Please pray with me: Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of us your faithful and kindle in us the fire of your love. Send forth your spirit and we shall be created, and You shall renew the face of the earth.
Let us pray: 
O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, instructs the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever rejoice in His consolations through Christ our Lord, Amen.

 

Good evening!  My name is Paul Leveille, and I worship with my wife Lucy at Holy Redeemer Catholic church in Palm City.  I experienced Men’s Cursillo #49 at St Rafael Spiritual Life Center in Stuart in 2001 and sat at the table of St Joseph.  
I am so happy to be here with all of you to celebrate and share our faith at the beginning of this Advent season.  
Well, the past year has been a year of big changes for our family.  You never know where God is going to take you, but He always has a plan.  The hard part is: Trusting in that plan!

Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us: 
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.

 

So, in the summer of 2024 we decided to move closer to our daughter and her growing family, who live in Pt St Lucie.  It was not an easy decision, as we had lived in Wellington since 1998, surrounded by our friends, our faith community and our reunion group for almost 26 years.  We help with our granddaughters 2 to 3 days per week and had been traveling over 2 hours each time we watched them; so we knew moving was the right decision.  

We started looking for a new home somewhere between Stuart and Pt St Lucie, with lots of fits and starts.  However, God had a plan, as He led us to a wonderful Catholic realtor, who helped us find our ideal home in Palm City.  That was our first sign that we were on the right path.  We had many opportunities to discuss our faith with our realtor, regarding our lives, and the challenges in her life.  We prayed for her, and with her, shared blessings and scripture passages; and even brought her petitions for her family with us on our pilgrimage. We continue to stay in contact with her, sharing blessings and prayers.  God is good!

We found the ideal home, in a great neighborhood in Palm City, and prepared our Wellington home for sale.  Again, God was with us the entire way, and brought us the right buyer, at the right time.   Moving was not an easy task, especially when you are downsizing your home by about 40%!  It allowed us to bless others with the abundance of extra items we had.  And… we decluttered and simplified our lives!  We finished moving with lots of prayers, heartaches, and sore muscles!

During our move, our daughter announced that she was pregnant with her third child.  What a great moving present for us!!  Another confirmation that our move was in God’s plan.

As we settled into our new life and new environment, the Cursillo phrase “bloom where you are planted” rang over and over in my head.  A new environment means new opportunities.  We immediately signed up at Holy Redeemer parish, which is literally a 5- minute walk from our new home.  I signed up to be a lector.  We started attending daily mass and regularly joined the morning rosary prayer group.  We also relished the beautiful adoration chapel at the church, where they do First Friday adoration and benediction.  We were building a new faith community in our new environment.  We also connected with some dear Cursillo friends, as well as some new Cursillo friends, in the Stuart/Palm City area.
As if all that was not enough, our granddaughters were keeping us focused on our faith journey.  Our daughter is a Cursillista, and she and her husband live their faith openly and encourage us to share and educate our granddaughters in the faith.  That allows us to speak, pray, and teach them about our faith when we are with them.  

Luke 10:21 was the daily reading on Tuesday this week.  It sums up how we should be open to the Lord. 
Jesus says: “I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, you have revealed them to the childlike.” 

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Our granddaughters love the Lord, and we talk and sing about Jesus and our faith almost every time we are with them.  This love for the Lord manifests itself in many ways.  One of the ways it emerges is when we do activities with them.  One activity our granddaughters love is going to the park.  Fortunately, there is a nice park very close to their home, so we have been going there regularly for the last couple of years.  Our granddaughters are very social, so they are always making new friends.

About a year and a half ago, we were at the local park with the girls (2 and 4 at the time).  When we got there, there was a young girl and her younger brother there, who happened to be the same age.  The 4 of them struck up an immediate friendship.  Over the next several months, we saw them there regularly at the park, and they became fast friends.  We got to know their grandparents as well.    According to our eldest granddaughter, Lily, her friend Cammie was her best friend.  A bond had been formed.

Keep in mind, the parents of both sets of kids had never met.  Now, fast forward to this spring.  Our daughter and family decided to go to a Saturday vigil mass so they could have Sunday free.  That is an infrequent choice.  They went to St Lucie Catholic Church, their local parish.  At the end of mass, as they are leaving the church, our granddaughters go running up the aisle, as they see their friend Cammie from the park.  Now keep in mind, Cammie’s parents attend this parish, here at St Bernadette, but decided to attend the vigil mass at St Lucie on the same week as our daughter and family.  As we say, a “Godincidence”!  The girls are talking and laughing, and the two sets of parents are looking at each other, wondering how do the kids know each other?  When asked, they all say, “From the park!”  So, the grandparents’ connection became obvious.
That was the beginning of a new family friendship between the two families.  Come to find out, the other couple are converts and very active and devoted to the Catholic faith.  The two families have since become close friends, sharing meals, events, and encouragement.  And Cammie’s parents just had their third child, only a couple months younger than our youngest granddaughter.

As a result of the friendship, our daughter and family have been going here regularly, to St Bernadette, and meeting other young Catholic couples.  Cursillo teaches us that our faith is made up of small Christian community, which is exactly what this parish has.  They also have a very active Catholic home school community, which our daughter is taking advantage of with our oldest granddaughter.  What a blessing!
So, keep your heart ready.  The seeds of faith come in all ages, colors, and sizes.  We just have to be open to the opportunities afforded us by the Lord.  He has blessed our family abundantly with many opportunities.  So, remember to “bloom where you are planted” and rejoice in the Lord Always!

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May your Advent and Christmas seasons be Joyful and Abundant.  God Bless you!