Jesus’ message that He has given all Christians a call to be missionary disciples in their own way was a common topic among speakers at the Columbus Catholic Men’s Conference.
About 1,700 men attended the 25th annual conference, which returned on Saturday, Feb. 26 to Kasich Hall at the state fairgrounds after taking place by videoconference last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Principal speakers were Sister Miriam James Heidland, SOLT; author and podcaster Matthew Leonard; and Curtis Martin, founder of FOCUS, the Fellowship of Catholic University Students.
Sister Miriam, a member of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity and a speaker at the diocesan women’s conference in the past, gave a presentation to the men’s conference for the first time and focused on how the power and gift of men’s masculine nature allow them to serve others.
She said that as King David of the Old Testament was called “a man after God’s own heart,” men are called to be men after the heart of Christ. “From the beginning of time, from Adam and Eve, out of everything that’s come and gone, God has only ever created male and female. That is a beautiful reality. Every one of you is a man called to be a man after God’s heart, to give the gift of yourself and to bear your most mature identity, that of father.
“Have you ever as a father thought, ‘I have no idea what this is all about?’” she asked. “I’m here to tell you that you don’t need to figure it out on your own. God will give you everything you need. … God has given you a mission. There is a particular way He is calling you to reveal the face of God the Father. That is through the gift of masculinity.”
She said Pope St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body describes how “God has made you as men in a particular way to show how God loves. Trying to redefine the roles of men and women destroys masculinity and femininity as God intended them to be. Jesus Christ is inviting you to give of yourself, not by the acquisition of territory but by revealing who you are – that you can love with Christ’s heart through the heart of Jesus. He reveals very deep things to us and enables us to give the gift of ourselves.
“It takes a particular kind of man to go on a journey so God can make him whole,” she said. “That is the very thing God wants you to do – to order creation so that the gifts of God can flourish. We often tend to settle for mediocrity, but I don’t believe in this.”
She spoke of how easily a sense of failure can lead to addiction – in her case to alcohol and lust in the years before she became a religious sister. “It nearly broke me,” she said.
“Addiction, in whatever form it takes, is a traumatic response to where the heart is broken. Christianity is not sin management, but a transference into glory that occurs when we become honest in deep places. … The Lord is not ashamed of you. His heart aches for you to be integrated with the whole truth and goodness that comes from receiving Christ in the center of your being.”
Her talk was interrupted by loud applause when she said, “Your masculinity is not toxic. It is glorious. We need you as men, the gift of who you are,” she continued. “We women need the Lord to come into your heart so we can give the gift of ourselves.
“The whole story of the garden of Eden was about a lie” told by Satan, she said. “The enemy still whispers to you that God is not good for you. … There is no other way to healing than through the paschal mystery, the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. He brings us home.
“Allow me, on behalf of the women in your life who haven’t loved you well, to tell you how sorry I am,” Sister Miriam said. “I just want to come to you as an emissary of their hearts, to tell you we want you to be fully alive. We want you to know who you are, as is revealed in the heart of Christ.
“There are places where we don’t know what to do, and we are rehashing ourselves, getting stuck in a corner and settled in our ways. But Jesus comes to us and says, ‘I’m not afraid of you. I want to come to you so you can give of your power and strength and be a blessing to others.’ He will never force His way on you. He will just invite you.”
Leonard’s presentation centered on the forms and power of prayer. “Being in a relationship with almighty God will result in a fundamental change in the trajectory of your life,” he said. “The Catholic life isn’t rocket science. Jesus has given you everything you need.”
Prayer takes on many forms, including prayers of adoration, thanksgiving, sorrow and petition. “Why so many forms of prayer?” he asked. “It’s because we talk to God in different ways, depending on the situation. We should pray in both our trials and our joy.
“As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, ‘God thirsts for you, and prayer is an encounter with that thirst.’ You pray differently when your child is lost in the mall than you would in praying for a promotion at work. Prayer is what changes our conversation from self-centered to God-centered.”
The three major types of prayer are vocal (praying aloud or silently and using words to express our thoughts), meditative (attempts to reflect on Jesus Christ, led by something exterior, such as a book) and contemplative (“the most difficult to explain because it’s supernatural,” Leonard said. “God pours Himself into you and becomes one with you, the consummation of spiritual life”).
He said the three types of prayer “form a type of ladder on the way to which the goal is God.” He compared prayer to a longtime marriage that starts with a couple talking to each other constantly about many things and continues over the years with the husband and wife communicating those same things to each other through a look or a gesture without saying a word, because they have grown to know each other intimately.
Leonard gave several suggestions on how to deepen one’s prayer life. “First, pick a good place and time,” he said. “There’s never a point in time when you’re not in a relationship with God, but the relationship will grow if you put aside a specific time for it. This will help you learn to order your time in general.”
Also important in prayer is maintaining an atmosphere of silence, eliminating all distractions. Leonard said this is one of the benefits of Eucharistic Adoration or of entering a church for prayer.
