Man With March Mission: Calling Catholics Back

From Catholic Online.

FITCHBURG, Mass. (The Catholic Free Press) - Joseph Brisebois is a man with a mission. He wants to bring people back to church.

There are plenty of Catholics in Fitchburg, he said to The Catholic Free Press, official newspaper of the Diocese of Worcester, Mass. But many of them aren’t coming to Mass.

So Brisebois organized “March with Christ,” a six-week Lenten series at Immaculate Conception Parish that will emphasize the basic, unchanging truths of our Catholic faith.

“This is to bring us back to tradition,” said Brisebois, adding that many Catholics have forgotten what they learned as children.

Pious practices, such as saying a family rosary, have gone by the wayside. So have nightly prayers and saying grace before meals. And many Catholics no longer go to confession.

“People say, ‘I learned this stuff as a kid, but I don’t remember it,’” Brisebois stated. “There isn’t enough continuing Catholic education for adults. Nurses and teachers all have to be recertified and they have to do continuing education. Why shouldn’t we?”

The title of the series, “March with Christ,” is a play on the month it will run. Visiting priests and seminarians will speak about Catholicism on five consecutive Thursday evenings at 7 p.m., beginning March 2. The sixth segment is part of an annual three-day Lenten mission shared with two other parishes in their cluster; St. Francis of Assisi and St Anthony di Padua.

Brisebois, a burly 41-year-old father of four, is the son of the late Deacon Roland R. Brisebois. Joseph freely admits he was once a lapsed Catholic, frequently skipping Mass, sometimes for extended periods.

Now a daily communicant, he experienced a sense of peace upon returning to the faith. “I know that when I came back to Immaculate Conception it was like finding that comfortable sweater in the back of the closet, but I realized the buttons were missing, and the buttons were the empty pews,” he recalled.

In fact, he was struck by the low attendance. “I thought, somebody’s got to do something about those numbers,” he said, adding that the call to respond came during last year’s Diocesan Eucharistic Congress at the Worcester DCU Center.

Brisebois was inspired by a talk titled “Why St. Dominic Wept: The Holiness of the Mass” by Dominican Father Peter M. Girard. During Father Girard’s talk, Brisbebois realized he needed to evangelize. “It wasn’t until then that I decided I wanted to get more involved. It was funny, but that little voice in my head said, ‘What are you going to do?’”

Also, around the same time, Brisebois noticed his 15-year-old daughter, Danielle, questioning her faith. She still believed in Christ and in the teachings of his Church. But she wondered why she didn’t see more Catholics her age.

So Brisebois and his wife, Elizabeth, took their daughter to St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal, to show her there were still many devout Catholics.

I decided at that time that I wasn’t doing enough,“ he said. “I needed to do whatever I could to show her that Catholicism is alive, but we needed to do something to revitalize the faith in this area.”

One final factor propelled Brisebois into action: It was the thought that his beloved parish, which he attended as a child and where his Dad once served, could possibly close because so many Catholics had stopped practicing.

So he approached his pastor, Father Thien X. Nguyen, about organizing “March with Christ.” Father then formed a Lenten Program Committee to coordinate the event. Brisebois is the chairman.

We formed this committee to discuss ways to bring Catholics throughout the city back to church, according to Father Nguyen.

“The first year I came to Immaculate, I established rosary, Mass and benediction,” he said, referring to the Wednesday and Friday night devotions in his chapel. “Now we are focused on reaching out to those who abandoned the church, and who need to come back to the church.”

The committee invited visiting priests to Immaculate because it’s Lent, and “March with Christ” is an expanded version of the typical Lenten mission.

One of the featured speakers is Father Girard from the Monastery of the Mother of God in West Springfield, the same priest who spoke at the diocesan Eucharistic Congress. He will once again speak on St.Dominic and the Mass. Another Dominican, Father John Paul Walker, will talk about forgiveness and the necessity of confession.

Priests and seminarians from the Legionnaires of Christ will preach on traditional Catholic topics, which include: “The Last Four Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell;” “True Devotion to Mary - Shortcut to Jesus” and “Why We Need to be Catholic for Salvation.”

Brisebois sees the “March with Christ” series as an inspiring adult education course. He hopes it provides an impetus for a local restoration of Catholicism.

The series will be heavily advertised, as Brisebois wants to draw a crowd. He’s blanketing the northern half of the Worcester Diocese with printed fliers. He’s also purchasing newspaper ads in the local Sentinel Enterprise, as well as in the Telegram & Gazette.

In addition, he’s asking regular Massgoers to attend, and to bring a lapsed Catholic with them.

Brisebois is confident “March with Christ” will bring multitudes of Catholics into his stately red brick church, perched on a bluff overlooking the city’s Nashua River. He’s convinced some of them will join his parish, once they realize what they’re missing.

Actually, he expects his series to help parishes throughout the region, as returning Catholics often flock back to their childhood church. “

This is not just for Immaculate Conception,” he stressed. “This is for the entire area.”

“What we’re looking to do with this speaker series is to rekindle Jesus’ flame in the hearts of those people who don’t even realize it’s there anymore,“ he said. “At the end of this series, we hope that by extending an open invitation to everyone that some of our fallen-away Catholics will find that flame again, and come back and help our cause.”


What a great thing Joseph Brisebois is doing! We need more people to step up and (re)educate people about their faith. Please pray for him, the speaker series, and all Catholics who have left the faith.