Sitting in his office at the St. John Center, faith formation director Jeff Hines asked a simple question.
“Now that the Eucharistic Revival is over, what should I do next?”
The answer can launch faithful Catholics to the start of something new.
“Share the good news of Jesus with others!”
Hines had a “eureka” moment that proved to be the conception of a new podcast to help evangelize others.
“Many of us want to share the good news of Jesus, but we do not know how to do it,” he said. “We are launching a small-group study called ‘Apostolic Zeal, the Passion for Evangelization.’ Pope Francis has written 30 lessons on the passion for evangelization. In these lessons, he tells us how to evangelize. The word ‘evangelize’ means to proclaim good news.
“The good news is that Jesus loves you, that he gave his life for you and that he walks beside you every day to guide, strengthen and free you. Do you know how to share this good news with those around you without scaring them off? Pope Francis tells us how to do it in these lessons.”
Hines said the lessons were originally presented by Pope Francis in 2023 in Italian, but thanks to the hard work of the Faith Formation Office, those lessons have been recorded in English and Spanish and made available for small study groups to hear and discuss.
The study and recordings can be accessed in English at learn.dolr.org/courses/AZ/ and in Spanish at learn.dolr.org/courses/CA/. The podcast can also be listened to on YouTube at https://bit.ly/apostoliczeal-english in English and https://bit.ly/apostoliczeal-Spanish in Spanish.
“We offer this for all parishes in the Diocese of Little Rock to use in small group studies, as training on how to evangelize those around you,” Hines said.
Each recording is approximately 10 minutes.
“You can listen to the lesson, then discuss it with your small group, a group of friends or your spouse,” Hines said. “Use these lessons to spark a conversation on how to share the good news of Jesus with others.”
To facilitate small group discussion, listeners can also download the text of the lessons and discussion questions on the site in English and Spanish.
“The target audience is everyone who wants to learn from Pope Francis how to share Jesus with others,” Hines said. “All of us who attend Mass every week are encountering Christ. The next step is to go and encounter others to bring them the hope of knowing Jesus.”
The Vatican Dicastery for Communication approved the recording of Pope Francis’ Wednesday audience lessons on Apostolic Zeal.
To gauge the success of the podcast as a study tool, Hines enlisted several Catholics to take part in a trial study group.
Alma Fuentes, director of faith formation at Our Lady of Fatima Church in Benton, said Apostolic Zeal “significantly impacted my faith life.”
“I found it fascinating to know how brave the saints who proclaimed the gospel to the most remote of places have been, facing challenges that have only been achieved with the strength of the Holy Spirit and their decision to persevere,” she said. “In the Apostolic Zeal podcast project, I have contributed with questions to some of the lessons as part of the team. I also collaborated by translating some questions from English to Spanish. This project has helped me to grow as a co-worker in the vineyard of the Lord. I thank Mr. Hines for involving me in this project, which will undoubtedly resonate throughout the Diocese of Little Rock when small groups meet and study this podcast.”
Surennah Werley, director of religious education at Immaculate Conception Church in Fort Smith, was also part of the study group.
“As baptized followers of Jesus, what greater work can we be doing than leading others towards a relationship with Jesus,” she said. “The challenge can be daunting, and we certainly can find ourselves pushed out of our comfort zones. But the joy of witnessing a conversion can be so powerful and such a gift. Hearing the challenge to follow Jesus more closely was actually a great reminder for me to not waste any opportunity to ‘be Christian’ in my daily life.
“To welcome strangers and to love those who are in front of me simply because the are created by God. There is also a desire to invite others into the service of Christ. I experience so much joy when I just love people that I am compelled to do it more. If my love for them inspires them to seek that relationship with Jesus then all I can say is ‘Praise God!’”
Graydon Carter, maintenance and grounds specialist at the St. John Center, reads Pope Francis’ messages in the English podcast recordings. Carter is a parishioner of St. Joseph Church in Conway, where he also lends his voice as a lector and cantor.
To record each lesson, Carter converted his office in the maintenance building into a makeshift recording studio, annotating each script for tone, emphasis and any grammatical corrections before recording.
What initially started as a task that needed to be completed turned into a prayer and meditation opportunity.
“It ended up being a very spirit-filled process,” he said. “When I was first doing it, I would get so frustrated trying to do it all at once. So I changed my approach to it about 10 lessons in, and started doing a lot of prayer beforehand. I’d pray, ‘Come, Holy Spirit,’ knowing that what I’m doing will only be successful as the result of the Holy Spirit’s intercession.”
Soon, Carter was annotating scripts in the chapels across St. John Center’s campus in front of the Blessed Sacrament. When Carter finished the recordings for Apostolic Zeal, he began to record himself reading other things too, such as the Psalms. He has been reading and diving into papal encyclicals as well.
Elizabeth Schaeuffler, an immigration specialist for Catholic Immigration Services in Springdale, is the voice for the Spanish podcast recordings. Schaeuffler is a speaker and Scripture teacher, specializing in bringing the work of prominent Catholic authors in English to Spanish-speaking audiences.
“Listening to the different homilies, they just enforced something I already knew,” she said. “We all need to collaborate in the expansion of the Kingdom of God here on earth and how Jesus constantly calls us to do it. I feel a passion for sharing with others the history of Salvation. The homilies I recorded all had something in common. The witnesses had a deep desire to share the gospel with the people that did not know about Jesus. Those witnesses were faithful to Jesus and try to evangelize no matter the obstacles they found when doing it. They were determined to do it.”
Schaeuffler said in her own life, she works to evangelize and share the Good News. But evangelizing doesn’t come without its challenges.
“I have a group that meets on Sundays, and I also have a What’s App group that receives weekly messages from me. I have to tell you that sometimes I feel disillusioned when I see the lack of interest in the participants, especially after I have taken the time to translate from English to Spanish, record messages on What’s App to send to the group and I notice that said messages have not been listened to but after days of having being received.
“I am committed to doing this and I have to accept the fact that many of them do not feel the passion for the Gospels or the history of Salvation the way I do. I should not blame them and not let it make me want to give up. Listening to the homilies encouraged me to continue doing what I do, because as Jesus said, it will not be easy and I need to keep in mind that what I am doing is for him and his glory, and not mine.”