“Set aside 10 or 15 minutes for prayer,” he said. “In the beginning, it will be the longest 10 or 15 minutes of your life, but the more you do it, the easier it is, and in time it becomes 15 minutes, then 20, then a half-hour. Remember, this is what you were made for.
“Recollect yourself,” he continued. “Put your concerns at the door. Put yourself at the feet of Jesus. Get up a little early if you can. The best time for me to pray is before dawn.
“If you’re using a book to aid your prayer, don’t rush through it. The goal isn’t to finish. The goal is God. Find something, pause and reflect. Let the Lord speak to you and respond to it.
“Prepare yourself and realize that prayer isn’t just about you, but about everyone else in your life, both friends and enemies. Prayer leads to peace, to hope and to God. You can’t find yourself otherwise. You get to know God through your prayer life. That’s why the saints say you have to pray every day. You get holy, or you die trying.”
Leonard said he has put together a video series for Lent on St. Teresa of Avila’s nine levels of prayer. It is available at www.scienceofsainthood.com.
Martin, speaking at the event for the fourth time, concluded the conference’s speaking program with a talk on “Making Missionary Disciples – Know, Grow and Share.”
“How do we share the faith we’ve been given as Catholic men?” he asked. “What you do is less important than who you are, but you can’t do what you’re supposed to do unless you let Christ change who you are. Do you have virtue? Are you honest? Do you have a life of prayer? Grace builds on that foundation.”
Martin recounted Jesus’ calling of the apostle Philip and his brother Nathanael as described in the first chapter of the Gospel of John. Nathanael was at first skeptical of Jesus, saying, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
Verses 47 to 49 of the chapter read, “When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said, ‘Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.’ ‘How do you know me?’ Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, ‘I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.’ Then Nathanael declared, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the king of Israel.’”
“In two verses, Nathanael goes from ‘How do you know me?’ to ‘You are the Son of God,’” Martin said. “Nathanael encounters Jesus, and Jesus does all the work. We’re also going to know Jesus by encountering Him. As Sister Miriam and Matthew (Leonard) said earlier today, we let Christ in by talking to Him every day.
“Think of Easter night in the Upper Room,” he said. “Thomas the Apostle wasn’t there. He said later that he would believe Jesus was in the room only if he could place his fingers in Jesus’ wounds. One week later, Jesus show up in the room again and tells Thomas He wasn’t there physically when He heard Thomas express his doubts, but He heard Thomas. Then Thomas presses his fingers into Jesus’ wounds and says, ‘My Lord and my God.’
“As with Thomas, Jesus hears your every word, even your thoughts. Your relationship with Him changes everything. He’s a life-giving spirit. The key to a relationship with Him is if we will encounter Him and allow Him into the room that is our heart. I invite you to make an appointment with God, preferably in the morning.”
Martin said Jesus presents “a crazy model” for success. “He came out of the middle of nowhere, found 12 guys and went camping with them for three years. That’s not a business plan that should work, but it did, and it works with FOCUS,” which Martin founded in 1998. The group places young lay missionaries at colleges, including Ohio State University, and uses them to evangelize among their peers.
Martin said one way everyone can serve as missionary disciples is to follow the Little Way of Spirituality described by St. Therese of Lisieux. “Just take little everyday tasks – in her case, it was folding napkins and mopping the floor – and do them with great love.
“Use the model Jesus used. Live the model Jesus lived in deep unity with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” Martin said. “I invite you into a deep, deep conversation and encounter with Christ through prayer and to find the Little Way. By doing this with God’s grace, as St. Catharine of Siena has said, you can set the world on fire.”
Former Columbus Bishop Robert Brennan, who has been bishop of Brooklyn, New York since late November, greeted conference participants by video. “I miss you an awful lot,” he said. “In a diocese with 4 million people living in 180 square miles, it takes about as long to drive from one end of the diocese to another as it took to go from Columbus to Tuscarawas County.”
Referring to the conference theme, “Called to Be Saints,” he said, “I’m surrounded by saints in Brooklyn and Queens, just as I was in Columbus. It’s always inspiring to see men and women who try to be saints, … to do the best they can with the help of God. The world desperately needs saints. It needs your witness. It needs you to be the saint next door.”
The conference program also included brief conversations between master of ceremonies Matt Palmer and Father Stash Dailey on enthronement of the Sacred Heart and between Palmer and Loren Brown, president and chief executive officer of The Catholic Foundation; a talk by Father Michael Hartge on the diocesan Real Presence Real Future initiative; and a video invitation by Father John Riccardo of Detroit to The Rescue Project, an event he will lead at the fairgrounds on Saturday and Sunday, June 18 and 19.
Father Dan Dury, pastor of Sunbury St. John Neumann Church, the conference’s host parish, said the opening prayer. Msgr. Stephan Moloney, diocesan administrator and vicar general, celebrated the Mass that closed the conference. Music was provided by The Neumann Project of St. John Neumann Church.