Speaking to American Hispanic Catholics, Archbishop Gomez of San Antonio issued a call for the raising up of Hispanic Catholic leaders, with an emphasis on the re-evangelization of America (emphasis mine).
…In his address, titled “La predicación y la enseñanza: Evangelization, Education, and the Hispanic Catholic Future,” the archbishop mentioned such problems as a consumerist approach to religion and certain Protestant preachers’ exploitation of the “poverty and insecurity” of Hispanics…
…Archbishop Gomez said the most serious problem Catholic Hispanics face is the “dominant culture” in the United States which is “aggressively, even militantly secularized…”
“Definitely, we need to raise up Hispanic Catholics leaders, and we need a pastoral plan to educate Hispanics in the faith and to nourish them with the sacraments,” Archbishop Gomez said. “But this must be part of a wider evangelical strategy. We need to commit ourselves again to the work of re-evangelization, to preaching the Gospel again to America.”
Noting the rise in high school dropout rates and single-parent families among Hispanics, the archbishop said, “I worry that we may be ministering to a permanent Hispanic underclass.”
Hispanics have some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy, out-of-wedlock births and abortion, he added, saying these cannot be written off as just “conservative” issues.
“[W]e need to find new ways to keep our kids chaste and in school, and to instill in them the value of education,” he advised. “We need to push for real improvements in public education, and in public support for private education, especially in our poorest school districts. And we need to assemble all the resources of our own network of Catholic schools to meet this challenge.”
The archbishop then further underlined the need for evangelization.
“Hispanic ministry should mean only one thing—bringing Hispanic people to the encounter with Jesus Christ in his Church. Too often, I’m afraid, we lose sight of that,” he said, warning that Catholics should not mistake the “means” of programs and bureaucratic administration for this most important end.
“The proclamation of Jesus Christ must be the criteria against which we measure everything we do in Hispanic ministry,” he continued. “Are we making new disciples? Are we strengthening the faith of those who have already been made disciples? Is the knowledge and love of Christ spreading through our work?”
I would love to go back to the time when Catholics were expected to memorize things, you know, like the Ten Commandments, the Seven Deadly Sins, and the Beatitudes. Heck, even memorizing answers to the Baltimore Catechism would be great. As C.S. Lewis once observed somewhere (yes, I am too lazy to look it up), that before you can be creative with the rules you must know the rules. You have to have a foundation of basic stuff before you move onto the more difficult, creative, and dare I say, exciting, material. I memorized all the books of the (Protestant) Bible in second grade, and I still know the books in order because of that exercise (I also got a free Bible with my name on it out of it…slam dunk!).
As a teacher, I am expected to help students explore the deeper realities of theology, and that is, of course, a good thing. However, when a good chunk of my students can’t even tell me very basic things like the four gospels or the seven sacraments, it can be very frustrating. My classrooms are so mixed in terms of religious commitment that I have to be very creative to make sure everybody understands what he or or she needs to understand. I can think of a variety of reasons for this disparity, including the fact that many of my students are not Catholic, but part of it is that over the years memorization has been discouraged (”memorization is too rigid” “memorization stifles creativity,” and so forth). Yet, I am finding that when a decent chunk of the class can’t even begin to engage deeper realities because they don’t even know the basics, it truly creates a frustrating experience for both teacher and student.
So what am I going to do? Next year, I think I am going to ask every grade to create a running list of “terms every Catholic should know” and then have them memorize the meanings. They will then review and be quizzed over this list weekly, for every year I have them. Yeah, by the time you are a senior they may not be able to get the Beatitudes out of their head, but hey, that’s a good thing right? The new students to the school who have no background will learn a lot about basic Catholicism, and the others will be perpetually reviewing the basics of Catholicism. Covering 10-15 terms a week should be doable. I already have over 200 terms ready. This will overlap with a lot of what we are learning, but a lot of the curriculum assumes the basic stuff was memorized/learned before they got to me.
