[Cronos]

A very good article -- as Catholics we tend to not talk about our beliefs enough. One can be religious and not pushy and actually LIVE our faith.

We now have a marvellous opportunity to re-invigorate the Faith by reading, preaching, talking to each other.

Thank you Mark for this lovely article

In the Churches I went to in England and in the US (NY) and in India (bombay) and Hong Kong, there was a strong emphasis on this with a lot of laity organised events and a strong parish feel. Here in Poland it's not so strong, but the clergy are close to the people (I think the parish-laity focus should be stronger though).

What do you think we can do to strengthen our Small Christian Communities in the faith?

[netmilsmom]

This article is lovely in spirit, but Christ was talking to the eleven.

It’s a great thought, but I was not called to evangelize. Especially the modern definition of it.
Personally, I take Matthew 7:16 “For every tree is known by its fruit.” and teach by example.

We do that in our parish and great improvements to the progressive parishes have come about. I can’t wait to see what the new Missal translation does there!

[RoadGumby]

Well, on this one we can agree! We are to speak out about Jesus and the free gift of Slavation He offers.

I pray that our voices rise.

[ADSUM]

Christ left us with a wonderful message to share with others.

We have seen how Christianity has grown. A great amount of diversity within the Church. While I truly believe that the Catholic Church is the one true Church, we need to continue to follow Christ with our love for him and our neighbor.

We need to continue to make the Church and ourselves holy by sharing this message from God - both by word and deed.

We can be happy and fulfilled in Christ as we grow in understanding and wisdom. We need to chose to be with Christ and follow him and share His Love with others.

It can be hard to open the eyes of others and they will need to desire to be open to Christ. We need to stand firm on the principles taught by Christ and be willing to speak out and to make sacrifices to follow them.

If we truly want to be with Christ, others will see that and want to follow Christ also.

[sitetest]

Dear markomalley,

I read this earlier today and have been thinking about it since.

It's a tough one.

My own reaction is similar to those posters who talk about evangelizing through our actions. I do believe that actions often speak louder than words. But I also believe that sometimes, our actions may provoke questions, and we need to be ready to answer those questions, to the best of our ability, and even more importantly, in a position of openness to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

The other thing to remember is that the people we need to evangelize are generally those closest to us. For those of us who are married with children, transmitting the faith to the best of our ability to them is our very most important evangelistic task. Also, many of us know many Catholics - whether friends or relatives, co-workers, etc. - who are, at best, nominal or occasional Catholics. By our example and our gentle words, perhaps we can evangelize these, too, to bring them to fuller participation and deeper faith.

sitetest