Evangelisation Begins at Home

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maklavan

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There are an estimated 1.1 billion Catholics in the world today. One is faced by the reality, however, that many of these are not “ practising”.one can interpret this term in various ways. One yardstick would be weekly attendance at the celebration of the sacrament of Holy Eucharist. There is no easy stastistical base for this. In traditional European and American countries , there has been a marked decline. Ironically, it would seem that this decline is most severe in the “old ” Catholic countries. such as Italy,France and Ireland. Who would have imagined that Mass attendance in Italy, with Rome as its spiritual heart for so many centuries, would decline to 5%? The latest research in the United States shows that only 33% of Catholics go to Church… In South America, Evangelical protestant sects have made tremendous inroads into traditionally Catholic countries.

Another way of measuring this decline is try to calculate how my inactive Catholics do not believe in weekly attendance at Mass on Sunday, but still have regard for Catholic teaching. This is a more nebulous concept, and difficult to measure. Even within the ranks of “practising" Catholics, there are many who do not accept the teachings of the Church, or they reject some of the directives coming from the Vatican. Examples of this would be the teaching on birth control, and the sexual mores of the church.

The task of Catholics is to evangelise. This is an everyday commitment. Beyond the Catholic church are 1 billion other Christians, a billion Moslems and millions of pagan religions and cults, plus who knows how many agnostics and atheists.? The task seems to be impossible, humanly speaking.

I want to suggest that it might be a good thing to start with the inactive Catholics. These people have had grounding in some degree or other. They probably have a multitude of reasons for breaking with the Church. The big question is; how can we bring them back? One often hears a good preacher in church, or on EWTN, and gets the feeling that they are preaching to the converted. The people who should be hearing the message are not there. They are not likely to be there, unless we find ways of persuading them that they ought to be there. There are many “ good Catholic” couples whose children and grandkids do not darken the door of the church. Talking to them seems to be totally fruitless,and only serves to alienate them further. In the workplace, one comes across many ex Catholics. How do we start to win them back? I have met very capable Mormon, Pentecostal and Witness leaders and clergy. Their zeal and sincerity is commendable. They all have one thing in common: they are all former Catholics! They all have varied reasons for leaving, but they ought to be using their talents in support of the Catholic Church. So, how do we go about winning the strayed back to the fold?
 
I am not a good apologist, but when evangelizing lax catholics I try to use simple truths. I feel that you can’t jump into the complicated concepts. It’s like trying to have a discussion about calculus with someone who doesn’t know how to add.

Some examples: There is absolute truth. Like 1+1 always equals 2 and you either are pregnant or not. So, the catholic church is the truth.
There is the real presence of evil in the world. If you watch old episodes of the Twilight Zone there are many shows where the devil manifests, but the person is too smart or modern to believe in that.
In the bible it is the demons who always recognize Christ for who he is, even pleading for mercy from him.
If you watch the TV shows about possesions or hauntings, when things get out of hand they always say call a catholic priest “they know how to handle these things” Why?
Then there is the constant attacks on everything catholic, symbols, nuns in habits etc…
Even the satanic rock songs attack specific concepts of church doctrine that is out of the ordinary. I don’t see any blasphemous music about jews, mormons, mohammadens …
The black mass is not an attack on the rites of the scientologist.

Basically I say that these are the multiple low key signs pointing to the truth of the church.
Evil can instantly recognize the truth because it hates it, but people can’t or won’t.
 
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