Currently, every vicariate in the diocese is meeting with me to give an update on the Go Make Disciples initiative in the parishes.
The priests, along with their lay leadership, are sharing with me both the details of their evangelizing plan and some of the initial fruits.
As we move into Phase Two of Go Make Disciples, every parish is seeking to implement three dimensions: To inculcate the four holy habits: weekly Sunday Mass, daily prayer, monthly Confession, and a form of regular penance; to offer more effective formational and spiritual opportunities for the entire parish; and to call and form the “72 disciples,” parishioners already motivated and engaged, so that they can evangelize and lead others into a deeper relationship with Christ and the Church.
I am greatly encouraged and heartened by everyone’s sincere effort to embrace this missionary impulse, which is the very heart of the Church’s life and purpose.
I thank our priests, deacons, and lay leadership who are working very hard to make Go Make Disciples a reality in the life of each parish.
Responding the challenges
This moment also leads me to ponder deeply on the need to reimagine how our parishes can best respond to the profound challenges of our beloved Church and culture.
In many ways, our diocesan and parish structures were created for a very different era, when most Catholics actively participated in the life of the parish, an abundance of priests and Religious led and served our institutions, the parish was the heart of the neighborhood and the center of people’s spiritual and social life.
So much of this parochial fabric has simply disappeared in the last 50 years.
We have fewer priests and far fewer Religious; the number of Baptized Catholics who actively participate in the life of the Church is small and diminishing; increasing numbers of young people have simply walked away from any practice of religion; people are highly mobile and technologically astute; profound cultural shifts have led many to reject the Church’s moral teachings.
All of this profound change challenges us to rethink how we can renew and reimagine our parishes so that they increasingly become spiritually powerful communions of missionary disciples who live the Gospel and evangelize others into an abundant and saving relationship with Jesus Christ.
I am not implying here that everything is a disaster. By no means! We are abundantly blessed here in our diocese with dedicated priests, Religious, deacons, and laity who heroically and generously live out the Gospel.
In many ways, our discipleship and stewardship are remarkably strong and growing. Many people in our local Church joyously and generously love Jesus Christ and give themselves in His service.
It is from a position of relative strength that I invite us to consider how we can effectively and fearlessly realign our institutions and our resources to even better serve the mission of proclaiming the kerygma of salvation in Jesus Christ, and to seek the transforming fire of the Holy Spirit, so that our parishes and schools, our clergy and laity, our families and organizations are called, formed, equipped, and sent on the fundamental mission which Jesus Christ gave His Church in the Great Commission: to proclaim the Gospel to every creature, to make disciples of all nations and to baptize in the name of the Trinity.
Going back to the ‘Upper Room’
As we enter the final weeks of Lent and prepare the celebrate the Paschal Mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection as the source and center of our Catholic faith, this moment is opportune for us to go back to the Upper Room, drink deeply of the Holy Spirit, and to set forth anew in our Gospel conviction that we have been personally sent by the Son of God to proclaim the Good News and to sanctify the world in His image and likeness.
We cannot afford to simply do the same things in the same way and expect fundamentally different results.
How do we take the best of the rich Catholic legacy which our forebears have left us and build on those solid foundations so that we are equipped and ready to live the fullness of Catholicism which we so deeply love?
Through the data we have received from the Go Make Disciples evangelizing initiative, the 15,000 survey responses to the Disciple Maker Index, the Synod process, our Hispanic regional gatherings, and our Rural Life listening sessions, a pattern is emerging which helps to guide our thoughts and conclusions in this reimagining.
In next week’s edition of the Catholic Herald, as well as through social media, I will lay out a fuller vision of diocesan and parish life, as we seek to better serve the plethora of human needs, navigate the variety of challenges, and set our course ever more firmly on Christ and His saving Gospel, so that all of our institutions, structures, organizations, leaders, and people find fundamental alignment, needed resources, formation, and support in this essential endeavor.