Generations of Faith: The timeless connection to God

Generations of Faith is bringing generations of the faithful together via discussions on how to better our Church. The network is a collaboration between the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, Spa City Catholic, Twin Bridges Catholic, Goodwill Network, St. Clement’s Church, Corpus Christi Church and the Knights of Columbus.

Jesus tells us that to gain the Kingdom of Heaven the best thing we can do is love God with our whole heart, soul and mind. The next thing we must do is love our neighbor as ourselves. Obviously, to love our neighbor in the way Jesus exhorts us to do, we must come to know our neighbor. And this is where things start to become murky.

Who exactly is our neighbor? How do we get acquainted with them? 

Two men on very different paths found a way to facilitate answers. This is where our story begins.

James C.V. Cuggino (“Jim”) is a very senior citizen. He, many years ago, started a process called The Goodwill Network (“GWN”). Its purpose was to bring people together to share friendship in Christ.

Jim’s get-togethers were successful. They enabled people to come together and organically form the bonds of friendship in Christ. At Jim’s stage of life, his message resonated mostly with the older generation. Jim continually thought about attracting the younger generation to the GWN process.

Jim would host these get-togethers anywhere and everywhere he thought people might be inclined to gather: people’s homes, various coffee shops, online meetings, etc.

Currently Jim is hosting get-togethers at the Home of The Good Shepard. Jim is 93 years old.

Meanwhile, across town Will Capuano (“Will”) formed and was running a successful young adult group, Spa City Catholic (“Spa City”). Spa City was a process whereby young Catholics could gather, worship and share in the Body of Christ.

One day, a mutual acquaintance was inspired to introduce them.

They met and realized they were both facilitating the same process, just with different generations of faithful. They were excited about the synergies they would create by bringing the younger generation (Spa Catholic) together with the older generation (GWN).

They recruited a core group to help with the planning.

Both were committed to retaining the identity of and continuing their own groups independently, but when they got their groups together they would call that combined gathering “Generations of Faith.”

This coming together, getting to know your neighbor, and sharing in Christ is much needed in this world. Therefore, they decided to create a model whereby the entire community was welcome and gatherings could be repeated. The Diocese of Albany was happy to collaborate with this ongoing type of model.

A large space with food and drink was needed. The Knights of Columbus Council #246 was happy to collaborate. St. Clement’s Parish joined the collaboration to provide administrative support.

And, thus, the critical collaborative nature of the Generations of Faith model was established. With each sponsored gathering, various groups are invited to collaborate.

Generations of Faith wants the focus to be about PROCESS and NOT PROGRAM. There are already a multitude of programs in which the faithful should, can and do participate.

The idea of a BRIEFLY introduced theme to help focus everyone’s attention was added to the process. For the rest of the evening those gathered would have a chance to share with each other in small groups.

This soundly resonated with people. They were meeting their neighbors and getting to share Christ in this world. Right here, right now. The initial intention to bring two groups together for a meet-and-greet blossomed into a community-wide gathering of about 100 souls. This included Bishop Ed, who has attended two of the first three gatherings.

The process that is Generations of Faith continues to grow. We are about to assemble our fourth gathering, and YOU are invited. I will tell you all about it next week.

Walt Pazderski is a parishioner at St. Clement’s Church in Saratoga Springs.