…with her “one woman show” about Saint Catherine of Siena. Sister Nancy Murray, an Adrian Dominican, travels across the country with her show “Saint Catherine of Siena: A Woman for Our Times.” Sister Nancy apparently re-enacts various events of Catherine’s life, including her visit with the pope. Sister plays every part, even down to the Italian accents. Apparently Bill Murray did not get all the talent in the family!
For more information, check out Sister Nancy’s website, which includes photos of her performing as Saint Catherine. For those who visit the website, you may notice that the Adrian Dominicans seem to be a typical aging and declining order of sisters. Let’s hope Sister Nancy’s presentation is a good one, and leads to some renewal in the order itself.
Here is Father Robert Barron’s sermon for the Second Sunday of Lent.
TITLE: The Terrible Aqedah
SUMMARY: The story of the Aqedah, the Binding of Isaac, haunted the Israelite religious imagination. In it is contained one of the most important spiritual lessons in the Bible: everything we are and everything we have belongs, finally, to God. Knowing this is our liberation.
About a month ago I attended the Parish Leadership/Evangelization Day organized by the Archdiocese of Chicago.
The Archbishop of Chicago, Francis Cardinal George, answered a few questions posed by the attendees. Following, are three of his succinct responses to questions dealing with topics such as understanding the Holy Trinity, Liberation Theology, and immigration reform.
Today, the Church honors St. Katharine Drexel (1858-1955).
Here’s a summary of the things God Almighty did –and is still doing– through our sister, Katharine Drexel:
Saint Katharine Drexel, Religious (Feast Day-March 3) Born in 1858, into a prominent Philadelphia family, Katharine became imbued with love for God and neighbor. She took an avid interest in the material and spiritual well-being of black and native Americans. She began by donating money but soon concluded that more was needed – the lacking ingredient was people. Katharine founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People, whose members would work for the betterment of those they were called to serve. From the age of 33 until her death in 1955, she dedicated her life and a fortune of 20 million dollars to this work. In 1894, Mother Drexel took part in opening the first mission school for Indians, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Other schools quickly followed – for Native Americans west of the Mississippi River, and for the blacks in the southern part of the United States. In 1915 she also founded Xavier University in New Orleans. At her death there were more than 500 Sisters teaching in 63 schools throughout the country. Katharine was beatified by Pope John Paul II on November 20, 1988.
For my Topics in the Philosophy of Religion (Philosophy 441) class, we have to write an informal, one page, reaction paper for each of the reading assignments. This week’s reaction paper is written in response to Leo Tolstoy’s What is Religion and of What Does Its Essence Consist?
I wish I could have said more things about Tolstoy’s version of “Christianity”, but I am limited to a one page paper.
For my Topics in the Philosophy of Religion (Philosophy 441) class, we have to write an informal, one page, reaction paper for each of the reading assignments.
Here is my first reaction paper for you to read and critique!
A not-so-ordinary thought for the first day of Ordinary Time 2009: Yes my friends, we truly offer good news:
6. What does God reveal to man?
God in his goodness and wisdom reveals himself. With deeds and words, he reveals himself and his plan of loving goodness which he decreed from all eternity in Christ. According to this plan, all people by the grace of the Holy Spirit are to share in the divine life as adopted “sons” in the only begotten Son of God.
Compendium of the Catechism
To all my fellow Mexicans, and to all my American brothers and sisters, I wish you a blessed Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe! May we learn to imitate her who gave birth to the Most Holy Saviour, Jesus Christ!
This is my favorite song about Our Lady of Guadalupe:
Our Lady of Guadalupe, Queen of Mexico and Empress of the Americas, pray for us.
The other day I wrote a post on detachment, in which I repeated St. Augustine’s teaching on how to love: love God for His own sake, and love others for the sake of God, that they may know and love Him, too.
