A Nod to the Synod
Our bishop is asking all parishes in the diocese to participate in a 2022 Synod on Missionary Discipleship. As part of the process, several parishioners, including me, have been assigned to a committee to come up with a plan. Our first task is to submit a planning document before the end of May.
As I understand it, we are to focus on evangelizing Catholics by getting those who have not returned to Mass since the Covid dispensation to come back. I believe it was Thomas Aquinas who warned that a rule should never be altered unless absolutely necessary because the binding power of the rule would be forever weakened. For us Catholics, missing Mass on Sunday without a good reason was always a mortal sin. During the Covid pandemic, many bishops dispensed with the Sunday obligation temporarily. When reinstated, the binding power of the obligation was weakened to the extent that it now seems optional to more Catholics.
When we think of evangelization, we normally think of attracting converts to the Catholic faith. Our contacts may be Protestants, Fundamentalists, even atheists. We have apologetic resources to facilitate the discussion. This time, we are trying to evangelize Catholics. Does it require an entirely different approach?
I have been involved with evangelization for a very long time. Ever since I came to appreciate the gift we have in our Catholic faith, I have wanted to share that gift with others. My own efforts have included sponsoring inspirational messages in a local weekly publication, distributing Catholic apologetic materials, pamphlets and audio presentations from Lighthouse Catholic media, manning street booths during local festivals offering church tours, doing a weekly face-to-face dialog with some Jehovah Witnesses for six months, and starting this monthly blog twenty years ago. I have given away over fifty copies of Trent Horn’s book Why We’re Catholic. I have prayed and spent countless hours at Eucharistic Adoration. As a result, I have gained the knowledge that I am not very good at evangelization. Nothing much has worked.
You may be reading this and thinking it’s no wonder this guy stinks at evangelizing. You can’t just throw out Catholic propaganda and expect people to come knocking at your door. You need to share the love of Jesus Christ and the paschal mystery. So true, and maybe that is where I have been weak. There is no substitute for one on one interaction with those we meet, but for some of us, this type of communication is difficult.
When our pastor approached me to be on this synod evangelization committee, I told him that I am terrible at evangelizing. We need some new people with fresh ideas. Every time a committee is formed in our parish, we end up with the same five or six people, average age somewhere in the seventies. I mentioned this evangelization challenge to our RCIA class last week in the presence of our newly baptized Catholic and another young couple just now exploring the Catholic faith. Who better to know what might attract people to the Church than someone who recently decided to take that path. They offered a few fresh ideas and some that we have already tried. What I did see was some energy and enthusiasm that may have been lacking from our previous efforts, and that I find encouraging!
Our synod committee has decided to offer monthly evangelical presentations to our parishioners where refreshments will be served. Topics have been assigned to each committee member with resources needed to support each presentation. The hope is to give fellow Catholics the knowledge and understanding of our faith, along with the confidence to share it properly and effectively. Having had minimal success in my past evangelization efforts, I admit being somewhat pessimistic now. Yet, even one soul saved would make any effort worthwhile. Pray the Holy Spirit leads us in the right direction.
