The Making Disciples Today Blog has reflections to help you grow in your journey of missionary discipleship, reviews on recommended Catholic evangelization resources, and practical insight on how to evangelize in your daily life.
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- Written by Kristin Bird
“Every Christian is challenged, here and now, to be actively engaged in evangelization. Every Christian is a missionary to the extent that he or she has encountered the love of God in Christ Jesus: ... we are always ‘missionary disciples’. So what are we waiting for?” (Pope Francis, The Joy of the Gospel, 120)
I am an evangelization fraud
It's true. While I am regularly reading books on the New Evangelization, and am firmly committed to the 'art of accompaniment' as a theory, I’m not very good at it in practice.
Pope Francis has some harsh words for me in Evangelii Gaudium:
“Not to put the word into practice, not to make it reality, is to build on sand, to remain in the realm of pure ideas and to end up in a lifeless and unfruitful self-centredness and Gnosticism.” (EG, 233)
Fortunately, I am not alone. I ran across an excellent article by Dcn. Charles Fernandes of the Diocese of Hamilton where he admits to also being a "faithful—but sometimes overly passive—Catholic."
Our own intransigence, our unwillingness to evangelize, is by far the harshest theme in Evangelii Gaudium, the most difficult for me personally to hear.
In his lengthy personal response to reading and praying through The Joy of The Gospel, Deacon Frenandes pulls out a particularly useful examination of conscience for those of us invovled in the promotion, work, and support of evangelization.
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- Written by Kristin Bird
A Season of Preparation, Holy Waiting, and Hopeful Anticipation
It's the First Week of Advent, but you wouldn't know it at our house. The wreath and calendar are still packed away in the basement. I have made no plans for what additions I will make to my prayer life for the next few weeks. Apart from the fantastic seasonal nail art I helped my 7 year old with last night, I have not even discussed the season of Advent with my children.
The wreath lighting at Mass this morning made me realize that I had procrastinated too long. Advent has started, and I'm not ready.
Then came this morning's social media onslaught. My news feeds were filled with blog posts, book reviews, youtube videos, and list after list of the best ways to enter into the season...
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- Written by Burning Hearts Team
In Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis has laid out a vision for our families, our relationships, our churches, and our world - a vision of love and accompaniment. Unfortunately, phrases like "the art of accompaniment" have become a musunderstood buzzword within church circles.
The "art of accompaniment” and is so much more than simply a way of being pastoral to those whose beliefs and behavior are at odds with the Gospel. In the hands and heart of a missionary disciple, accompaniment is a tool for walking with others as they journey into deeper relationship with Christ and the truth of the His Church.
All of us fall into the trap of trying to tell other people what to feel and how to think instead of the listening, and openness of heart that accompaniment calls us to. What starts as sharing my own emotions quickly turns into debating, posturing, defending, and becoming solution-focused - to closing the doors of our hearts rather than opening.
When I jump to debate and response rather than listening, I ignore the lived experience of the person in front of me. I focus on myself - my own defensiveness, skepticism, anger, etc - rather than being truly present to the other. When I jump to solutions rather than compassion and empathy, I am not truly present to the way the Holy Spirit is moving and working in myself or the other person.
Genuine accompaniment calls us to compassion, to empathy, and to listening - rather than arguing. To be clear: this empathy doesn’t require us to change our most deeply held convictions. It simply means that we refuse to let the desire to “win” cause us to lose sight of the presence of God in the person in front of us. It means remembering that we can ALWAYS pause for compassion.
The 10 tips for dialouge below come from Amoris Laetitia, and Pope Francis calls this loving dialogue “essential” for family life. I think you'll find them applicable beyond the immediate family to our human family - and civil society as well.
Ten Tips on Dialogue from Pope Francis
1. Recognize the real importance and dignity of the other person.
Recognize others’ right “to think as they do and to be happy.” Pope Francis challenges us to acknowledge the values of the other’s “deepest concerns” and what he or she is trying to say (no. 138).
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- Written by Kristin Bird
At its core, the New Evangelization has everything to do with this question: Do I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?
If we want to be intentional disciples who live the New Evanglization in our parishes, schools, workplaces, and homes, we must begin by deepening our own relationships with God. A central tenet of Pope Benedict XVI's teaching on the New Evangelization focused on the centrality of prayer in this mission. Benedict XVI understands prayer as holding a two-fold significance in evangelization:
- Those sharing the faith must first be re-evangelized ourselves, growing in habits of prayer and contemplation amidst life’s busyness; and
- Among those with whom we share the faith, prayer constitutes a deeply personal and essential means by which one encounters God.
Benedict XVI writes:
“Praying actualizes and deepens our communion with God. Our prayer can and should arise above all from our heart, from our needs, our hopes, our joys, our sufferings, from our shame over sin, from our gratitude from the good. It can and should be a wholly personal prayer." [1]
The role of prayer in the New Evangelization is central for the Pope Emeritus, and it must be for as well.