After developing a hip problem at work, Griselda Matehuala found herself homebound and unable to walk for three months.
While it was difficult, she said the experience changed her life for the better.
“I started to grow closer to God,” she said. “My faith started growing through that experience and that’s how I started this journey.”
Her journey has led her to active ministry at St. Rita Church in Okolona, where she is a lector, leads Bible study, provides retreats, engages the youth and visits the sick and homebound.
It’s also led her to hone her leadership skills in a program called “Leading Like Jesus” offered by the Office of Hispanic Ministry. It’s being piloted in three parishes — St. Rita, St. Joseph and Annunciation.
Matehuala shared her story during a meeting of the program at St. Rita March 16 with the help of an interpreter. She and other participants said the program is helping them develop the leadership qualities demonstrated by Christ.
“He gave himself to all,” said Matehuala. “He didn’t think so much for himself but for the neighbor. That is a huge lesson.”
Eva Gonzalez, the director of Hispanic Ministry for the Archdiocese of Louisville and who helped interpret, said “Leading Like Jesus” differs from most Catholic leadership programs.
“Usually in leadership programs, you gain some learning on sacraments, sacred Scripture, morality. This is totally based on becoming a leader. You analyze yourself and the skills the leader needs to have, what you need to teach others.”
Participants use Scripture and papal documents as background for discussion and reflection. The documents they are studying include “Fratelli Tutti,” “Evangelium Gaudium” and “Laudato Si’.”
The lesson begins with the idea, “You are called,” Gonzalez explained.
“To be a leader is to go beyond and reach out to the other. To really internalize love for the other,” she said. “Nowadays it is very much needed because we have isolation, depression. We were created not as isolated beings.”
In isolation, she said, you create “your own ideology, your own world and you think you are right in everything. But there’s a truth.”
Participants said they found that approach to leadership humbling.
Alex Huerta, a parishioner of St. Joseph Church in Butchertown, is an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion, works with youth and serves as a catechist with his wife, preparing children for First Holy Communion.
“I feel like we have learned a lot of spirituality and to get rid of egocentricity,” he said. “It is teaching us a way to follow Jesus.”
That sense of humility is a quality Estella Avalos, a parishioner of St. Rita, said she has discovered also.
“The Spirit of God is the one who guides us. Just because you can learn things doesn’t mean you know it all or that you know other people. The Holy Spirit is guiding you.”
For Avalos, who leads a women’s group at St. Rita, that means listening, always.
“To listen is a way to serve the people — to not judge people and to listen to the people,” she said.
While the program emphasizes the importance of serving others, Avalos noted that it also helps church ministers find balance.
“To be a leader like Jesus is not just inside the church. It is with family and friends. It starts in the family,” she said. “If you have a family, you can’t be in church all day; you need to have a presence in your family and do service in your church.”
For more information about “Leading Like Jesus,” contact the Hispanic Ministry Office at 290-4247.
