Friends
Peace be with you.
This past week, I spent time at a conference in San Antonio called Priests for an Apostolic Age. I’m writing this before the conference so I’ll update you on the content of the conference when I get back. However, it’s being put on by the group with whom we have partnered to empower our evangelization efforts, the Evangelical Catholic. This past January, I completed a twelve session series of classes with the staff intended to help them become “Point Person’s” for our parish in the area of evangelization. Geralyn Ward, our fearless DRE, completed one with lay members of our parish in December. I’m hoping to start another point person training session for men in February and we’re hoping to simultaneously start one for women led by members of the team who completed the training in December.
Point person training emphasizes that evangelization must be based on prayer and authentic friendship. Each week, it asks a person to commit fifteen minutes a day to praying with a specific passage of scripture or a quote from a church father or a quote from a Vatican document or a quote from one of the more recent popes. It also asks that you meet with a leader one-on-one every other week so that you can ask questions that come to mind and grow in friendship and faith with that other person. Lastly, and most timely, it asks you to meet with a group of people for about an hour and a half for twelve weeks to learn skills like how to ask questions that help us grow in authentic friendship (because we’ve lost this skill with the advent of social media and the internet in general) and how to host a Bible study and what the core teachings of the Bible actually are and how to find out answers to questions about the Bible and the church if/when they come up.
Evangelization is not just meant to be done by “experts”. It’s not just for extroverts who like making friends. It’s done by everyone who is baptized and the style has to be personal even if the content is universal. It is, in fact, what we say “Thanks be to God” to when either the deacon or I say “Go in peace” at the end of Mass. That go in peace is actually a commissioning, a sending that our gathering is over and the mission has begun. Ite, Missa est in Latin means “Go, you are sent”. It’s what unifies all the baptized with a singular vocation to holiness. If you are interested in learning skills that will help you better evangelize, talk to me or Geralyn Ward and we’ll work with you to get you into one of our training groups. Please know of my prayers.