Office of Evangelization
Diocese of Cleveland
Home
Services
Who Does It?
What does it
look like?
PROGRAMS/RESOURCES
Vibrant
Parish Life
Go
and Make Disciples
Inactive/Alienated
Hospitality/Welcoming
Small
Christian Comm.
Pamphlets
RELATED
SITES
US
Conf. Cath. Bishops
USCCB
Evangelization
PNCEA
(Paulists)
Paulist
Fathers
Church
Magazine (NPLC)
Catholic
Conf. of Ohio
Once
Catholic
Who Does It?
Evangelization is everyone's responsibility. Pope John Paul II called for a "New Evangelization." This means we are called to be proactive in our responsibility to be evangelizers. In the past it was a silent approach. Today, it requires awareness, thought and planning. How a parish does evangelization encompasses all we do. It motivates and inspires all ministries.
John Paul II wrote in The Church in America of both the call and hope-filled promise that belong to the evangelizing parish:
The parish is a privileged place where the faithful concretely experience the Church. Today in America as elsewhere in the world the parish is facing certain difficulties fulfilling its mission. The parish needs to be constantly renewed on the basis of the principle that "the parish must continue to be above all a eucharistic community." This principle implies that "parishes are called to be welcoming and fraternal places of Christian initiation, of education in and celebration of the faith, open to the full range of charisms, services and ministries, organized in a communal and responsible way, capable of utilizing existing movements of the apostolate, attentive to the cultural diversity of people, open to pastoral projects which go beyond the individual parish, and alert to the world in which they live…
The parish thus renewed "can be a source of great hope. It can gather people in community, assist family life, overcome the sense of anonymity, welcome people and help them to be involved in their neighborhood and in society." In this way, every parish…can promote a more person centered evangelization and better cooperate with other social, educational and community work."
The duty to evangelize is an obligation of love. It requires intentionality and deliberate efforts. You are doing it already - be aware!
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations...
Mt. 28:19