August 14, 2024 at 9:33 a.m.
STEP UP!
Men from across the Diocese of Albany gathered on Aug. 10 for a day of Catholic coaching, aimed to “step up” for stronger roles in outreach to neighbors, leadership of families and a relationship with Jesus.
The third annual Diocesan Step Up Men’s Conference became a kind of workout space, providing such resources as sacramental nourishment, worship, Biblical insights and tips on follow-through from Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger and guest speaker Michael “Gomer” Gormley.
“I don’t want anybody going home thinking ‘I’m not worth it, I haven’t measured up,’ ” Bishop Scharfenberger told the approximately 165 men present at St. Edward the Confessor Church in Clifton Park.
The men spend quiet time in Eucharistic adoration.
The fear of unworthiness, which he said has been called “stinking thinking,” blocks people from evangelizing to others — a mission which essentially is spreading the Gospel as good news and believing one is deeply loved by Christ.
Developing and sharing that personal relationship is “the center of our faith,” Bishop Scharfenberger said in his keynote talk.
He recalled times in the Gospels when Jesus asked individuals, “What do you want me to do for you?” It’s a gracious, fatherly question that people of today must answer in a context of committed love and persevering prayer.
He added that this can lead us to ask, “Lord, what would you like me to do for you?” — a question which also requires a trusting alertness to the grace Jesus supplies in support of interior and external change.
“Sometimes we wonder whether our prayers are being answered,” he told the men, “but I think sometimes the problem is not that we ask for too much, but that we don’t ask for enough.”
Bishop Scharfenberger said of Jesus, “He loves us. He loves you. He needs you to do this, He wants you to do this. You have a brain on your shoulders, you have energy to do it, you have an interest. Do it.”
Speaker Mike "Gomer" Gormley talks about the "Bonds of Brotherhood" during the Step Up Men’s Conference.
He cautioned the attendees against “dumbing down the message of the cross” because suffering with Christ and needing His forgiveness shouldn’t be seen as “feel-good” pandering. “But I want you to know that your dignity is so deep and so strong and so important. And that Jesus really depended upon people” to provide fatherly guidance in the Church.
“We know one thing the world is looking for, and it’s the one truth that saves the world,” he said — “that Jesus is Lord and He is our personal savior and He loves us personally.”
For the sake of that relationship, he said, “Go to confession, please … no matter what sin you might have committed, how many times you might have fallen.”
Over the course of the Step Up Conference, about 15 priests of the Diocese came to offer the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
“It was heartwarming to see so many priests support the men of the Diocese,” said Tom Cronin, diocesan director of Evangelization and Strategic Planning.
As lead organizer and master of ceremonies for the conference — and for the annual “Unleashing Love” counterpart event supporting women — Cronin thanked Father Patrick Butler, Andrew Sutton and the staff at St. Edward the Confessor Parish.
Ed Connelly, a parishioner at St. Clement’s Church in Saratoga Springs, converses at lunch with a fellow attendee.
He also gave a shout-out to the team of volunteers behind the scenes for Step Up, including women, led by Tara Moser, who kept the day moving while the men were in the various activities.
The conference included Mass, Eucharistic adoration, and recitation of the Rosary. The Catholic Charismatic Renewal community of the Diocese prayed with attendees who requested forms of healing in their lives.
The day was intended to have long-term impact, to “rally men and give them tools and accompaniment on our faith journey,” Cronin said. “It’s meant to be the start of something great — to get more men actively involved in the world.”
Fatherhood was a big focus. “Families are the core of society,” said Cronin. “We need strong men to lead their families in faith.”
That was the topic for Gormley, a nationally known speaker and podcaster and an evangelist for the popular “That Man Is You” formation program.
American culture has created tensions and uncertainties among men, some of whom have adopted an ethos of “weakness and passivity” while others have become isolated or materialistic in their pursuit of high-value masculinity, Gormley said.
These viewpoints can prevent the elevation of manhood to a model of virtuous fatherhood, he said. The “greater vision of what it is to be a father” incorporates providing, protecting, loving, teaching and sacrificing in the service of others — “doing the right thing” and “giving the very best of ourselves.”
Raymond O’Sullivan, a parishioner at St. Joseph’s Church in Greenfield Center, prays during the conference.
Modern society has produced “the first culture in the history of the world that doesn’t initiate its own men,” he pointed out.
“There is a native strength in everyone in this room that your wives and children need,” said Gormley. “If you are not married and don’t have kids, your fatherhood still must be formed within you.”
While God created Adam to till the earth and guard the Garden of Eden, “many of us — through the internet, through television, through music we permit in our homes — are allowing a thousand serpents in. ... It is our job as men to be the primary formators of our children.”
Gormley said the two creation narratives in Genesis combine to speak of man and woman as sharing in one human nature, in God’s image and likeness, but also as different and complementary. Adam and Eve form a “whole stronger than its parts.”
Jesus, who became a bridegroom for the Church as His bride, has shown “a new way to be a husband, a new way to be a father, a new way to be a single man in the world,” the speaker continued. Called to integrity and control over one’s passions, a man must offer his strength “in self-sacrificial generosity … for the good of others, for their holiness, for their salvation.”
This regimen of faithful fitness requires new solidarity with other men, as well as communities and friendships with all. Today’s technology and self-centeredness have created “so much distance between ourselves.” Connection to family members, homes, neighborhoods and culture “gets dissolved,” Gormley said. The worlds of business and government furnish a replacement identity, and we get “branded.”
“What Christ wants of us is to work at building the bonds of fraternity,” he said. “If no man is walking with you, you’re in trouble already. …. When men suffer together, work together, not just when you sit around and talk to each other … that’s when the bonds of brotherhood become unbreakable.”
Bishop Scharfenberger, in his remarks to the conference, said the Catholic Church provides a plan for fatherhood and sonship that can bring people together and help to evangelize society. It starts with Jesus, who lovingly called God “father” and wanted to do His will, even in painful prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.
We must recognize, “because we are sons of God, that He is our dad, and we have a father.”
It’s good to be called “father,” Bishop Scharfenberger said of his own experience. It speaks of people approaching who “want to be fed.”
“And,” he told the Step Up Conference, “I hope you feel that you are being fed today.”
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