I’ve benefited so much in my own life from the Church’s teaching on love, self-sacrificing love that takes you so far beyond yourself or your own personal loves. And now I’m experiencing it in a new way: through, of all things, Facebook.
That’s right, Facebook. I decided to join it just recently, so I could network with other Catholics. But soon after I joined I started hearing from friends who had found me there. And then I started hearing from some old friends from my old Evangelical church.
And then, just a few days ago, I started hearing from really old friends, from my pre-Christian days, friends I’ve been out of touch with for years, even some I’d fallen out of touch with over my conversion to Catholicism.
Has it ever brought back memories. And we are all in different places in life, all over the map spiritually, politically, personally. And yet I am so happy to be reunited with them, to be hearing stories of their lives, their children, their parents, and whatever happens to be going on with them in the moment.
And it’s caused me to reflect: why do we love others? When I was younger, to be honest, I tended to love those most who were most like me. When I was young and a new age liberal type, I thought I was very tolerant, very open-minded. But the truth is, I was actually very closed to a lot of different people. When I look back, I see that my circle of friends was actually pretty narrow, comprised mostly of people just like me in belief and outlook.
After I became a Christian, in the Evangelical world, I began to socialize and befriend people that in my former life I never would have gone near, never would have been interested in befriending, probably would have looked down on, and certainly would have assumed had nothing in common with me. And yet, as a Christian, I came to so love and appreciate those very same kinds of people I used to dislike and avoid.
As a Catholic, I’ve come to know and love an even greater variety of kinds of people, because there are so many different kinds of people in the Catholic world. And I don’t agree with all of them on everything, nor they with me. But I love and appreciate them for who they are.
Now, coming full circle, being reunited with some of my oldest friends from my pre-Christian days, I realize: I have learned to love people, not for what they believe or how similar they are to me, but just for themselves, who they are, regardless of what they believe, or what they have to offer me. I have been disciplined in how to love, without even knowing it – and so been brought a step closer to learning to love as God loves, wholly and selflessly, for other’s sake, not for mine – in the end, so that others may know and love God, too. And this is something for which I am very grateful, along with all the other things in my life I have to be grateful for.
It is interesting that Aimee brings up Facebook, because I have noticed exactly what she speaks of. Since I got on facebook earlier this year (I think that is when I joined), I have reconnected with a variety of friends, and they are all over the place in terms of their views on religion, politics, and life in general. Some are fans of Pat Buchanan (along with me), while others were cheering when Obama was elected. Some are involved in youth ministry at local non-denominational churches, while others are at best mildly theistic. Some are urban, and one is an out-and-out redneck (one of his pictures he is holding a Pabst blue Ribbon).
I honestly don’t regularly view my facebook friends (or any of my friends) as potential converts, on which I am ready to pounce at any time. This is not to say I am not concerned with evangelization of others. I just believe that evangelization is an organic process, and not an artificial continued preparation to “pounce” on non-believers. What Aimee mentions is agape love, i.e. selfless and sacrificial love. This is not love that refuses to have contact with “sinners” and “non-believers,” but rather a love that reaches out to them, loves them, without trying to badger or bludgeon them into the kingdom of God.
Thanks to Catholic Report for pointing out this fine article.
I know I have been hammering evangelization this last year, but I have done this because I believe it is the only hope that we have of transforming our churches and society. Political Action Committees, caucuses, even good catechesis, are largely unable to truly transform people, without evangelization. This is something those of us in Catholic education see every day, but I think we also see it in society when we try to explain what we believe. I have concluded that evangelization and catechesis must go together. Sometimes orthodox Catholics naively assume that simply teaching deep theology and difficult Church moral teaching to teens and adults will in itself lead to committed, orthodox Catholics. I think this can happen, but what I often find is that the difficult Church teachings are usually just ignored or opposed, unless of course the student has been converted, and has a reason for accepting the difficult teachings. Besides, even if a teacher perfectly logically presents Christian belief, that does not necessarily mean a student will see that logic, or counter it with logic of his own!
