AND THEY'LL KNOW WE ARE CATHOLICS BY OUR BLOGS, BY OUR BLOGS, YES THEY'LL KNOW WE ARE CATHOLICS BY OUR BLOGS

“I am ready to die a martyr before getting involved with evangelization.  I don’t want to be one of those guys that people dread seeing on their stoop or avoid passing on the street corner.”

 

I’ve often dreamed (fantasized) of that before; being martyred for the glory of God and stepping out of this life and directly into the heaven.  But put a Bible in my hand and tell me to go knock on some doors?

 

Not so much.

 

But the truth is that evangelization is a collective term for everything that the Church does to bring people closer to Christ.  The act of dying a martyr is in itself an act of evangelization.  A church building (if you can tell that it is a church building) is an act of evangelization.  A rosary on the rear view mirror of your car can be an act of evangelization.

 

“What’s that?”

 

“A rosary.  It helps me remember to pray when I am driving.”

 

“Oh.  Cool.”

 

Saying grace at a restaurant is an act of evangelization even if it seems to done quite inconspicuously.  (Doing it for show is poor form.)  A crucifix hanging in your home, telling people why you will be late (we’ll get there about noon.  We’ve got to get to Mass first) the type of Christmas cards you send, what you write on your blog, even being joyful is an act of evangelization.

 

“Why do you seem to handle things so well?

 

“Truthfully?  My faith helps me keep things in perspective.”

 

When I was in (public) high school the Catholic students were warned not to put their confirmation name on their graduation certificate.  “It might hurt future job prospects” we were told.  That just made me want to do it all the more.

 

Of course I became a priest.

 

The truth is, just about anything you do can be evangelization as long as you are pointing toward Christ.  The first thing to do really is to discover what it is you are already doing that could be considered evangelization.  Most people are surprised that they do so to some extent already.  The next step is to consider the other areas of your life and see if there is anything that could be adjusted in them so that they too could become acts of evangelization.

 

“Tell you what, instead of meeting you at the party do you want to join us for Mass first and then we can go over together?”

 

Then, after you are comfortable with that, in prayer, start asking God what could you do that would be a more bold step.

BUDDY - YOU GOT A LIGHT?

Here is a brilliant idea for advertising:  Matchbook covers.  Print your information on a matchbook and every time a person needs a light they will get out the matchbook with your information on it and be reminded of your organization.

 

Brilliant.

 

Or at least it was.  Of course people no longer smoke like they used to.  Those who do tend to use lighters.  And if you need matches for the grill, chances are you bought a box of them at the hardware store.

 

Not so brilliant anymore.  Your information didn’t change – your audience did.

 

That is part of the reason for the New Evangelization.  We can’t just keep doing what we did a century ago and expect it to work.  The audience has changed.

 

It is the same thing with our schools.  We can no longer just open our doors and expect the place to fill up.  There is a new audience out there.  Not the least new thing about them is that now they have to shell out somewhere around $3,000 when Catholic grade school education used to be free.  So why should a parent send his kid to Catholic school and how do I get that message out to him?

 

So it is with the faith.  The content is exactly the same as it was a century ago, or five centuries ago, or 20 centuries ago (at least in the Catholic Church.)  But how it is packaged for the Smiths next door in 2014 must be different than how it was presented to the smithy in 1542.

 

As one commentator put it, though we lose an incredible amount of Catholics in the U.S. every year, we have the highest retention rate into adulthood of those who are practicing than any other denomination.  The problem is not service - it’s sales.  We seem to do well statistically once they are in the door.  The problem is getting them in the door in the first place.

 

Every Catholic is, in a sense, a salesperson for Christ.  Every Catholic is a minister in the New Evangelization. 

 

Make God’s investment in you pay off for others.  Join in the New Evagelization.

 

For those whom might be interested, the topic tonight (Thursday) for Faith Lodge is “The New Evangelization.”  7:00PM in Forest Lodge at St. Sebastian.  Free and open to the public.

IF YOU CAN PROMOTE YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE, YOU CAN DO THIS

Perhaps one of the best things about the new evangelization is that those things you hate most about the concept is probably the wrong thing to do anyway.  One story that I told this past weekend at Mass (so if you were at that Mass you may skip this paragraph) was about my mother and I taking the bus when I was a young ‘un from our small city to the big downtown in Akron to do some going-back-to-school shopping.  A guy gets on the bus at some point and turns to the person in the most forward bench and says, “Are you saved?  Unless you are saved you are going to hell!”  I like to think he was sincere and that he was hoping to save souls and it took a lot of courage but it was a miserable failure.  He turned everyone off on the bus.  By the time he was half way back people would just put up their hands and refuse to talk to him.

