Bulletins
April 14, 2013
Download the Bulletin as a PDFOn the topic of evangelization by normal people, I defer this week to Blessed Pope John Paul II:
To the extent in which the Christian family accepts the Gospel and matures in faith, it becomes an evangelizing community. Let us listen again to Paul VI: "The family, like the church, ought to be a place where the Gospel is transmitted and from which the Gospel radiates. In a family which is conscious of this mission, all the members evangelize and are evangelized."
...The future of evangelization depends in great part on the church of the home. This apostolic mission of the family is rooted in baptism and receives from the grace of the sacrament of marriage new strength to transmit the faith, to sanctify and transform our present society according to God's plan.
Particularly today the Christian family has a special vocation to witness to the paschal covenant of Christ by constantly radiating the joy of love and the certainty of the hope for which it must give account.
...The absolute need for family catechesis emerges with particular force in certain situations that the church unfortunately experiences in some places: "In places where anti-religious legislation endeavors even to prevent education in the faith, and in places where widespread unbelief or invasive secularism makes real religious growth practically impossible, 'the church of the home' remains the one place where children and young people can receive an authentic catechesis."
The ministry of evangelization carried out by Christian parents is original and irreplaceable. It assumes the characteristics typical of family life itself, which should be interwoven with love, simplicity, practicality and daily witness.
The family must educate the children for life in such a way that each one may fully perform his or her role according to the vocation received from God. Indeed the family that is open to transcendent values, that serves its brothers and sisters with joy, that fulfills its duties with generous fidelity and is aware of its daily sharing in the mystery of the glorious cross of Christ, becomes the primary and most excellent seedbed of vocations to a life of consecration to the kingdom of God.
Allow me to summarize. The purpose of my family is to bring me into the world in such a way that I am led to heaven and trained to bring other people to heaven with me. That entails learning the Faith well enough that I am prepared to teach it to others and practicing the Faith well enough that I am prepared to be persecuted by others… all with joy and love. God bless us all!
Fr. Christopher J. Pollard
