What We Believe

We are created for relationship and communion

“God himself is an external exchange of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 221)

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:26-27) We have been created in the image and likeness of a God who is a relationship.

We have been uniquely created to imitate, participate in, and reflect the Divine self exchange of love of the Trinity.

Built into your being you have a capacity beyond this world for the infinite - an ability to converse with God and to welcome him within you - an ability to receive God’s very life that is being poured out to you and to pour yourself back to him in return.
We were created to know, love, and serve God. ere created in His image and likeness.
We were created to know, love, and serve God. 

What is the barrier?

The reality is that we often do not experience God in this way. We are created for perfect relationship with God - to share in the Divine Communion of Love in the Trinity- and perfect relationship with one another - to pour ourselves out as self-gift and receive the self-gift of others in return.

Because of sin, all these relationships are broken. Our relationship with God is damaged by sin. Our relationship with others is damaged by sin. 

Effects of Sin

The harmony in which they had found themselves…is now destroyed: the control of the soul’s spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union man and woman becomes subject to tensions… Harmony with creation is broken; visible creation has not become alien and hostile to man…Finally…death makes its entrance into human history. (CCC 399, 400)

Sin leaves us broken and wounded - it damages our relationships with one another, with God, within our selves, and even with creation itself.

Adam & Eve did not trust that God was not who he said he was, and that they were not who he created them to be. They did not trust in God’s unconditional love - they rejected the gift.

Unable to Receive God’s Love

Sin - both the effects of the Fall and the effects of personal & social sin - leave us unable to receive the full, complete, total, and fruitful gift of God’s Divine Life. Sometimes, sin and suffering leave us wounded and broken, so that the Gift is not able to take hold within us and transform us.

Sometimes, sin and suffering leave us holding on to lies, judgements, false identities, or even shame - all of which inhibit our freedom to receive the Gift.

There is good news

“After his fall, man was not abandoned by God. On the contrary, God calls him and in a mysterious way heralds the coming victory over evil and his restoration from his fall.” (CCC 410)

Woudnedness, sin and broken relationships are not the end of our story.

By his cross, and the perfect gift of himself, Jesus suffers the consequences of our sin for us.

Jesus’ Mission on Earth

Jesus establishes his kingdom over every area of sin and brokenness. His entire mission is to bring healing, restoration, and wholeness to all the broken relationships that are are a result of the Fall.

During his entire human existence, Jesus reversed the rebellion against God present in our fallen nature. He said “yes” to his Father to redeem our very “No.”

Jesus is the bridge that brings us back into the communion and relationships we were created for by offering us healing, wholeness, and communion.

The gift of God's love and mercy 

A gift is only a gift if it can be rejected. Jesus’ invitation is not an imposition or a demand. It has be accepted.

Who is Jesus to you? Where do you need Jesus most?

Imagine yourself standing at the foot of the cross.

Imagine Jesus looking at you with love. Feel the intensity of his gaze and the power of his invitation to make him the center of your life.

Respond to that invitation by physically placing those places of brokenness, woundedness, sin, shame, and suffering at the foot of the cross.

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves, for my yoke is easy and my burden light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

Power of the Holy Spirit
At Baptism & Confirmation we receive and are sealed in the power of the Holy Spirit. The same Holy Spirit that depended upon the apostles at Pentecost.

“Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father.” John 14:12

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth.”John 14:17

Sent on Mission

Through faith and Baptism, the Holy Spirit works through us and allows us to share in Jesus’ mission. We live out the mission of the Church when we allow Jesus to shine out of the very places in our own lives that he has healed.

The Church - the sacraments, the Body of Christ, the community of faith - helps us continue to spread that life giving mission around the world. 

Do you want to make Jesus the center of your life?

If so pray: 

"Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will All I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me. Amen.”