Our one year anniversary

by Father Daniel

It is truly amazing to believe that one year ago this weekend, on Gaudete Sunday, we celebrated the dedication of this worship center we call home with Bishop Luis Zarama. One year and so much has happened, so many blessings bestowed, children baptized, weddings, funerals, and all the sacramental life events of the church that mark the passage of time here at Mother Teresa.

What began our journey in humble circumstances more than 23 years ago when the Gospel was first proclaimed at Green Hope HS is what makes this anniversary celebration of ours possible. 

Among the many influences that shape our lives, personally and collectively, the saving message of the Gospel stands out as a source of hope, of compassion, of heroic generosity, and of artistic inspiration of every kind. The Gospel has shaped our land just as it reveals the true shape of who we are and what we are to become. Christ is our way, our truth, and our life.

Places of worship are built to remind us of who we truly are. They stand across our landscape as pointers to the truth that life is best lived in the conscious presence of a loving God. They help us, in the business of our lives, to retain our focus on God and to learn that God never takes his loving focus away from us.

We gather as the church of Mother Teresa to be reminded and strengthened in our most profound identity. St Paul tells us, "You belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God." (1 Cor 3:23) This is the saving truth of who we are and where our well-being is to be found.

We come here not simply to pray and be heard but also to be built into something new. Here we are "being built into a house where God lives, in the Spirit." We are never visitors to this place. We are not even its owners. We are part of what it is, what it stands for, its bricks and mortar in our flesh, its beauty and form in our virtue, its praise and liturgy in our lives.

As we rejoice in the richness of that spirit, we thank God for the blessings of this place we call home on this anniversary weekend. Here, many have been formed in the way of Christ and gentleness of practice, rooted in a search in prayer for the God who calls us to great holiness yet never deserts us in our poverty and failure.

We thank God for the vision and drive of those who began this community and the many ways in which their spirit is here with us today. We pray that this well-spring of rich life in the Church may be sustained and renewed so that its contribution to western Wake County may be in full flow, deeply rooted in prayer and community, and reaching out in compassion and love.