Nick was expressive and honest. He told you like it was and rarely minced words doing so! One got the sense that if he \u201chad to be here\u201d he was \u201cgoing to make the best of it\u201d. He was inquisitive and always had a question!<\/p>\n
I prepared the class for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. After class that night Nick told me why he wouldn\u2019t go to the Sacrament and why he couldn\u2019t be forgiven. He shared that for many years he was involved in serious gang activity and he lost his way. It behooved me Nick discovered that his life story was caught up within the narratio <\/em>of salvation history and just as the people of Israel wandered and strayed, God nonetheless continued to call them back to himself and to reveal His hesed. Hesed, <\/em>such a rich word. meaning God\u2019s rich mercy, steadfast love, compassion, and grace. Nick knew what it meant to wander from God and more importantly he now knew what it meant to be forgiven and welcomed home!<\/p>\n Nick allowed grace to help him discover that Jesus is the answer to the lasting happiness he longed for and the sacraments of the Church put him in touch with the living God. He discovered, what Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger would name as the essential content of evangelization, \u201cthe Kingdom of God is God and the Kingdom of God means: God exists. God is alive. God is present and acts in the world, in our\u2014in my life.\u201d (Address to Catechists and Religion Teachers, 12 December 2000<\/a>)<\/p>\n The night of the last class, Nick told me that over the weeks we were meeting for class he \u201ctook a lot of grief\u201d from his gym buddies wondering where he was on Wednesday nights. \u201cAfter all, you gotta understand that each night you go to the gym and you focus on only one muscle group\u201d he explained. Nick went on to say, \u201cI told \u2018em how it was\u2026on Wednesday nights, I work the heart muscle.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n In that moment, I understood these words in Catechesis Tradendae<\/a>:\u00a0<\/em>“at the `heart of catechesis we find, in essence, a Person, the Person of Jesus of Nazareth.\u201d\u00a0 Nick, along the way, had met Jesus. His eyes were opened to Jesus\u2019 presence and to his transforming and saving power. To me, Nick\u2019s words were reminiscent of the words spoken by the Emmaus disciples, \u201cwere not our hearts burning within us\u201d (cf. Luke 24: 33<\/a>). I knew I was standing on holy ground as this man before me was sharing his own experience of God\u2019s hesed<\/em> toward him!<\/p>\n Nick discovered what Cardinal Ratzinger meant about \u201cunum necessarium<\/em> (one thing necessary) to man is God. Everything changes, whether God exists or not\u201d (Address). Certainly something had changed in Nick\u2019s heart. In Spe salvi, <\/em>Pope Benedict XVI states, \u201cthe Gospel is not merely a communication of things that can be known\u2014it is one that makes things happen and is life-changing. The dark door of time, of the future, has been thrown open. The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life\u201d (SS 2<\/a>). <\/em>Nick experienced new life in the freedom of being forgiven.<\/p>\n As pastoral workers, in our teaching and in our works of justice and charity, we build up the Kingdom of God. Let us not forget that these important contributions (teaching, preaching, witness of life, and service) strengthen the Body of Christ and do indeed \u201cexercise the heart muscle.\u201d Together we can build a civilization of love. Pope Francis writes, \u201cTrue faith in the incarnate Son of God is inseparable from self-giving, from membership in the community, from service, from reconciliation with others. The Son of God, by becoming flesh, summoned us to the revolution of tenderness<\/strong>\u201d (Evangelii Gaudium<\/em>\u00a0128<\/a>).<\/p>\n Nick (who in his own words said he had a cold and hard heart) became a man transformed by Jesus\u2019 summons to practice the virtue of tenderness. Pope Francis stated that tenderness \u201cis not the virtue of the weak but rather a sign of strength of spirit and a capacity for concern, for compassion, for genuine openness to others, for love. We must not be afraid of goodness, of tenderness!”\u00a0(Francis, Homily, 19 March 2013<\/a>) Though Pope Francis\u2019 words are spoken many years after Nick\u2019s encounter with Christ, God taught Nick this reality. Nick was not afraid to testify to love and tenderness by proclaiming to his gym buddies that he exercised \u201cthe heart muscle\u201d by strengthening the gifts of faith, hope and love and becoming a disciple of Christ.<\/p>\n Elements for the Art of Evangelization:<\/p>\n Lisa Gulino<\/strong> is\u00a0Director for the Office of Evangelization and Faith Formation in the DIocese of Providence and teaches ministry for Saint Joseph\u2019s College Online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some people you never forget. Nick is such a person. I met him at the adult confirmation class I taught years ago. He was in his mid-twenties. You couldn\u2019t miss him! Years of intense body-building made his already stocky frame … Continue reading ![\"Rembrandt's](\"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2014\/06\/Rembrandts-Prodigal-Son.jpg\")
<\/a>to read with him the story of the prodigal son. I read the part about the father seeing the son coming from a distance. The father upon seeing the son sprinted toward him and threw his arms around him welcoming him home.\u00a0\u00a0 Nick\u2019s exclamation of \u201cthat\u2019s what I\u2019m talking \u2018bout!<\/strong>\u201d chased away my own complacency of reading Scriptures as I realized he recognized himself in that prodigal son. And the night he received the Sacrament of Reconciliation, I will never forget it. Nick burst forth from the confessional, running over to me, picked me up, and swung me around as he cried (literally), \u201cI am free, I am loved and I am forgiven!\u201d Tears filled my eyes! Back in class, we picked up the Scriptures and we read the Gospel of Luke Chapter 15:16-17, \u201c\u2018Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.\u2019\u00a0 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.\u201d He turned to the class and with that sense of freedom said \u201cthat\u2019s us boys, the heavens are rejoicing!\u201d<\/p>\n\n