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2/9/2024

An Invitation to Join Us In Seeking “The Beating Heart of the Gospel”

Fr. Rich Andre, CSP
February 9, 2024

Welcome! If this is your first time visiting us, or if it’s your first time in a long time, we’re glad that you’re here. The Paulist Center Community includes Catholics and non-Catholics alike. For nearly 80 years, thousands of Bostonians – including nonprofit leaders, medical personnel, artists, justice advocates, teachers, journalists, entrepreneurs, and politicians – have walked through the doors at 5 Park Street. They have been inspired not only by the salvific message of Jesus Christ, but also by our community members striving to live out Christ’s message in their daily lives.

The word “Lent” comes from an old Dutch and German word for springtime. It’s a season of growing in our relationship with our loving, merciful God. We may take on disciplines during Lent to simplify our lives, but there is absolutely no requirement for us to be sad, sorrowful, or humorless for the next 40+ days. All of us are in different phases of our faith journey, living in different circumstances. Lent can be whatever we need it to be as we seek to deepen our relationship with the divine. Be sure to check out the insert titled “Lent at the Paulist Center” for a variety of resources to enhance our individual Lenten journeys and for a full listing of special events in which we share our collective journey.

Over the next 6 weeks, many members of the Paulist Center will gather weekly in small groups to reflect on the book Mercy Not Sacrifice, written by Paulist Father Mark-David Janus. As he writes about Ash Wednesday: “Wearing ashes doesn’t mean we are sinners or saints. It means that we believe in the mercy of God…. This is the beating heart of the gospel.”

We in the Paulist Center Community believe in the mercy of God, and we continually strive to share God’s mercy with others. With our time, talent, and treasure, we endeavor to build a world that is more just and equitable — reaching out to the hungry, caring for creation, and advocating for racial equity and immigration reform. We uphold the full dignity of divorced & LGBTQIA people and women who seek positions of leadership within the Church. We emphasize God’s mercy in the curriculum we use in our Family Religious Education and Sacramental Preparation Programs. We promote God’s mercy by paying higher utility rates for recycling and green energy. But it’s not just in the programs we run, the advocacy we promote, and the people we serve. Everything we do is immersed in our witness of God’s merciful love for us, a love Christ compels us to share with others.

No matter whether you identify as a practicing Catholic, as a lapsed Catholic, as a Christian of another denomination, as a believer of another faith, or as someone skeptical of organized religion, please know that this is a place where you are always welcome to grow, to contribute, to question, and to belong. Won’t you join us? We welcome you, as you are!