 

That is NOT an example of the new evangelization.

 

The new evangelization is first and foremost about one on one relationships.  We can use a similar conundrum for an example.  Living in a city you come across people begging for money.  People often throw money at them because they feel guilty.  The beggars often stand at highway exit ramps or busy corners so just about all the time you have is to stick your hand out the window with some money in it and hear a thank you before the light turns green and the guy behind you honks the horn.  The flip side to the guilt is wondering if the person is really being helped by the donation.  That is what I like so much about organizations such as the St. Vincent de Paul Society, or Catholic Charities, or Catholic Relief Services (and subsequently where I put money.)  They do not just throw money at a problem.  The go out and meet people, get to know them, asses their need, assist where they can, and give guidance on how not to end up in the same place.

 

The evangelizer on the bus was akin to throwing money at beggars.  The new evangelization, on the other hand, is about getting to know people, listening to them, and discerning their need.  It is about inviting, not commanding.  It is about telling your story and not telling others what their story should be.  It is about patience and trusting in the Holy Spirit.  It is about being a joyful person which makes you attractive and points others toward your faith.  It is about prayer.  It is about not expecting someone to be as deeply on board as you are right away and supporting them on their journey.  It is about supporting and encouraging.  It is about being natural about your faith.  It is about being comfortable saying, “I can tell you what works for me.”

 

Yes, this is very vague.  But it has to be.

 

Maybe one more example might help.  My Dad was an avowed not-a-God person who lost his faith, near as I can tell, during WWII.  He invested heavily in life, believed in the human spirit, the power of his own body, and living life to the fullest.  It kept him distracted more than gave him joy but saw him through over 80 years of his life.  Then he ended up in the nursing home unable to tend much to himself.  Everything he counted on in life was failing him.  He would say to me, “Help me.”  Most of the time all I could answer was, “All I got is prayer Dad.”

 

He wasn’t exactly an atheist, but when I said that I was going to become a priest he said, “Religion is for weak people, but at least you will be a leader among weak people.”  So as you can imagine, religion was not a popular topic between us.

 

So one day, frustrated with his failing body, the loss of deceased relatives and friends, depression over the great void he imagined coming, he said to me again, “Help me.”  With no real hope I mechanically said, “Dad, all I got is prayer,” to which he responded finally, “Fine!”

 

With that he died reconciled with God.  There were no arguments. No talk about what he should be doing to get ready to die.  The theological debates.  No pointing out his predicament.  No moralizing or Bible thumping.  (And don’t get me wrong – there is a time and place for such things.  When your 12 year old says he doesn’t want to go to Mass, you do the same thing you do when he says he doesn’t want to go to school.)  It was a relationship (no matter how stressed at times), invitation, acceptance, joy, sincerity, hope, prayer, persistence, and gentleness. 

CATHOLIC NEWS YEAR IN REVIEW II

The second of four topics in John Allen’s Catholic news year in review is the New Evangelization.  This new effort within the Church will be “the engine that steers the financial train” of the Church making this the most important internal priority in the Church.

 

Statistics are a funny thing.  It is said that 67.2% of all statistics are made up on the spot (that is a joke) and that you can make statistics mean just about anything.  But if we only look at the number of new adherents, Christianity is the fastest growing religion in the world.  Interesting, but the happy news is not great for the western Catholic world.  Catholicism continues to be the largest single religious group in the United States with Baptists coming in a distant second.  (Protestantism as a whole is larger than the Catholic Church, but they are splintered into thousands of denominations.)  However, larger than even the Baptists are those who consider themselves former Catholics.  Though 68% of those baptized Catholic as infants remain Catholic into adulthood, that leaves 32% that “leave” and we are not doing a good job of retaining or replacing them.

 

Part of the reason is we have become so terribly polite.  “I’m Okay, your Okay, let’s not talk about religion” has become the political fashion.  While it may allay fist fights, it does nothing for evangelization and the furthering of the faith.  Hand in hand with yesterday’s post, we are to stop focusing on issues that are not on the Catholic playing field and get cracking on real matters of faith and truth that enliven peoples’ hearts.  The fire of evangelization has grown cold.  It is time to wake from our slumber, shake of the cloudiness of confusing issues, and carry forth the banner in the clear light of the sun – to banish complacency and apathy – and to relight the missionary fire to warm those around us in our everyday lives.