Bishop encourages parishioners to go beyond believing to discipleship
St. Philip the Apostle Parish is celebrating the recent completion of several campus improvements, plus a new activities and education building and a courtyard. Bishop Michael Martin cut the ribbon and blessed the new facilities during hisvisit to the Statesville parish on Sunday. (Trish Stukbauer, Catholic News Herald)
STATESVILLE — Bishop Michael Martin challenged parishioners of St. Philip the Apostle Parish to live out their calling to be disciples as he blessed new and renovated spaces on their growing campus Sunday.
Bishop Martin was greeted upon his arrival – his first visit to the Statesville parish – by faith formation students holding welcome signs. They presented him with a medallion handcrafted of straw and palm leaves, the traditional gift for a bishop in the Mexican state of Michoacán.
Trailed by a crowd undaunted by the chilly autumn weather, Bishop Martin then made his way around the church property, blessing the parish’s welcome rock, a Jesus statue, a repaved parking lot, the renovated narthex, a parish activities and education building, and the Nancy L. Burns courtyard.
The blessings were followed by a traditional dance. “We chose this dance because we thought it would represent our community very well,” noted Jezy Medina, one of the organizers of the Spanish dance group comprised of faith formation students, parents and parishioners.
After meeting with lay leaders, Bishop Martin celebrated the 10:30 a.m. Mass in an overflowing church. In his homily, he invited parishioners to reflect on Jesus’ question to the blind beggar Bartimaeus in Sunday’s Gospel (Mk 10:46-52).
“In many ways, that’s the winning lottery ticket, isn’t it?” Bishop Martin noted. “When the savior of the world says: ‘What do you want me to do for you?’”
“Bartimaeus just says, ‘I want to see again.’ Can we ask for the same thing? ‘Lord, I just want to see again,’” the bishop continued. “What do we want to see? We want to see lives of faith that invite us to go beyond being just believers to being disciples.”
“A lot of times as believers we talk a good game, but as disciples we are called to believe and then to live the good game,” he said.
“As beautiful as this place is, and it’s beautiful, (and) as wonderful as all these people are, and you are wonderful … right here is not our ultimate purpose. Where is our ultimate purpose? Out there in a world that needs to hear the Good News,” he told the congregation.
St. Philip’s pastor since 2023, Missionary Society of St. Paul Father Bernard Oleru, echoed that sentiment when he likened the parish’s facilities to a pathway to heaven.
“I think God has really been faithful to us,” Father Oleru said. “This building and what we will do here is our contribution to the kingdom of God. That is simply what it is: the Gate of Heaven.”
Dawn McGinn, chair of the parish council and member of the building and planning committee, said the renovations were needed to accommodate the growing faith community.
“We have increased our membership by more than 200 families in the last 18 months to grow our parish to well over 600 families,” McGinn said.
To help accommodate that growth, the new activities and events center is a 8,540-square-foot building with classrooms for meetings and faith formation, parish offices and a gathering space for events and fellowship. The new courtyard connects the center with the church’s social hall, completed in 2019 during the first phase of the parish’s “Forward With Christ” building campaign. In the second phase, the parish raised just over $4 million to cover the construction of the center as well as additional repairs and renovations to the parish campus.
Now moved into the new facilities, the parish has already begun stepping up to answer Bishop Martin’s call, creating more formation activities and increasing outreach by sending multiple truckloads of supplies to the mountains in the wake of Tropical Storm Helene.
And at the church, parishioners like usher Ted Busch are caring for all parts of the campus – both new and old. He carefully polished the aluminum thresholds to make sure they were perfect for the bishop’s arrival and for everyone who will walk through the doors of St. Philip as they seek to becoming disciples of Jesus.
— Trish Stukbauer
