![](http://www.uscatholic.org/sites/default/files/styles/section_feature_large/public/article-images/TEL_2.jpg?itok=n3hjvMg1)
Thursday, January 18, 2018
Spreading the good news comes from the heart.
The joyful way to evangelize
Spreading the good news comes from the heart.
![](http://www.uscatholic.org/sites/default/files/styles/section_feature_large/public/article-images/TEL_2.jpg?itok=n3hjvMg1)
None of this may look like sharing the gospel, but according to
Ellen Kuchera, one of the creators of COR at 220 East, this is where
the heart of evangelization is taking place. COR, Latin for heart, is a
project sponsored by the four Waterloo parishes with the primary goal of
making connections between the church and the broader community. The
project is intended to respond directly to the mandate that Pope Francis
gave at World Youth Day in 2013: "I want a mess. I want to see the
Church get closer to the people. . . . We cannot keep ourselves shut up
in parishes, in our communities, when so many people are waiting for the
Gospel."
I tend to associate evangelization with
evangelical Protestants asking whether I have asked Jesus into my heart
as my lord and savior. With the rising importance of evangelization in
the Catholic Church, I have admittedly struggled with what this means
for me, a cradle Catholic intensely uncomfortable with anything that
smacks of imposing my own views on others.
Pope Francis
has attempted to respond to confusion like mine with a papacy focused on
evangelization--which consists not of "imposing new obligations" or
proselytizing but rather of a church living out its joy and sharing its
wealth of beauty, of culture, of resources with its neighbor. It is "by
attraction" that the church grows, he writes in Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment