Women’s Ministry Spring Pilgrimage, April 6 in Shelbina

We’ll be talking about the Luminous Mysteries and what they show us about the kind of life Christ is inviting us to live.”

Jill Simons, keynote presenter at the Diocese of Jefferson City’s 2024 Women’s Ministry Spring Pilgrimage

The calling of a Christian is both universal and unique to each individual.

The Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary shed light on that calling through specific moments when Jesus embraced, shared and responded to his own purpose in this life.

“So, we’ll be talking about the Luminous Mysteries and what they show us about the kind of life Christ is inviting us to live,” said Jill Simons, keynote presenter at the Diocese of Jefferson City’s 2024 Women’s Ministry Spring Pilgrimage.

The event will be held on Saturday, April 6, 2024, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in St. Mary Church, 309 E. Chestnut St. in Shelbina.

The theme will be “Light Our Path.”

All women of the diocese are invited to attend.

Registration will be from 9 to 9:45 a.m. in the St. Mary parish center.

Talks, activities and discussions will focus on each of the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary, which Pope St. John Paul II encouraged Catholics to pray and meditate on, especially on Thursdays.

Lunch will be served between morning and afternoon sessions.

Mrs. Simons is executive director of Many Parts Ministries (manypartsministries.com), which helps Catholics around the world discover their unique calling from God, based on the gifts and talents he has given each of them.

The Luminous Mysteries include important moments in the life of Jesus in which his identity and mission were made clear: his Baptism in the River Jordan; his changing of water to wine at the Wedding Feast at Cana; his Proclamation of the Kingdom of God and call to conversion; his Transfiguration on Mount Tabor; and the Last Supper.

“Throughout Lent, we’re focused on the cross and the resurrection, as we should be, because it’s so vital, so instrumental to the Christian life,” Mrs. Simons noted.

“But, I think a big part that often gets sidestepped is how Christ’s life on earth shows us the kind of life that we are to live, here and now,” she said.

By their fruits

Mrs. Simons’s presentations will be on Jesus’s Baptism and his Proclamation of the Kingdom.

“When we look at what happened at the Baptism of Christ, that’s the same thing that happened at our own Baptism!” she stated.

“Understanding that lays the foundation for the Christian life and allows you to flourish from a really stable, safe sense of your relationship with God,” she said.

That understanding, in turn, sheds light on what each person who’s been baptized is called to do, and what the active parts of the Christian life look like.

Jesus’s Proclamation of the Kingdom of God gives clear guidance about Christianity in action, said Mrs. Simons.

She’ll speak of these things in the context of the Fruits of the Holy Spirit, and each person’s unique charism.

St. Paul lists the Fruits of the Holy Spirit in his Letter to the Galatians (5:22-23) — “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness (and) self-control.”

“Most of us at least at some point in our lives could name the Fruits of the Holy Spirit, because they were taught to us,” said Mrs. Simons.

“But I recognize a sizable gap in most people’s actual experience of the Fruits of the Holy Spirit in their own lives,” she said.

That deficit often comes from a lack of understanding of where each person’s identity really comes from.

“We can close that gap,” said Mrs. Simons, “when we invite Jesus to minister to us, bringing us from where we are to where he wants us to be, and when we truly experience the Fruits of the Holy Spirit, regardless of our circumstances, and recognize what he’s actually pouring out on us.”

She said these are foundational but often-underdiscussed aspects of the faith life that many people reach adulthood without ever reflecting on.

“So, a lot of these things will be new to people who come to the pilgrimage,” she stated.

Never alone

The day’s activities will be shared in fellowship with other Catholic women who face similar challenges in their journeys of faith.

That in itself, said Mrs. Simons, is a good reason to attend the Spring Pilgrimage.

“I think one of the largest epidemics of our modern world is loneliness,” she said. “And the devil really loves to push hard on the lie that you are the only person who has ever had the struggles and fears and frustrations that you have.”

That, Mrs. Simons asserted, can’t be farther from the truth.

“We begin to understand that when we come together and see how the truth resonates with our sisters around us,” she said.

“We begin to realize that we really aren’t alone and that God sees us, and we are walking the path that thousands have walked before us,” she stated.

“It brings hope when we recognize that we’re going to have these struggles and questions, but there is always a way forward,” she said.

Seeing the light

As executive director of Many Parts Ministries, Mrs. Simons creates resources for Catholics all over the world “to help them understand their destiny, discern their charism and grow in their intimacy with God.”

In her talk, she’ll talk about how the Holy Spirit drew her from being “a Type A, very performance-focused young woman,” to recognizing that God alone can provide everything she needs, completely independent of her own accomplishments or other people’s approval.

She became personally invested in charisms and each person’s unique calling from God.

“I fell in love with charisms as a young person when I recognized them as such beautiful, concrete information from the Holy Spirit about the kind of saint I was called to be,” she said.

Within a short time, she went from helping friends discern their charisms, to doing the same with small groups, to addressing entire parishes — “and now, we are working with Catholics all over the world,” she said.

In anticipation of the Spring Pilgrimage, Mrs. Simons suggested reflecting on the Scripture passages on which the Luminous Mysteries are based (vatican.va/special/rosary/documents/misteri_luminosi_en.html), and possibly meditating on each through the mindset of an actual participant in those moments in Jesus’s life.

“Maybe also spend some time in prayer, hopefully Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament, reflecting on if there are any lies about themselves that they would like to break through,” she advised.

For more information about the Spring Pilgrimage or to register online, visit diojeffcity.org/springpilgrimage.