lay mission – Madison Catholic Herald

On Thursday of this week (October 11), the Church will be celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council and the 20th Anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church’s promulgation with the initiation of a very special Year of Faith.

In his apostolic letter Porta Fidei, Pope Benedict XVI called for this special year —which will conclude on November 24, 2013 — with the primary aim “to arouse in every believer the aspiration to profess the faith in fullness and with renewed conviction, with confidence and hope.” He also intends this year to be “a good opportunity to intensify the celebration of the faith in the liturgy, especially in the Eucharist,” and to “intensify the witness of charity.”

On October 11, 2012

Lindsay Becher

Witnessing to a wide web world

As the faithful enter this Year of Faith, they will be called to give witness to their faith more and more. In Porta Fidei, Pope Benedict wrote, “faith grows when it is lived as an experience of love received and when it is communicated as an experience of grace and joy.”

In a time when the virality of a message and success in communications is often measured by the number of views a video gets on YouTube and how many times an article is shared on Facebook, it makes sense that Catholics would feel like their message and witness is not easily or rapidly spread through the world today.