Aaron and Danielle Hendricks speak at the Parish Mission Apostolate at St. Anthony in Park Falls on Sept. 21-22. The couple presents mission content as part of the diocesan effort to offer evenings of encounter with the Gospel, Christ and the Eucharist. (Catholic Herald photo)
Jenny Snarski
Catholic Herald staff
Four years ago, Fr. Shaji Pazhukkathara, pastor of the Northland Catholic Community, formed a cluster evangelization team after the diocese launched its Maintenance to Mission initiative.
“Since then,” said the pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in Park Falls, Immaculate Conception in Butternut and St. Francis of Assisi in Fifield, “We have been meeting monthly to pray, study the possibilities in our cluster and plan events in our Northwoods Catholic Communities.” They have organized various events, including cluster picnics, movie nights and trivia nights with faith formation students and their families.
After diocesan Director of Evangelization and Missionary Discipleship Chris Hurtubise’s presentation on the Parish Mission Apostolate – the diocese’s two-day mission program designed to spur evangelization – at the 2024 clergy workshop, Fr. Shaji was motivated to bring it to his cluster.
Even though the parish mission took place at St. Anthony’s Church in Park Falls, he made clear it was a cluster-wide event: “The entire team has been praying and working on this event for more than six months. We created a prayer in preparation for the Parish Mission Apostolate, and the whole cluster has been praying for this event for a month and a half.”
Hurtubise shared what a gift it was for him to work with the Park Falls cluster team as they prepared for the mission, “but even more importantly as they prepared to walk with people following it.
“They did an awesome job of investing week after week in the process so generously. Since these missions are a hybrid production of the parish and diocese, with the diocese primarily providing coaching and resources, it is bittersweet to be 90 miles away when the big day comes, but that’s the vision: empowering and accompanying local leaders and then letting go.”
Hurtubise led a pilot parish mission last fall in Amery and was himself the speaker, but the Park Falls mission was the first one offered with trained presenters who are not diocesan staff.
The Sept. 21-22 mission began with a meal. Emcee Rick Morgan, one of the mission organizers and a member of St. Anthony Parish, opened the first formal presentation. He expressed the cluster evangelization team’s desire to provide an opportunity to grow in faith and then introduced musicians Kayla and Braedon Hoecherl. The Hoecherls, who work at CrossWoods Adventure Camp in Mason, were accompanied by their 4-week-old daughter.
After praise and worship time, Morgan informed attendees that priests would be available for confession as well as persons trained to offer healing prayer.
Presenters Aaron and Danielle Hendricks are members at St. Joseph Parish in Rice Lake. Aaron is a counselor and Danielle is the CEO of Rice Lake’s Pregnancy Help Center and a digital creator. They have four children.
Over the two-night mission, the Hendricks presented content from Bishop James Powers’ 2023 Pastoral Letter on Evangelization. The “Encounter” material is based off of the work of Fr. John Riccardo, a priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit and director of Acts XXIX Ministries and breaks down the Gospel message into four stages: Created, Captured, Rescued and Response.
The Hendricks interwove their own testimonies and vivid imaginative descriptions to help listeners visualize and internalize the message.
Aaron shared his struggle with alcohol and depression in his college and young adult years. A breakthrough moment came while he was in Montana working as a wilderness fire fighter. “One day in the pit of the emptiness, I walked up a mountain, broken and empty.” As the sun was beginning to set in the river valley with the backdrop of green pines and the blue river, “It was like God standing before me.” He explained how he had studied science in college and knew all the “whys” behind creation, but asked himself in that setting, what made any of it beautiful?
The couple reflected on the desire for meaning that knowledge leaves us with, these human questions that are the food of philosophers but that intrigue us all.
Danielle spoke about the imagination and its role in helping us understand things, how images transmit in a way that talking and preaching can’t. She delved into a description of the action of Satan and the reality of sin.
“If we can’t accept how bad the bad news is, we can’t experience how good the good news is,” she said. “The idea needs to be understood … because when are in sin, we are cut off from God, that is our reality,” but she added that the devil has convinced us this is not only the reality, but we are destined to stay there.
She shared the impact of losing her father at age 9 and how God redeemed her sense of being his daughter through the gift of a priest while she was in college.
They spoke about the story that God wants to write for us each one of us.
“The one purpose of our creation is to know him and fall in love with him,” Aaron shared.
He discussed his diagnosis at 26 of being bipolar and the cross he carries to this day. He made clear that while God didn’t save him from that suffering, he has fully entered into it with him and God’s love and grace give him the daily strength needed.
The second night, the themes of being rescued by Christ and then of personal response were presented. Both evenings ended with a time of Eucharistic adoration, confession and prayer ministry.
St. Francis parishioner Mike Wade, one of six members of the cluster evangelization team, served as a greeter during the mission and spoke with a number of participants.
“Many commented on the praise and worship portion,” he said. “One man told me he did not know the songs but sang anyway ‘because they were just so darn uplifting.’” He added that one woman noted how the music was a “refreshing and joyful break from all the sadness in the world.”
A Park Falls couple that previously lived in Australia said they had similar events when they lived there, and they hope the cluster will plan something like this again, as they “love to experience the Lord in this way.”
After the last night, another woman, with tears in her eyes, approached Wade and his wife saying the program had been “wonderful” and her heart was “filled with love and joy.”
Wade’s overall feeling is that programs like these “are needed to provide people in communities a sanctuary, a place where they can come to learn about the faith and experience the joy and love God offers. They almost all point to a world in crisis and a need to feel God’s presence in our lives.”
In the days following the mission, Fr. Shaji could already see fruits. While the two-night event “provided an excellent opportunity for our cluster to pray and discern discipleship,” he was grateful for the several people who committed to volunteer and be trained as Extraordinary Ministers of Communion. He hopes to see continued benefits through the Alpha program the cluster is offering to explore basics of the Christian faith.
Morgan, the emcee, was pleased with the turnout for the mission as well as the support each parish provided.
“Certainly, we will not know the full outcome of our efforts until we run our first Alpha event, but the central goal of our mission was to invigorate the sense of purpose in our parish and to provide a lasting connection to the greater community,” he commented.
Morgan said a decision had been made several months ago to begin running a faith-based support group for the community.
“Alpha seemed to be the best at providing a positive and passive program that allows individuals who are looking for more answers to their questions about faith to feel comfortable and free in doing do,” he observed. “The mission provided a beautiful way to inspire many in our parish community to leave the second night asking for more. Alpha will be that something more, and I look forward to helping provide this and trust that many will want to be part of this journey as well.”
Hurtubise said, “While the mission itself was important, the really important part of all of this starts now: entering more deeply into the life of discipleship that we commit to at those mountaintop moments the beautiful encounter provides.” He assured the cluster of his prayer during, and especially after, the event. “From what I’ve heard,” he added, “Aaron and Danielle Hendricks knocked it out of the park. They are such a gift.”
He also said his office is currently in talks with half a dozen other parishes about doing their own cluster missions this year. “I am always happy to meet with parish leaders to see if the time is right. I hope clusters will continue to reach out,” Hurtubise concluded.
