Parish mission calls everyone to give childlike compassion through accepting God completely
The B.C. Catholic
Mercy is a gratuitous gift God pours on us from the beginning of creation to our ultimate participation in the heavenly banquet in eternity, said Deacon Greg Barcelon.
The permanent deacon, ordained in December, led his resident parish of All Saints through three sessions of a Lenten mission March 1-3. The title, “A Child of Mercy,” conveys the deacon’s wish for “people to approach the Father in reckless childlike abandon, dependence, trust, and total surrender.”
“Most people miss out on the indescribable benefit one can receive out of all the spiritual blessings from heaven Christ won for us,” Deacon Barcelon said. In order to understand the concept of mercy, and the Jubilee Year of Mercy, one needs “a more informed understanding of both the extent of mercy God gives us, and the process of fully receiving it.”
“No one is exempted from the call to be merciful,” he said. “Unfortunately we only understand what it means to be merciful after we realize our own sinfulness and confess it like a child who truly loves the Father.”
The deacon’s idea of sharing mercy stemmed from his background in missionary work. “For eight years of our lives, my wife and I have been doing missionary work, just by ourselves,” said Deacon Barcelon. “The zeal came out of our realization of how much love and mercy God has given us in spite of our sinfulness.”
Many parishioners who attended the presentations were touched. “I was able to really consider my littleness and how God alone is in control of my life,” Susan Wallace, an All Saints Parish parishioner, said. “I was shown the immensity of God’s forgiveness through His infinite love.”
The Lenten Parish Mission “was a spiritual blessing both for me and my non-Catholic wife,” said another parishioner who wished to remain anonymous. “For my wife, it was the first time for her to hear the Catholic perspective on very important issues like abandonment of self, the meaning of the Mass liturgies, the role of suffering in our lives, universality of the Church, and much more.”
The mission presentation allowed him to “appreciate better the significance of fasting and prayer that leads to Easter joy.”