Early Christians, operating in a non-Christian, hostile environment, understood this well. While they did practice intense and sound catechesis, they did so only of those who had been properly evangelized. The preaching of the Apostles to outsiders was focused on sharing the good news of Jesus. As Catholics we believe that baptism is the beginning of conversion, not the end, so it is not denying the power of sacramental grace to suggest that even the baptized among us need to be evangelized. I would argue that all of us need reminded of the basic, good news of Christ, even as we get deeper into Catholic theology and morality. And we should in turn share this with others, as is appropriate to our gifts (that is, not all of us are called to be missionaries, etc).
The Church reminds us that evangelization is not optional:
Such an exhortation seems to us to be of capital importance, for the presentation of the Gospel message is not an optional contribution for the Church. It is the duty incumbent on her by the command of the Lord Jesus, so that people can believe and be saved. This message is indeed necessary. It is unique. It cannot be replaced. It does not permit either indifference, syncretism or accommodation. It is a question of people’s salvation. It is the beauty of the Revelation that it represents. It brings with it a wisdom that is not of this world. It is able to stir up by itself faith – faith that rests on the power of God. It is truth. It merits having the apostle consecrate to it all his time and all his energies, and to sacrifice for it, if necessary, his own life (Evangelii Nuntiandi 5).
Lay people also fulfill their prophetic mission by evangelization, “that is, the proclamation of Christ by word and the testimony of life.” For lay people, “this evangelization . . . acquires a specific property and peculiar efficacy because it is accomplished in the ordinary circumstances of the world” (Catechism 905).
Pope Paul VI’s Evangelii Nuntiandi is a worthwhile read about evangelization.
I posted on the need for the one-two punch of evangelization and catechesis awhile back, but here is something related I read today that reminded me the U.S. Bishops agree:
Today, however, catechesis must often take the form of the primary proclamation of the gospel because many who present themselves for catechesis have not yet experience conversion to Jesus Christ (National Directory for Catechesis 57).
As I posted before, this gets at a problem that many of us in Catholic education (including bloggers who try to reach out to fellow Catholics) face. We are expected, and eager, to get into the deeper matters of theology and morals, yet often we find ourselves teaching children, adolescents, and adults who aren’t really converted to Christ. This is not a judgment or an insult; many of these individuals admit that their faith has little, if any, active role in their life. This means that for the most part they are at best uninterested in learning about deeper faith matters, or at worst, just as skeptical of Christian things as non-Christians. Some barely go to Mass, hardly ever pray, and don’t keep the basic commandments or precepts of the Church.
Last year, when I first posted about the topic, I decided I had to focus more on evangelization than I was doing. This year, I have been focusing more on evangelization, emphasizing the basic good news every chance I get. Whenever we talk about the Trinity, the early martyrs, the proofs for God’s existence, the Church Year, and so forth, I hammer home Christ’s transformative power. After all, the gospel is the reason we focus on the deeper matters of theology, and, outside of those who have a strong scholarly interest in the subject, the only way that students are going to really be interested in the deeper matters of theology is if they are converted. I am sure some students are getting tired of my emphasis on evangelization, but even if we have been sufficiently evangelized and catechized, it never hurts to be reminded of the good news of Christ!
