I have a new post up for Catholic Answers’ online magazine, and it starts this way:
Americans are more miserable and unfit than ever before, with life expectancy in its first multi-year decline since the 1960s. Opioid addiction rates have spiked to shocking levels, with overdoses now the leading cause of injury death. And of course, just two days ago, seventeen people were shot and killed by a deranged teen at a Florida high school.
It’s to this bruised and broken world that the Catholic Church sends us, the laity, to evangelize—no matter how busy we are, or how much we struggle to make sense of the madness around us. “Even when preoccupied with temporal cares,” the Second Vatican Council teaches, we are called to “perform a work of great value for the evangelization of the world” (Lumen Gentium 35).
The council goes on to say that we are to do this, first, by asking God for wisdom and deepening our grasp of revealed truth. But Lumen Gentium also singles out the Christian family as playing a unique role in this effort, in a way that may surprise you:
If you want to find out more, I’m afraid you’re going to have to read the whole thing.
“It’s to this bruised and broken world that the Catholic Church sends us, the laity, to evangelize—no matter how busy we are, or how much we struggle to make sense of the madness around us.”
In the last two weeks, my wife and I gave out about 500 packets of five readings each, of selections from Arbp. Alban Goodier’s “The Public Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ” to students at the DVC college campus in Pleasant Hill CA. We also had almost non-stop conversations with the students at the same time, many of them from Moslem or Asian countries who never really had the opportunity to read details about the life of Jesus before. All were printed on our 2 cheap Epson 2550 Eco-Tank desktop printers that we print in 2 colors, each story having a colored header. We’re also going out today to a Farmers Market in Vallejo, CA., to distribute the same readings for about 2 hours of evangelization. The particular reading subject today is 1 page front and back from the ‘Baptism of Jesus’ chapter of the Goodier’s book, and 3 pages front and back from the ‘Temptation in the Desert’ chapter, with one page dedicated to each of the three temptation stories that Jesus had in that gospel account. We will also give out packets of other stories of Jesus, from the chapter on the miracles at Capharnaum, for those who didn’t get them when we gave them out over the last 6 weeks at this same location. We talk to many of the people who want the readings (sometimes for 1/2 hour or more) and always encourage them to study the early centuries of the Church via the internet. We will move on to the “Autobiography (Confession) of St. Patrick” distribution in about 3 weeks for St. Patricks day. We give out the autobiography in 4 pages front and back, color coded (each page) with a different heading color to make the readings graphically interesting. While everyone is getting drunk and partying, we walk up to them and offer them the St. Patrick’s autobiography, and laughing with them about the absurdity that everyone is celebrating St. Patricks day, but not one in a thousand ever read his very short and highly readable autobiography. Most of the ‘cheery’ celebrants get a smile out of that truth, and they almost all take the packets with interest.
Anyway, this is just one practical way that the laity can easily fulfill the obligation to evangelize. And St. Anthony Mary Claret noted: “There is no greater use of charity than to give holy Catholic books and literature to others”.
So, whether a person is a priest, religious or layman, the job of spreading the faith through holy literature is always an option for them to exercise this task. Such literature can be found in the public domain, online; then, typeset and printed on a desktop printer with colors and good quality paper, and distributed by hand at the types of locations described above. And, the over-abundant conversation that inevitably comes along with the distribution will make every evangelizer know that he will never be lonely again, as long as he keeps on going out to spread the holy faith to others in public places. It’s an incomparable joy to see so many interested people in these places who have a thirst for learning more about Jesus..and the countless Saints who imitated and followed Him throughout the centuries.
So, it’s good not to keep evangelization only as a theory, but to come up with a real strategy so as to actually make it happen. What my wife and I do is just one such way to accomplish this. All others can easily do something similar, or the same, as the opportunities for such evangelization endeavors is almost endless.
Best to all.
Regarding evangelization today, I’m glad I have had some experience discussing the faith with Irked, Craig, Barry and others in the past, as my wife and I were approached by four very enthusiastic ‘reformed’ type Protestants, who were on a roll evangelizing at the Farmers Market this morning. They were giving us the basic Protestant ‘solae’ arguments, and especially on ‘justification by faith alone’. However, Irked makes them look like mere school children in their arguments as they hadn’t ever studied St. Clement of Rome, the Didache, Eusebius, Ignatius, Polycarp, and so many of the other Church Fathers. It’s hard to discuss doctrine without historical context. It’s pretty much a waste of time, with the exception of showing that Catholics actually are both charitable, willing to talk and like to study both the Bible and Church history. And I’m sure we’ll see them again.
So, thanks Joe for your excellent school of apologetics that you provide here!
Ironically it is the same policy the Orthodox Church is pursing in Russia. Putin jumped onto the bandwagon because unlike the elites the run the West, he shockingly sees values in citizens that pay taxes and take care of themselves within a nuclear family unit.
So how do we or how does Putin explain his divorce, his son by a girlfriend, and his ex-wife’s remarriage? How are these unlike the views of the elites who run the West? Putin shockingly sees values in citizens unlike himself?
Do as I say, not as I do? I am obviously not saying I am approving of Putin, but I think he has hitched himself to the Orthodox bandwagon in Russia. Here’s a link to an Orthodox/Russian propaganda website which contains a lot of this stuff, much of it translated from Russian sources: http://russian-faith.com/family-values
Out of all the people that read this news article, out oif all the people that comment, I”m the only one that cries out to Jesus? You see b&f the odds are against me, the people are against me.but I am the voice to help the suffering find a way out of the suffering. Too many people walk around in depression-jesus is the way to deliverance. Too many people walk around in stress- Jesus is the way to peace of mind. Too many people walk around with pride- Jesus is the way to humility. Too many people walk around with emotional and mental hurt and pain- Jesus is the way to healing. If your offended by this, then perhaps you are the one inflicting pain, stress, and hurt on people.
I will agree with you; would you like a “Protestant” to agree with you? LOL
Why just today it struck me that we go about lamenting the misfortunes of this world, the physical and spiritual illness, the evil that happens to “good” people etc.
And yet Christ explicitly and repeatedly gave us power over all these things, utter and complete power, even over death, IF WE BELIEVE.
So, God tolerates evil? He does ony because it is necessary, because those who suffer in this world He consoles in the next, but He gives us the power to overcome all those things in this world, and in seconds not in years, IF WE BELIEVE.