Event offers ‘authentic encounter with Christ’

By Barb Umberger

The Catholic Spirit

Praise and worship, adoration, confession and healing prayer teams await participants at an event being held March 4 at St. Peter in North St. Paul, organizers said.

Presented by Minnesota-based Light in the Darkness ministry and titled “Awaken the Heart,” the 6-9 p.m. gathering will offer an opportunity for an “authentic encounter with Christ” and his love, said Ross Olson, who is coordinating the event with his wife, Jodi. They are members of St. Peter.

The featured speaker will be Father Joe Freedy, president of Pennsylvaniabased Dry Bones Ministries, a nonprofit focused on faith revitalization. Father Freedy will address “From fear to freedom: Encounter the healing love of Christ who breaks down barriers, meets desires, fulfills promises and restores hearts.”

The Olsons met Father Freedy, a priest of the Diocese of Pittsburgh and that diocese’s associate director of evangelization, when he served as a chaplain at the John Paul II Healing Center in Tallahassee, Florida. The center offers training for clergy and laity, with a mission, it says, of helping “people activate the fullness of their sacramental graces, while transforming their lives,” deepening their faith and outfitting them to evangelize. The Olsons were there for training in inner healing prayer.

Now, the Olsons lead a nonprofit called Kut to the Heart Apostolate, which Ross Olson said is based on the teachings of Bob Schuchts, founder of the John Paul II Healing Center. Many apostolate members are trained “specifically in inner healing prayer,” Olson said.

The Olsons also met the founders of Light in the Darkness ministry, Rose and Shehan Perera, of St. Peter in Mendota, during a visit to the healing center. They joined Light in the Darkness as a prayer team and now organize apostolate prayer teams for events.

Participants at the March 4 gathering will have access to about six “healing prayer teams” from Kut to the Heart, with team members available to pray with an individual or couple for about 10 to 15 minutes, Ross Olson said. “It’s just amazing to see the transformation that takes place because we prayed with people,” he said.

Father Jose Cortes, pastor of St. Peter, who came to the parish about six months ago after serving as chaplain at the St. John Paul II shrine in Washington, D.C., is gifted in the area of healing and will be available for praying with participants, Olson said. Father Cortes has been performing “a lot of deliverance ministry,” Olson said, describing it as “the act of being released or freed from spiritual bondage to a demon, lie-based belief or inner vow through renunciation in the name of Jesus Christ.”

“Awaken the Heart” is free and open to the public. Registration is not required, but those interested can RSVP at darknesslit com

After seeing a one-woman play in New York called “Mary Speaks,” a parishioner at St. Peter Claver in St. Paul brought word of it to the parish’s social justice committee, chaired by Everlyn Wentzlaff.

Wentzlaff, who saw a recording of the play, found it “powerful.” It’s about the life of Mary, mother of Jesus, but “used as a parable to explore the history of Black mothers and their sons, from slavery until the present day,” she said. “Mary becomes a prototype for the struggles of Black mothers to raise and keep their sons alive in this society we live in today.”

As an African American mother, Wentzlaff said the play “makes me think about my own two sons and their safety and how to talk with them about being safe.”

Wentzlaff said the play — which uses music, spoken word and dialogue — reaches religions beyond Catholicism.

“I think she speaks a universal language that can be related to any religious faith or non-faith.” But Wentzlaff believes naming the play’s character Mary allows attendees to “identify with the spiritual piece as well.”

Three performances of the one-woman play take place March 3-5 at Concordia University’s E.M. Pearson Theatre. For tickets, visit Eventbrite at tinyurl com/2p9abf47.

Wentzlaff said she hopes the play encourages attendees to talk about social justice, racism “not just in general but also particularly in the Catholic Church,” raising awareness and sparking action.

The play is the Catholic Racial Justice Coalition’s “first sponsored local effort,” said Michael Rios-Keating, social justice education manager at Catholic Charities. An important part of the coalition’s work is to support what’s already happening in the community, he said.

New bishop of St. Cloud to build his ministry on mercy, hope, justice

By Kristi Anderson OSV News

From Portland, Oregon, to Peru and many places in between, hundreds of people came to St. Mary’s Cathedral in St. Cloud Feb. 14 to witness the ordination and installation of the Diocese of St. Cloud’s 10th bishop, Bishop Patrick Neary, an Indiana native and priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross.

Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States, read a decree from the pope and offered brief remarks to Bishop Neary, who succeeds Bishop Donald Kettler, the diocese’s shepherd from 2013 until his retirement in December.

More than 150 bishops, priests and deacons attended the ceremony as well as members of the diocese’s religious communities.

Serving as the principal ordaining bishop was Archbishop Bernard Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis. The co-ordaining bishops were Auxiliary Bishop Peter Smith of Portland and Bishop William Wack, who heads the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Florida, and is a Holy Cross priest.

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