Nothing is more frigid than a Christian, who does not for the salvation of others. You cannot here plead poverty: for she that cast down the two mites, shall be thine accuser. (Luke 21:1.) And Peter said, “Silver and gold have I none.” (Acts 3:6.) And Paul was so poor, that he was often hungered, and wanted necessary food. You cannot plead lowness of birth: for they too were ignoble men, and of ignoble parents. You cannot allege want of education: for they too were “unlearned men.” (Acts 4:13.) Even if you are a slave therefore and a runaway slave, you can perform your part: for such was Onesimus: yet see to what Paul calls him, and to how great honor he advances him: “that he may communicate with me,” he says, “in my bonds.” (Philemon 13.) You cannot plead infirmity: for such was Timothy, having often infirmities; for, says the apostle, “Use a little wine for your stomach’s sake, and thine often infirmities.” (1 Tim. v. 23.) Everyone can profit his neighbor, if he will fulfil his part…this is part of the very nature of the Christian. Do not insult God. To say, that the sun cannot shine, would be to insult Him: to say that a Christian cannot do good, is to insult God, and call Him a liar. For it is easier for the sun not to give heat, nor to shine, than for the Christian not to send forth light: it is easier for the light to be darkness, than for this to be so. Tell me not that it is impossible: the contrary is the impossible. Do not insult God. If we once get our own affairs in a right state, the other will certainly follow as a natural and necessary consequence. It is not possible for the light of a Christian to be hid; not possible for a lamp so conspicuous as that to be concealed. Let us not be careless…let us hold fast to virtue, as knowing that it is not possible to be saved otherwise, than by passing through this present life in doing these good works, that we may also obtain the good things which are to come, through the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, with Whom to the Father together with the Holy Spirit be glory, might, honor, now and ever, world without end. Amen. (From Homily 20 on the Acts of the Apostles)
Wise words for all of us!
I want to note that some of us have been on vacation, leading to a lull in posting. We will resume regular posting next week (a reminder: the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary is next Friday)
I know this sounds like something you would hear at an evangelical conference or something, but it is something I think about a lot. I blogged in the past about evangelization versus catechesis, and I think it is worth bringing up again.
I taught in the public school for three years before working at a Catholic school. I worked as a substitute teacher in a variety of rural schools. My last year as a sub, I was the full-time sub at a high school. Basically, I witnessed many kids who hadn’t even a basic understanding of Christianity, and by basic, I mean stuff that I think people should know just to be half-way literate living in our Western culture (don’t get me started about how ignorant people are!). Nonetheless, when I visit the public schools, work out at the YMCA, go to concerts, re-connect with friends from high school, etc, I am reminded how difficult it can be to reach out to non-Christians. By “reach out” I mean discuss religion in a way that is respectful but also true to my beliefs, and even evangelize. I am, by nature, a rather personable type, and sometimes I find it difficult to discuss tough religious or political issues with friends, especially when I know we will not see eye-to-eye. I can’t just say “homosexual marriage is wrong because the Church says so,” or because it is against natural law, especially when the other person’s position is the way it is because of almost entirely emotional reasons: “denying anyone the right to marry isn’t ‘nice.’” Yet, despite the difficulty, we are called to engage others, and even evangelize them, to share the good news of Christ.
I am not saying we should become out-and-out annoying wear-it-on-your-sleeves Christians who, by always talking about evangelizing, end up alienating just about everybody away from Christ (we can turn more people off than we bring in by our evangelism techniques!). I could never become this type of person anyway, because it is just counter to my personality. But let’s face it, holding to Church Teaching is not easy in current American society, and how we respond to the “unchurched” is important.
I think St. Francis’ words are applicable, that we should preach the gospel and use words if necessary. I know that my parents have been a good witness over the years by being caring and stable friends and mentors to those who had very little stability in their own lives. They model Jesus through their actions. In a society with high divorce, suicide, and depression rates, maybe one way to evangelize is to simply offer a stable, loving, and firm witness by the way we live. I get the impression that a lot of kids and adults I meet and teach know something is missing from their lives (even though most of them have every material good they could ever want), yet they can’t quite put their finger on what that is. What we offer, the good news of Christ, offers faith, hope, and love (agape) in a world filled with doubt, despair, and phony love. Maybe emphasizing the countercultural aspect of following Jesus is a good way to go too, because many people feel quite alienated by the way our culture is going.
Posted by David Bennett 
Posted by David Bennett 
Posted by David Bennett 
