legs, he was left with difficulty functioning and struggling with anger towards God. Wor- ried he would become a burden to his wife and their baby daughter, he found relief in the prosthetics that allowed him to function, and a revolutionary treatment helped ease his pain. Soon, he turned his sights to serving others and founded the Travis Mills Foundation, which helps wound- ed warriors and their families realize their full potential. In a Christopher Closeup inter- view about his award-winning book Tough as They Come , Travis said, “I realized it’s not okay to just be a believer when things are going your way…As much as I was upset about the situation, God had a plan for me to keep going forward.” Sister Ave Clark of the Sisters of St. Dominic of Amityville, NY, was a healer before she became a wounded healer. The founder of Heart to Heart Ministry , she offers pastoral counseling to parents who have lost a child due to miscarriage, those with post-traumatic stress, victims of crime, survivors of suicide, survivors of abuse, post-abortive women, those dealing with depression and grief, and many others. But when a 120-ton runaway train slammed into her car while she was driving in Queens, Sister Ave was hospitalized for close to a year, undergoing intense physical therapy to be able to walk again. In a Christopher Closeup interview about her book Heart of Courage , Sister Ave recalls feel- ing sorry for herself for the first few days in the hospital, asking, “Why, God?” But then she began to ask a different question: “God, what am I going to do now?” She soon found her answer in the people who came to visit her while she was waiting for therapy, waiting for lunch, or waiting for dinner. Many people began to seek her out for conversations, and rather than traveling to churches to give retreats, she was bringing healing to those in her midst. She realized, “This is where God wants me. So, there was a struggle, yes, but I think that’s part of life, too. Struggles make us stronger, sometimes in broken places.” We find strength “in broken places” because Christ meets us there, guiding us to join Him in redemptive suf- fering. So, let’s never be afraid to pick up our cross be- cause that’s where we find Christ, where we learn to love like Him, and where He leads us to the hope of the Resur- rection. Fr. Ed Dougherty, M.M., serves on The Christo- phers’Board of Directors. For a free copy of the Chris- topher News Note, GOOD SPORTSMANSHIP, write: The Christophers, 5 Hanover Square, New York, NY 10004; or e-mail: mail@christophers.org . Becoming a wounded healer Light One Candle Fr. Dougherty SET in our ways BY PAUL K. BLANCHARD When the Bishop asked me to be a part of an evangelization team my first reaction was “Me? Have you met me?” That’s of course not what I said out loud. What I ended up saying was some- thing closer to, “If you feel I will add something to the team; I would be happy to join.” The interesting part about joining any team, especially one that is already established, is that there is an existing dynamic. Everyone brings in their own experience, opinions, charisms, dis- cernment, and emotions. Asking a group of people to be aligned to a certain vision, mission, and strategy can seem either almost impossible or absolutely essential depending on our own experience with “team” in the past. I’ve come to realize the true blessing this invitation has been in my own life and my continued conversion. Things take time. In our modern culture with our ability to tweet or Google any random thought we have, literally in the palm of our hands, we can often forget the value of a good homecooked meal. Instead, favoring the instant gratification of the microwave or drive-thru dish. The mistake we must guard against is assuming anyone is intentionally forsaking the homecooked meal. If you have never provided someone with the experience of a homecooked meal, you can’t assume they know any different. This is really an oversimplifi- cation of what we face as a diocese with any efforts to Members of the SET team are: front l-r: Deacon Richard Smith, Director of Pastoral Services; Bishop Louis F. Kihneman, III; Marianne Schmidt, Director of Youth Ministry; Jennifer Broadus, Superintendent of Education; and Shawn Williams, Bishop Kihneman’s Secretary; second row l-r: Nick Jorgensen, ACTSXXIX; Leo Trahan, Director of Faith Formation; Ray Lacy, Director of Evangelization; and Rick Popp, ACTSXXIX; back row: Dave Wyrwich, Director of Personnel; and Paul Blanchard, Director of IT and Social Media. evangelize. For those of us who have either come back or remained in the faith, we have to be mindful of an atti- tude of “this worked for me, or this was good enough for me and I didn’t leave.” It is essential that we honor the past efforts that brought us where we are today: those who walked with us, those who taught us, and those who loved us. At the same time, we also must recognize the culture and the world around us are very different. The conver- sations we are challenged to have today are very different to the ones from twenty years ago, let alone the last ten. The Truth hasn’t changed. But is it more important for us to be heard or to lis- ten, meet someone where they are, and accom- pany them toward the Truth they are open to hearing? To that end, the Strategic Evangelization Team (a.k.a. SET) with the leadership and guid- ance of Bishop Kihneman has been at the fore- front and cutting edge of tackling these very real issues. The book Missio Nostra was one of the first tangible fruits from the collaboration. And each person on the team has had to have a per- sonal conversion along the way. I find it’s rarely easy to be humbled, but so fruitful when we allow it. That’s really the true blessing this team has provided to me in my own walk and my own formation. We all still very much have our own silos to handle, but instead of being on our own farms with fences built up, we have put in some new gates and cobbled pathways that allow better coop- eration between our farms. I know I don’t feel as iso- lated as I used to feel. SEE SET TEAM, PAGE 15