Bishop discusses grace, principles at Good Friday breakfast service

Bishop discusses grace, principles at Good Friday breakfast service

By LINDA M. LINONIS

Vindicator Staff Writer

Michael Shaffer, Youngstown YMCA central branch director, told a sellout crowd of 500 at the annual Good Friday breakfast service that “lots of things happen here.”

Before the gym was set up with tables for the event, he said that kids were playing basketball.

He emphasized that the “C” in YMCA is about being Christian in all activities.

That led into the invocation offered by Carl Bogan, a member of the Spiritual Life Committee, who told the crowd to think of how the gym had been transformed into a church. The Good Friday event has been a tradition for nearly 40 years.

Shaffer introduced the keynote speaker, Bishop George V. Murry of the Catholic Diocese of Youngstown, with these words: “He’s the right man at the right time.”

“He gets it ... the challenges and strengths of this community,” Shaffer said of the fifth bishop of the Youngstown diocese.

Bishop Murry’s topic was “The Cost of Discipleship Today.”

“Good Friday is a time to reflect on the sacrifice that Jesus made for us ... he died so that we might live,” he said. He mentioned Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Christian pastor and theologian who was executed April 9, 1945, for resisting Germany’s Nazi regime. The bishop noted his sacrifice as an example of what faith sometimes costs.

Bishop Murry led into his topic by talking about “cheap and expensive grace.” “Cheap grace is grace without prayer, grace without cost,” he said. “It is grace without the cross, grace without discipleship.”

“Costly grace is the call to follow ... what Jesus asks of us,” Bishop Murry said. “It puts the Christian in the arena to battle sin and evil.”

Bishop Murry posed the question about the cost of discipleship in the 21st century. He said that in centuries past, the cost of being a disciple of Jesus took more of a personal toll. “Their lives were in danger and many gave their lives,” he said, pointing out missionaries in Africa and India as examples.

The bishop said the cost for disciples in Youngstown is “the threat of loss of respectability.”

“Faith requires us to carry what we believe into the marketplace,” he said, and that might put believers at odds with those who do not believe.

Bishop Murry said all Christians are challenged to live up to the ideals of faith: “Jesus calls on us to be disciples of his message and transform the world.”

Bishop Murry offered three examples of “standing tall” as disciples of Jesus and facing the chance of being disregarded in society.

First, make a commitment to protect all human life — from conception to natural death.

On the issue of capital punishment, Bishop Murry said, “Human life is disregarded because of the actions of men and women. Some are on death row, and some even may be innocent,” he said. The bishop acknowledged that “heinous crimes” have been committed but asked, “What do we accomplish by taking their lives?

“As disciples of Christ, we stand for the value of human life,” he said, and noted that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said that every life deserves respect.

Second, welcome strangers. “Since the 1980s, there has been a growing anti-immigration element,” he said. Why do they come? the bishop asked his audience. He answered: “Desire for a better life.”

He said that desire motivated some 37 million people from Europe to come to America between 1870 and 1920. Now, the Mexican border is where people are crossing to find a better life. “We need to find a better way to integrate them into society and in agreement with laws of the United States.”

Third, care for the poor. “There are 37 million poor in the United States ... living below the poverty line,” he said.

The bishop said Catholic Charities in the diocese has seen a 40 percent increase of people seeking help with food, clothing, medicine, shelter and rent. “Many of these people never came before because they didn’t need it,” he said. “We can’t ignore the least among us.”

Bishop Murry concluded with, “Pick up the cross and pick up the task God has given us. Jesus gives us the strength to transform our world. Let us be about his work.”

linonis@vindy.com