Father John Gordon talks about evangelization and being ‘on fire for the Lord’
For nearly 38 years, Father John Gordon has served the people of the Archdiocese of Newark in a wide variety of ministerial roles, including his current position as Secretary for Evangelization. Though he will retire on July 1, he said that he will continue working at his principal job, which is to “help people get closer to Jesus.”
Prior to his work for the Office of Evangelization, Father John served as a parochial vicar at several parishes, a high school chaplain, and Director of the Pre-Theologate program at the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Steubenville, Ohio. He was also Associate Coordinator and later Coordinator of the archdiocese’s Multi-Cultural Office, served as Dean of the Essex North region, a member of the Presbyteral Council, and as a board member and advisor to several ecclesial movements.
Father Gordon’s calling to serve God came suddenly and unexpected, he told Jersey Catholic.
While living in New York as a young man, John Gordon had a powerful experience of the presence of the Holy Spirit, a grace that members of the charismatic renewal movement call “baptism in the Holy Spirit.”
“That really set me on a path of wanting to do something with my life, more than just saying, Thank you, God,” Father Gordon said. He began to seriously consider the priesthood, “but I had a couple of things that had to get clarified.”
During his period of discernment, he moved to New Jersey and joined the Catholic charismatic community People of Hope. There he found vocational clarity and eventually entered the seminary. He was ordained in 1988.
On fire for the Lord
Father Gordon said an awareness of the need for evangelization has always been part of his “DNA” as a priest. When the rector of the college seminary asked him what his goals as a priest would be, he answered that he wanted to “bring people to a worship encounter with Christ.”
“It’s always been my desire to help people come to know the Lord,” he said.
Father Gordon joined the Office of Evangelization in 2015 and was named Secretary for Evangelization in April 2021. He has also served the archdiocese as Acting Vicar for Pastoral Life.
What does the word evangelization mean to him?
“I think it means to be so on fire for the Lord so that others are very attracted to Him as well,” Father Gordon said. “That is the approach I have tried to model and promote in this office.”
He clarified the point with a question of his own: “How do we make our faith environments so compelling that they seem attractive and worthwhile to others?”
“When that happens, it begins to affect all the other environments that I’m in,” he explained.
Father Gordon said that evangelization could start with something as simple as responding to a co-worker who asks about your weekend by sharing a positive experience you had at Sunday Mass.
“People say, ‘Oh, Father, I can’t talk about religion,’” Father Gordon said. “But I answer, ‘No, no, you’re talking about your weekend!’”
He shared that he was particularly proud of the Office of Evangelization’s collaboration with other departments serving the archdiocese, including with the Office for Lifelong Faith Formation, the Family Life Office, and the Respect Life Office.
“We’ve really tried to foster a mindset that evangelization is everyone’s job” he said. “It’s the same with vocations. People shouldn’t be thinking, Oh, the vocation director will take care of that.”
“Instead, we need to have a culture of vocations and a culture of evangelization.”
Bringing people to know Jesus
Father Gordon said that in some ways the impact of Covid is still being felt, especially “a kind of isolation and fear” that the pandemic left in its wake.
Still, Father Gordon is hopeful about the future, pointing out that the new pope, Leo XIV, is “a true son of Augustine in his approach and his perspective.”
“He’s constantly making reference to Jesus,” he added, “and he’s kind of reminding us that the primary role of the Church is to bring people to know Jesus and experience salvation. All the good things we do and care about — because we care about the totality of the human person — springs from that.”
“I love his recent encyclical Magnifica Humanitas,” Father Gordon said. “I think the most important part of it, from my perspective, is the various ways he tries to address the very nature of what it means to be a human person. Given that, we can then look at, for example, what is positive or negative about AI or any other tool.”
“I think that is a really great place for us to be. If you exist, you have dignity and value, and our identity as persons is made all the more vivid and alive because of what Christ has done for us,” he said.
A rock steady witness
According to Jennifer Behnke, Associate Director of the Office for Evangelization, Father Gordon lives out the gospel values that he preaches.
“I have had the true pleasure of working alongside Father John Gordon for the past four and a half years,” she said. “Throughout our partnership, he has helped me grow personally and professionally, but above all spiritually.”
She added that Father Gordon’s presence has provided “a rock steady witness” of loving Christ and finding one’s identity in Him, as well as of “living out daily life in divine relationship to the best of one’s ability.”
“His zeal for truth and immense joy in proclaiming it, his intentional celebration of Mass, and his deep and intimate communion with the Lord decry a living faithfulness, a deep trust and a genuine willingness to leave everything in the capable hands of God,” she said. “Father John’s faith is one that we should all aspire to, one which invites and brings Christ’s presence so tangibly into the lives of everyone who has the pleasure of witnessing it.”
Very blessed
Of his future, Father Gordon said that his desire “is to serve the Lord” without having to worry about administrative responsibilities. “Retreats, conferences, spiritual direction, pilgrimages, parish missions… I’m looking forward to doing that and more, all the things that help people get closer to Jesus.”
It is his priestly vocation he most cherishes, Father Gordon said.
“I’ve been a priest for almost 38 years,” he said with a smile, “and I cannot imagine any other way of my life going other than being a priest. I love the privileges I’ve had to be a priest and serve in such a variety of ministries, and to come to know the people I’ve come to know. By doing all this, I’ve come closer to the Lord and come to know Him more and more.”
“I love my life,” Father Gordon concludes. “I’m a very blessed man, a very blessed man.”
Featured image: Father John Gordon, the Archdiocese of Newark’s Secretary for Evangelization, will retire on July 1. (Photo by John Touhey / Archdiocese of Newark)
