Sep 10 2008
Lets Defeat Loneliness
September 10, 2008
Dear Fellow Catholics:
For those of you receiving the letter for the first time, God Bless you. Peace be with you and welcome. Join our brothers and sisters in Catholic Fellowship. Join us in prayer. If you know any other Catholics that can benefit from this message, please let us know and send us the email. We are on a mission to reach out to America. Join our cause and be one in Christ as we seek out the lonely and the for gotten. Everyone needs to feel loved. Today our topic is loneliness. Join us and thank you for not marking us as spam.
Have you ever been lonely? Have you ever gone to church and been so new but were afraid to seek out new friends at Church? It is hard moving to new churches and settling in a new church where you do not know a single soul. God sees all Catholics as one family. We need to treat our fellow Catholics as family. Some churches are better at greeting new people then others. I was once at a Catholic church that had over 5000 families attending. In a church like that you pretty much had to go out and get involved on your own. But what if you are the kind of person that is not into meeting and greeting people, where is the family for that person? What if you are a person who is alone in the world and have no one but the church? There are a lot of people on the earth like this. Jesus knew this for he said, I give you a new commandment, love one another. Such as my love has been for you, So must your love has been for you, So must your love be for each other. This is how all will know you for my disciples: by your love for one another. Jn. 13:34-35
Every one has been lonely at one time in their lives. How do we as Catholics reach the lonely people in our parish? I need all of you to think of a time when they went to a new church and were lonely. I need you to think of this experience and write about it and send it to all the people listed in the email. Tell us how lonely you were and if anybody in the church helped you or what you did to resolve the problem. I am especially interested in stories where someone came forward from the church to welcome you. You might now be asking yourself why did I give Vern Paul my email address. What have I got myself in to? You are embarked on a mission to embrace your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. The Holy Spirit is upon us. I am a missionary trying to reach as many Catholics as I can.
Here is an example; I came to Las Vegas looking for a parish near my home. I was down and out for I had not gone to church in awhile. I drove to a small parish in Las Vegas on the Eastern side of the town looking to join. The Parish is called Prince of Peace. I walked into the office and started talking to the receptionist. As I was talking this man came out to greet me. He was dressed in a white shirt and pants and was in 50’s. He told me to sit down and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was here to register. After welcoming me for about 30 minutes he then told me to come back to his office. I still had no idea who he was. I finally realized that this was the pastor of the parish when he took me to the biggest office in the parish office. We talked for an hour about general things. I gave him a lot of praise for taking the time to talk to “the new guy.” He really did impress me for doing that. I never in my long history of attending different parishes have had the pastor come out and greet me. Perhaps in small Protestant churches this is not something new.
Consider this to be a think tank. I would love to hear your stories, some of them I would like permission to print in Catholic America Today. I would also love to hear your views on how to increase Catholic fellowship at the church level. Consider it homework. Please take the time to think about it.
God Bless You all,
Vern Paul
Pray for the following
One sister has a new private detective business she prays for its success
One sister has a son with a new job and prays for success
One sister has taken too many classes we pray for her success
One brother has many health issues and we pray for his success
One brother asks for the prayer for his father’s soul
One brother asks for all to pray for his mother who just lost her husband of 46 something years
The rosary is said everyday and the intentions are mentioned at that time.
Any other prayer requests send to us at the above email
Also please feel free to register for Catholic America Today for a free look…catholicamericatoday.net
For those of you from Catholic Mingle, you can now say the rosary at Catholic America today by registering and then entering and going to the live chat area in the upper right hand corner of the page. If you have problems just get a hold of me and I will tell you
