Week 4: Faith in Action Today

Ave Explores Series | Faith in Action Series

The final week of Ave Explores: Faith in Action helps you find your mission field—the place where you put your faith into action. You can help people you see every day by participating in parish ministries and community organizations.

Ave Explores: Faith in Action Week 4 from Ave Maria Press on Vimeo.

Most Rev. Nelson Perez, Archbishop of Philadelphia, encourages you to serve the poor, feed the hungry, visit the sick, and fight for the oppressed. He said putting faith into action is especially necessary with all that’s going on in the world today.

Ave Explores Live with Leticia Ochoa Adams from Ave Maria Press on Vimeo.

Leticia Ochoa Adams shares her experience with generational poverty and trauma and offers practical examples of helping those in need and working for justice by living joyfully and centering ourselves in authentic relationship with others and the Lord.

PODCASTS
	Podcast with Fr. Michael Thomas, C.S.C. Fr. Michael Thomas, C.S.C., a teacher and campus minister at St. George’s College in Santiago, Chile—a K-12 school apostolate of the U.S. Province of the Congregation of Holy Cross— explains what led him to mission work in Chile. Thomas says that much of our mission work will occur within our own families, workplaces, and parishes.
	Podcast with F. DeKarlos Blackmon F. DeKarlos Blackmon, director of the Secretariat for Life, Justice, and Charity in the Diocese of Austin, Texas, explains why people of faith should be concerned with advocating for justice, especially in prison systems and in the ongoing fight against racial inequality.
ARTICLES
	What Happens When We Are Content with Enough? Haley Stewart, Catholic speaker, podcaster, and author of The Grace of Enough, writes that while contentment with less is difficult, it opens us to faith, community, family, and the world. When we embrace enough instead of more, our extra blessings can be given away to those who lack even the basics.
	The Works of Mercy Come to Life Mary Pezzulo, a columnist at Patheos, has been on the receiving end of the Works of Mercy. She explains that these acts are the way we’re meant to show love from person to person and to make the Love that is really the Holy Spirit alive to one another. The Works of Mercy are about valuing one another as human beings.
SHOWCASE
	Homeboy Industries and Fr. Greg Boyle, S.J. Fr. Greg Boyle, S.J., saw the violence, gang warfare, and conflict in Los Angeles so prevalent in the community that he created Homeboy Industries, which focuses on gang intervention and rehab through an eighteen-month employment and reentry program. Boyle’s ministry has served more than 7,800 gang members in the past thirty years and has locations throughout the United States and abroad in twenty countries, including Guatemala, Scotland, and Tunisia.
CHALLENGE
	Serve Others Faith in Action CHALLENGE: Christ is sending you on a mission to serve others when someone asks you for help. Even if it’s not convenient, lend a hand. A unique challenge by Mary Pezzulo, a columnist with Patheos, to perform one of the Corporal Works of Mercy.
SAINT SPOTLIGHT
	St. Teresa of Calcutta St. Teresa of Calcutta searched for Jesus everywhere, especially among the poorest of the poor. When she gave food or drink to someone, or if she cleaned their wounds, she knew she was actually helping Jesus. She was consumed by the Love that is God.