Being Messengers of the Good News
This past weekend Sean, who is one of our deacons, preached one of the best homilies I have heard from him since I arrived in the parish last summer. He spoke about evangelization and the misconceptions we often have about it. I can’t speak for other parts of the country, but in the South it is common to associate evangelization with proselytism. Growing up in the Bible Belt meant at least one visit a week from someone whose first question was, “Have you been saved?” There was never a lack of visitors who went door to door inviting others to be a part of their church.
We Catholics take a different approach to evangelization. We are certainly happy to share our faith with others, but do not want to coerce or manipulate others into belief. To do so would be, in many ways, an act of violence.
There are three groups of people we seek to evangelize. First are those who have never heard the Gospel. One of our former bishops liked to say that we should start with reaching the unchurched in our diocese and once we had completed that task, we could move on to everyone else. The second group are those former Catholics who have fallen away from active participation in the community for a variety of reasons. It seems to me that many of those in this group have been hurt in some way and so healing is necessary in many cases. Perhaps they have gone through a painful divorce and feel excluded from participation as a result. Maybe they have been wounded by the clergy abuse scandal or by the unkind words of a church authority. It could be that they simply slowly drifted away from the practice of the faith and feel self conscious about walking back through the doors of a church. The third group are those of us who continue to actively participate in the life of the Church. There is always room for more growth in our lives as Christians. This is the group Deacon Sean chose to focus on in his homily.
Deacon Sean suggested that one way we might evangelize was in what we do to teach our children and grandchildren what it means to be a Christian. When they are small, we can teach things as simple as the sign of the cross. Parents can make it part of their daily ritual to bless their children. Deacon Sean mentioned that this has become so much a part of his family life that his kids will wake him up to get a blessing before bed if he forgets. We also evangelize by the example we give to not only our children, but to others. How would we act if we treated each person we encountered as if they were Christ in disguise? The Rule of Saint Benedict calls for monks to welcome all guests as Christ. It is not always an easy task, but certainly is one way of sharing the good news with others through our actions.
My own recent thoughts bring me to ask myself how we can better help those who faithfully show up at our churches week after week to really be able to deepen their relationship with the Lord. What will be helpful to the person who has a deep desire to grow in the faith, but who also works many hours to support a family, who values time spent with family at home or at soccer practice or helping with homework. What will be helpful to the person who can’t come to a Monday night Scripture study because they are doing all they can just to make it through everything already on the calendar each week? I invite the readers of this blog to share any ideas about how we can better meet this challenge.
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