"A Giant Is Awakening"

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

What a joy to read this news! May the Lord enable His Church renewed to proclaim Him in Spirit and in Truth:

A Giant Is Awakening
New Evangelization Flows Out of Rome
By Antonio Gaspari

ROME, OCT. 18, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Thirty-three representatives of episcopal conferences, 400 representatives of 115 ecclesial groups committed to evangelization, 10,000 young people ready to carry out the mission: These are numbers revealing an army of new evangelizers who have responded to an appeal from the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization.

Last Saturday morning, Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella, president of the recently established Vatican dicastery, led a gathering of “new evangelizers committed to the new evangelization.” The group met with the Pope on Saturday and he celebrated Mass for them Sunday morning.

Archbishop Fisichella spoke with them about secularization, explaining how this trend, along with a relative weakening of the faith, has confused mankind and caused a true anthropological crisis.

The prelate proposed that this phenomenon has affected important parts of the clergy and of the Catholic Church. Hence the need for a new evangelization, both within as well as outside the Church.

“The marginalization of God has brought disorientation in personal identity,” Archbishop Fisichella said, and “indifference and ignorance in regard to the essential contents of the doctrine.”

“Many, mistakenly, have thought that an explicit proclamation [of the Gospel] is no longer necessary,” he observed, “and that personal testimony is the only tool of the new evangelization.”

Representatives of the new evangelizers expressed their enthusiasm for the appeal.

Kiko Argüello, initiator and representative of the Neo-Catechumenal Way, pointed out how families are carrying out an immense role in the new evangelization.

Argüello explained how he has sent catechists and presbyters to places where the faith was disappearing and they were rejected. He then sent families, and they worked a miracle: not only were they not rejected but they brought about conversions and the transmission of the faith with incredible results…

“It is necessary that the sleeping giant, which is the parish, awake!” …“A dynamic parish, charged with the love of God, which fascinates its faithful and challenges them to evangelization, is possible.”

… Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., suggested a need to “evangelize the evangelizers.” ( Underlining is mine)

Full text is HERE

 

[tabbey48]

Wonderful and exciting news! God be praised!!!

 

[MariaChristi]

Wonderful and exciting news! God be praised!!!

Dear Tabbey,

Thanks for your reply. Yes, it is wonderful news. Let us continue to pray for the Church, that all of us will grow in the holiness to which we are called.

When Christ is truly shining through us, then is our Father glorified before men.(cf Mt. 5:16) May the Holy Spirit fill the hearts of the faithful with the fire of His Love. May our parishes come alive with the Life of Christ!

Our parish is beginning a “Returning Catholics” series on Nov. 8, I would ask you please, and all those who may be reading this thread to pray for us. Thanks.

 

[nagyszakall]

I just noticed your post now. The news is great but you didn’t get many replies. Anyway thanks a lot for sharing. It is still relevant. The New Evangelisation is just beginning to spread its wings. We shall see what happens when it begins to fly…
The only mistake in it is that “Argüello sent…” He didn’t send anybody. The Holy Father sent (and keeps sending; he has just dispached another bunch on January 20) and the Holy Spirit is sending too.
But I do like how he calls the parish a “sleeping giant”. I did notice the “sleeping” part in many places. Good to know that it will wake up!

God bless you and thanks

 

[MariaChristi]

I just noticed your post now. The news is great but you didn’t get many replies. Anyway thanks a lot for sharing. It is still relevant. The New Evangelisation is just beginning to spread its wings. We shall see what happens when it begins to fly…
The only mistake in it is that “Argüello sent…” He didn’t send anybody. The Holy Father sent (and keeps sending; he has just dispached another bunch on January 20) and the Holy Spirit is sending too.
But I do like how he calls the parish a “sleeping giant”. I did notice the “sleeping” part in many places. Good to know that it will wake up!

God bless you and thanks

Dear nagyszakall,

Thanks for your reply. I’m used to not getting many replies. Although I really appreciate it when persons have an enthusiasm for the same things that I do, I’ve learned not to be too disappointed when they don’t. The important thing for me is to continue speaking God’s Truth in Love.

Through His Vicars, God has continued to teach all that Jesus commanded: Pope Paul VI wrote in his “Evangelization in the Modern World” that the Church exists to Evangelize! . Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict VI have been urging the “New Evangelization” for a decade, yet so many Catholics seem to be “sleeping”.

This coming October 2012 begins the “Year of Faith” and the Bishops’ Synod on the New Evangelization. It is also the month in which we celebrate World Mission Sunday, so perhaps more Bishops, priests, deacons, religious and laity will begin to wake up and each do their part. I do not think it a mistake to say Kiko Argüello “sent” persons because the founder of this new movement approved by the Church has a certain authority over its members. All authority, of course, comes from God, but we share in His authority in different ways.

All of us, in a sense, are sent by the Word of God and by charity (Mt 28). The Holy Spirit continues to inspire the members of the Church. Some may evangelize at home, while others go beyond their homes. Like Paul, we can say, “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel”. We “preach” mostly by our lives of good example; yet often we must speak in defense of, or to explain better, the Faith we profess, so that others can know and believe in Jesus. My husband and I are registered to attend a conference in Maryland, Feb. 8 - 10 on “The New Evangelization” and how to equip our parish. See HERE

God willing, I’ll post more when we return. Please stay tuned