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Pre-Lenten men’s conference to focus on prayer, reconciliation
By Andrew Junker, The Catholic Sun
January 17, 2008
Lent is often described as a 40-day retreat for the Church to prepare for the Easter season. If that’s the case, then Valley men will have the opportunity to jumpstart that period of reflection and repentance this year.
Catholic Men’s Fellowship will host its first annual pre-Lenten men’s conference Feb. 2 at Xavier College Preparatory to help local men properly enter into the season of Lent.
“The focus of it is really to help us as men wake up before Lent and help us have a deep encounter with Christ surrounded by our brothers in Christ,” said Mike Phelan, director of the diocesan Marriage and Respect Life Office.
“Men need to take seriously our lay call to holiness,” he said. “We need to take seriously our role as fathers and spiritual leaders. When men take up spiritual leadership, there’s fruit.”
The conference is designed to help men respond to the Gospel message. Guest speakers will present on topics like resisting temptation, fostering purity of heart, the Eucharist and fatherhood.
Adoration will be available throughout the day as well as confession. In the afternoon, Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted will lead a eucharistic procession to St. Francis Xavier church where he will celebrate Mass for attendees.
Mike Clancy, a member of Catholic Men’s Fellowship and organizer of the conference, said the day is an opportunity for men to reorient their spiritual lives.
“I hope these men will experience tools for combating sin and temptation, and that they will have a sense of God’s powerful forgiveness,” he said. “They will experience the power of confession and the renewal of reconciliation.”
While both Phelan and Clancy agreed that many Catholic men are wary of attending a religious conference or retreat, they’ve seen the positive change that can come from an encounter with Christ.
“There’s a desperate need for men to take up their responsibility in the Church and to even understand what it is. Most men don’t even understand what role they have,” Phelan said.
“The role is to be a Christ-like figure, laying down your life for those whom God has put in your life,” he explained, “a servant-leader.”
Catholic Men’s Fellowship was formed four years ago to support and encourage men to live out this role in their faith. The group meets monthly at the downtown Diocesan Pastoral Center for Mass, some teaching and small group discussion.
While other Christian men’s fellowship groups like Promise Keepers have enjoyed great success and membership over the years, Clancy is happy that men have a place to go that is distinctly Catholic.
“This is Roman Catholic men participating in Roman Catholic channels where we have the full banquet, we have the real presence” of Christ in the Eucharist, he said. “The fullness of our banquet is realized and we encourage men to take advantage of that.”
When men do take advantage of the sacraments and support that a group like Catholic Men’s Fellowship can offer, good things happen, Clancy said.
“Essentially, we’re encouraging them to be spiritual leaders,” he said, “sanctifying themselves and their families and ultimately getting to heaven."
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