Fr. Matthew Mary | April 17, 2026
On April 10th, our community celebrated the one-year anniversary of a new evangelizing venture, game streaming. It seems only yesterday when I discussed with Fr. Leonard, our community servant, the possibility of entering the world of game streaming to bring the Gospel message to a whole new arena. While we are not the first religious community to begin this journey, we could see the need for a stronger Catholic presence among the gaming community. There is no territory, whether real or virtual, from which the saving grace of Jesus should be withheld. This venture into game streaming was partially inspired by the example of St. John Bosco, who recognized the value of recreation as a means of communicating the love of Christ and the truths of Church doctrine to the poor boys to whom he ministered. He would even learn magic tricks and walk a tight rope so that he might relate with the boys more effectively and show them the love of Christ.
As a lifelong gamer myself, I was excited to begin this new venture of sharing two of my greatest passions with others: my love for video games and, more importantly, my love for Jesus Christ and his Church. For some, it may seem odd that a Franciscan friar would be engaged in an activity like playing video games. Indeed, there is no precedent in history for such a unique pairing. Yet, my experience from this past year has only solidified my conviction that getting involved in game streaming was an inspiration from the Holy Spirit. In only one year, our community has expanded its reach from one platform, Twitch, to also include our YouTube audience. We have also garnered nearly 250 new followers on Twitch, some of which may never have heard anything about Jesus or the Gospel message had we not initiated this venture. I have had the honor of meeting many good people through these platforms and have made some friends along the way.
I believe this is one of the most valuable benefits that has come from game streaming, the formation of a sense of community, of belonging. One of the practices that has become a staple of every stream is to begin and to end with prayer, just as everything in life should be surrounded by prayer. We begin every stream with a prayer to the Holy Spirit as well as an invocation for the intercession of St. Carlo Acutis, who was also a gamer in his own right. The stream then concludes with Night Prayer (Compline) from the Divine Office during which viewers can share their own prayer intentions in the chat. Prayer is an essential way of bringing everyone together in the name of Christ and to form a communion of love among all. We pray together and we pray for one another, thus showing that we are all one Body in Christ and we all share in one another’s burdens, troubles, sorrows, and joys.
Through game streaming, I have also been privileged to meet several people who are not Catholic, including Muslims in various Middle Eastern countries. I have been greatly pleased to see how loving and respectful even our non-Catholic, non-Christian brethren have been and the openness they have shown towards learning about Church teaching. There is one Muslim man in particular from the United Arab Emirates, a game streamer himself, who stumbled upon my streams. We have had some of the most delightful discussions with one another about a variety of topics, including our respective religions. He asked some genuine questions about what I believe as a Catholic and he was very respectful the entire time. We (the chat and I) also asked him certain questions about the Muslim faith and he was gracious enough to answer. We were pleasantly surprised to learn how greatly Muslims respect both Jesus and Mary and do not tolerate words that are spoken against them. As we Catholics bonded with this Muslim, I could sense a certain mutual respect and even community forming between us, even if we cannot fully agree on matters of doctrine. This Muslim man could see from the Catholic community that the love of Christ inspires us to show love and respect for all people, even if they do not share our faith. It was a great witness to him of the love of Jesus Christ. There are several other Muslims like this man with whom I have engaged in chat who have been just as respectful. In fact, one of these Muslims has even stayed with us on stream as we prayed together!
I have received numerous messages from viewers who have expressed their gratitude for our streams, in addition to receiving generous donations of new games to stream, controllers, and other accessories to assist in our gaming endeavor. Catholic viewers appreciate having a place to go where we maintain a loving, respectful, caring, and open environment where they can relax, chat with other like-minded people of good will, and enjoy some wholesome gaming content. I am looking forward to seeing where this ministry leads in the future and how we can find innovative ways to share the message of the Gospel with more people around the world!
Please join us for our weekly streams on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday evenings on Twitch or YouTube at 7pm CT / 8pm ET! We would love to have you join in the fun!