In an earlier post, the incomparable DAZ posed to me this question – How is it we lost the urgency to evangelize with conversion to Christ and incorporation into his Catholic Church as the goal?
I burned 300 words or so in reply.
Yesterday, I stumbled upon the precise answer. Barbara Nicolosi (among the sharpest minds around) is one of my favorite bloggers, especially when she is mad. I love Nicolosi when she is mad. She is at her purest when angry. Plus, she is a gifted writer….
At the moment, Nicolosi is righteously angry about the state of Catechesis in the U.S.A. She sums up perfectly (and with better prose) my stance.
Here is Ms. Nicolosi’s usual hangout. If you care anything about Catholics in the Arts and Media she should be your go to gal. I have read her work for years.
Her RICA program is probably the most muscular RCIA program ever. Obviously designed for rather well educated converts, her classical approach is quintessentially Catholic and what one learns from Barbara is to meet people where they are and take them with you.
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At Saint Andrew Catholic Church on Portland Avenue, I had participated in RCIA as a team member, teacher/presenter, and as a sponsor. For me RCIA always meant another opportunity, another chance to promote deeper appreciation for the sacraments of initiation, the dynamic of conversion and the relationship among evangelization, catechesis and apologetics.
For me, RCIA was always about Jesus in the Catholic Church.
While it was exciting to accompany and journey with Catechumens and baptized Christians seeking full communion with the Catholic Church, I always hoped that the faithful in the pews would experience/re-experience their own deepening conversion making full use of the liturgical season of Lent and the Paschal Mystery of Christ.
For me, at least, it was all real and powerful. For me, at least, I was able to realize and experience deeply the Good News of Salvation through the Grace of Jesus Christ and the
liturgy of the Church, the teachings of the Church, the self-giving service of the Church and the people of the Church.
I don’t think that everyone in the pews got it. It certainly wasn’t because our Parish Priests and their staffs didn’t try to lead the pew warmers more deeply into the Paschal Mystery of Christ Jesus.
Maybe more commitment and zeal for the Church’s faith and mission would have helped. Maybe more focus on official documents would have helped. Perhaps going over the Cathechism of the Catholic Church in a more detailed fashion would have helped.
Certainly more Holy Spirit inspired prayer would have helped.
More likely than not, an emphasis on the hard teachings of Christ’s Catholic Church could have helped. “Forgive us our failings, O Lord, forgive us our cowardice!”
I just found this quote on line. It seems to be focused on what we need:
“The antidotes to our pastoral failures are what the bishops gathered in Aparecida call the necessity of “permanent catechesis”: an ongoing encounter with the Lord Jesus, deepened spiritually through Word and Sacrament, the Bible and the Eucharist.”
Sounds about right…..permanent catechesis…..an ongoing encounter with the Lord Jesus….more of God’s Word and Sacraments, more of the Bible and the Eucharist.
http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/the-message-of-aparecida-comes-alive-at-world-youth-day-in-rio
Gifted evangelizers and catechists will help people to encounter the Savior Christ in the Church’s liturgy, in the Church’s teachings, in the Church’s actions of selfless service and of course in the Church’s Holy People of God.