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  Love Letters - Leadership

Believe, We Are Empowered By The Holy Spirit

Don & Rita Kainz and Fr. Alex Ortiz

(Excerpted from Summer, 1989 Matrimony Magazine)

Dear Spirit Filled Lovers,

It is Worldwide Marriage Encounter Convention time across the country. A lot of excitement is being generated by the joy to meeting new friends, renewing old friendships, hearing challenging and exciting presentations, praying together, and experiencing the true joy of having fun together! We experienced all of this at Long Island on June 30th-July 2nd. We felt so blessed being a part of the East Coast "love affair"! It was awesome and inspiring to return to the "cradle" of encounter and a weekend that was motivational and inspiring along with having tears of joy and sorrow!

This experience again brought to mind a question for all of us. Why is it such a gift to be with certain people? As we reflected on this question we realized much has to do with the positive and life giving attitude of these people. Napoleon Hill writes in one of his books "We become what we think about"! If we think positive and life giving thoughts, we surely will act them out! The same is certainly true with our negative thoughts and attitudes. We believe this has a lot to do with INVITING. Believing we have a powerful and precious gift to share with others, we are better able to invite couples, priest and religious to our weekends.

So often we believe we are all alone in our efforts. Recently we heard Bishop Valerian D'Souza share that most of us believe Jesus did all He did because He was the Son of God. The bishop went on to say that Jesus received His strength to perform miracles from the Holy Spirit! We as couples, priests, and religious need to look at how this fits into our lives. Like Jesus, are we asking for that empowerment? Can you imagine what would happen to our inviting if we set some high goals and then asked the Holy Spirit to help us carry them out truly believing we are empowered by the Holy Spirit!

We ask you to think seriously about this question. Inviting is up in many areas of the country. We are also aware that many of these areas have made a deep commitment to prayer and sacrifice. There is such a need for strong marriages and families. Our Weekend can be a tool to make that happen!

Dear couples, priests, and religious, we all need to be on a Crusade for God, the Church, and the world. This Crusade is one that the three of us experience deeply in our hearts, with a tremendous sense of urgency for it to envelop each and every one of us. We need to have a great urgency and desire to have every couple; priest and religious experience our Marriage Encounter Weekend as a gift and as a way of opening more doors to relationship and intimacy.

This crusade is not for the fainthearted, sheepish, or the lukewarm. Rather, it requires imagination, creativity, and a willingness to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty for the greater glory and honor of God. It is a mission that calls us to regroup, put our heads together, revise our strategies and techniques while being persistent, stouthearted, steadfast, zealous and fully alive!

Just think as we sleep more and more families become single parent families! While we rest, more and more divorces come of age! In spite of all our efforts, more and more of our youth are led astray! Marriage, Priesthood, and Religious life are under siege. However, our way of living prayerful, dialoguing, self sacrificing and joy filled lives will make others begin to wonder if such a life is possible for them, too.

Dear people of God begin and continue to ask every couple, priest, and religious to make a weekend! Ask every single young man and woman to consider the option of priesthood or religious life! INVITE, INVITE, INVITE, AND NEVER CEASE TO INVITE!! We can change the world! Our Prayers are with you as we journey together in our precious and fragile lifetime!

We love you!

Don & Rita and Fr. Alex

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