"For just as in our individual bodies we have many limbs – and all the limbs do not have the same function, so also we, who are many persons, are One Body in Christ, and each are members of one another." (Romans 12:4-5)
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
Χριστός Ανέστη!
This year’s theme for the 2024 Clergy Laity Congress in San Diego, California is “In Christ We Are One. ” From Sunday, June 30th to Thursday the Fourth of July, we will be exploring our unity in Christ and what that means for our parishes, our Metropolises, and for the Sacred Archdiocese of America.
Saint Paul reminds each of us that it is not only that we are united to our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the Head of the Church; but that we are also united to one another. In fact, the Apostle states that we are “members of one another.” This is a radical way of viewing your fellow Christian, because it means that there is spiritually potent mutual dependence that exists between us – whether we are aware of it or not.
Thus, the Clergy Laity Congress becomes an exercise in perceiving and understanding our interdependency in Christ. We are called not only to “see no stranger,” but in fact our vocation is to behold in one another “bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.” This is how we fully realize the saying of the Lord: “If you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me.” And when we realize that, we also begin to perceive that what we have done unto others, we have done to ourselves.
The care and love we give to others becomes the care and love we give to ourselves. And then we begin to comprehend the meaning of the commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Our national gathering in San Diego, the Clergy Laity Congress of our Archdiocese, will be an opportunity to experience this wondrous love of self and neighbor – and the interconnectedness that is based in God’s redemptive love for us. Discover once more the joy and deep relationships that the Church provides.
May the Good Lord bless you all! Χριστός Ανέστη!
Clergy Laity Congress
San Diego, California
Sunday, June 30th through Thursday, July 4 2024
Register Today! https://www.clergylaity.org/delegates