Readings for Sunday, January 26
In today’s homily, Fr. Bill talked to us about how there are people who believe that Pope Francis is changing the Church but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. In actuality, he said, Pope Francis is trying to get us back to the roots of our faith. Back to the prophet Isaiah who said that the darkness would be dispelled, the enslaved would be free, and the burdened would rejoice all because of the light of Christ. This is why we are called to the New Evangelization. I’m embarrassed to admit, even though I’m a theology major, I’ve never quite understood what the New Evangelization is and while I can take a good guess at what it means, I’ve never heard someone explain it. I know the term has been around since JPII but I don’t remember hearing it enter the popular lexicon until after I had kids and being that, at the moment at least, I have just enough brain cells to keep three little ones alive each day, I just haven’t had the energy or desire to look into it. I just hear the term tossed around all the time. But the way Fr. Bill explained it made it seem like a non-“stuffy” term but rather one that is accessible (which in doing that I’m pretty sure he was living the New Evangelization). I can’t even really remember what he said about it, but at least it planted a desire in me to read more about it and actually figure it out.
What did you hear today? Join in the conversation and leave your point of pew in the comment section.
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What is “From My Point of Pew”? Read here.
The takeaway I had was that Catholics often seen “evangelization” as a Protestant-ish term and something we “don’t do”. In reality, our origin—and our mandate—is to spread Jesus. We don’t have to teach the more complex aspects of dogma if that’s not our thing, but simply sharing Jesus.
Pope Francis is doing a great job in this by simply doing the work of Christ (in addition to his theological teachings), as that is making non-Catholics take notice of him, and through that, hopefully spreading Christ to those who may have rejected or ignored it before.
No joke, I opened up facebook today and this was at the top: http://wordonfire.org/WoF-Blog/WoF-Blog/January-2014/New-Evangelization-Reading-List.aspx The Holy Spirit is funny.