Start here.
I have written here since 2010 on evangelization, parish life, Scripture, apologetics, and the moral life. These six are the best place to begin.
Go Home and Live as Missionary Disciples
If your faith feels humdrum, you may not have entered the mission yet. A talk to men on what that asks of you.
Formed By Distraction
Eliot described minds pulled from one distraction to the next. We now carry that in our pockets. What is it forming in us?
What Is a Catholic?
A plain answer: who belongs to the Church Christ founded on the Apostles, and what holds that Church together.
Why You Need Your Men’s Group
Before asking whether men’s groups work, ask what problem they are meant to solve.
Why Protestants Are Becoming Catholic at My Parish
What draws evangelicals and mainline Protestants into the Catholic Church, as they told me in class.
How God Speaks in Human Words
The first of four articles on how the Bible is at once a human book and the Word of God.
Apostolate of the Laity, excerpts
Here is our lovely Ambrosian Rite Pope Paul VI.What is the point of this website, and of my ministry in general? The Second Vatican Council released a document entitled Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity or Apostolicam Actuositatem. Promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1965, this document builds upon Lumen Gentium's understanding of the role of the Laity in the Church by speaking directly to the activity of the laity in spreading the Gospel and living it out.
This document, in my opinion, is deep, timely, and prophetic, but is largely forgotten from Vatican II history. I think, more so than anything I have come across lately in Church documents, this Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity sums up the mission and purpose of LayEvangelist.com and what I believe my mission is for the Church today.
From the first paragraph, the Council Fathers state their intent for this document:
In this decree the Council seeks to describe the nature, character, and diversity of the lay apostolate, to state its basic principles, and to give pastoral directives for its more effective exercise. All these should be regarded as norms when the canon law, as it pertains to the lay apostolate, is revised. (AA, 1)
Confession and God's Loving Generosity
Recently I was blessed with the opportunity to speak to the parents of children who are preparing to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation. As I prayed and thought about what I would say, I decided to implement one of my fancy new evangelization approaches. I would situate my catechesis on Confession and it's importance for the family within an all-out kerygmatic evangelization.
I wanted to go beyond a catechesis on the purpose and practice of Reconciliation. I wanted to break open the whole drama of humanity to give people a renewed vision of the gravity of sin, the immensity of forgiveness, the power of mercy, and the eternal depths of reconcilation with God.
Pro-Life Work and the New Evangelization
The New Evangelization of the nations and the renewal of pro-life work go hand-in-hand, for at their core is what we must call the primacy of the individual human person. The person is everything. Win over just one person to Christ and you have won the world. Too often today, probably as the recycled leftovers of a tired and disgraced Marxism, we all tend to focus on what I call the primacy of Bigness, where aggregation and collectivism looses sight of the individual person for the sake of the group. As far as I can tell, this is the milieu previous pro-life work operated in and this is what cost us the so-called culture war.Here is the still point of my website's thesis: I believe we already lost the culture war. But not all is lost! There are moral and spiritual principles that we need right now that can bring about both the New Evangelization of the world, and the revitalization of pro-life work right here at home. This website will layout Catholic pro-life moral principles and consistently apply them to four main life issues: abortion, euthanasia, the death penalty and warfare.
Systematic Catechesis and Evangelization
Fulton Sheen addressing the Knights of Columbus in 1975Jesus asks us to become great evangelists and disciple-makers, not just amazing keynote presenters. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen once said that proclaiming the Christian life consisted of "First come then go." Only those who first come and sit at the feet of the Master again and again can be properly formed to "go, go" out into the world and not only preach the gospel, but to "go and make disciples".
When speaking about disciple-making, we need to cover the topic of systematic catechesis.
Systematic does not mean boring, mechanistic, or rote memorization. In fact, systematic catechesis demands creativity from every catechist as well as coherence.
So let's dive into the teaching of popes John Paul II and Paul VI on evangelization and catechesis is order to respond faithfully and take seriously the call to "go and make disciples" through being systematic in our catechesis.
Intimations of the New Evangelization
Pope John Paul II conquering this Jubilee for Christ JesusI believe in the mission of the new evangelization. This website represents my work and desire to see the Gospel of Jesus Christ rekindle the flame of faith in the "frozen chosen" scattered about in pews all across America. I have often reflected on what the new evangelization looks like. In this post I am not going for exhaustive analysis. What I want to do is toss out a brief sketch of what I think are 4 elements of the spirit of the new evangelization.
First, the new evangelization is about the "art of living" and of finding the path to happiness, which is Jesus. Cardinal Ratzinger in an address to catechists that he gave in the year 2000, taught that the new evangelization was necessary today because, in our joyless world, there is little room for God in the secularized and de-Christianized nations. In such a world that still yearns for happiness, the new way to preach the gospel must be provided that communicates this art of living.