In Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila’s Lenten pastoral note, It’s All in the Surrender, he wrote the following about the notion of surrender: “Every real relationship, if it is to grow, requires surrender, the gift of self. To love another person requires that we turn away from seeking only our own good, and, flowing from the total gift of self we have first offered to God, we sacrifice ourselves for their flourishing. Surrender is at the core of our Catholic faith, and it is God himself who has led the way and ‘gone first.'”
In this spirit, as the Archdiocese of Denver approaches the Archdiocesan Discernment Event next weekend, March 25-27, Archbishop Aquila is inviting the Church of northern Colorado to pray the Surrender Novena over the nine days leading up to the gathering.
The novena starts on March 17 and can be found here. Your parish should also have novena cards available to use.
“This novena is a chance for all of us to surrender anew to Jesus,” Archbishop Aquila wrote in his pastoral note. “It is a chance to put him first in our lives, and the more we surrender to him, the more our love will grow for him, the Father and the Holy Spirit. I believe that the spiritual action of our entire archdiocese opening ourselves to the will of the Father will clear the way for incredible fruit to be borne in the Archdiocesan Discernment Event itself and as we move forward from that occasion.”
The discernment event will gather hundreds of local laypeople, clergy, Church leaders, apostolate leaders and more to collectively listen to the Holy Spirit and discern how the Lord is asking the Archdiocese of Denver to carry out our mission as the Church and all that entails in this “new apostolic age” the archbishop has spoken of so frequently over this past year.
To learn more about the Synod process here in the Archdiocese of Denver, visit synod.archden.org.
