Christ is Risen!
Posted by JohnG (April 9, 2007 at 2:23 pm)
Welcome to the time of the Resurrection.
One could say that Great and Holy Friday, Holy Saturday, and Celebration of our Lord’s Resurrection is a model for us.
One cannot get to the Joy of the Resurrection by skirting the Passion. Therefore we must look at any change in the Byzantine Church in a Pascal sense i.e. Dying and being reborn. The idea of dying and rebirth are scary to many people. They are afraid of the pain that change brings. However, like a sick person in denial, we must frankly deal with the situation of the Byzantine Catholic Church in America.
What does this mean? It means that we must face the fact that as a Church we are having more funerals than baptisms. That our vocations are lean, that the structures that have been in place for years need to be adapted and changed so that we can experience rebirth.
A good friend used to tell me that if you wanted to grow roses, you have to handle a lot of manure. The idea is that we have to start getting dirty and doing some work. Sitting on our hands and hoping that something is going to happen isn’t going to save us.
So, what is Byzantine Evangelization? What do these words mean to us as individuals, and as a Church. What are we called to do in order to spread the word of God? What are we called to do in order to renew our Church? Lets face it renewal is a messy thing, it isn’t easy, and it won’t be clean.
We must ask ourselves are we willing to do what it takes?
John,
Right you are. On the local level door to door evangelization certainly helps. Why not volunteer at your local community colleges to give a presentation on your local Church. How about starting a home based Bible Study or study of a great Byzantine classic?
What about a national sobor or even a conference on Evangelization in which people could come and share ideas?
BEMA teams would be happy to come to your church and either share through testimony what God is doing in our lives. We’d be happy to help Churches begin to look at ways they could use some ideas to bring more life to your Church.
I’m convinced also that a new approach to vocations would help immensely. But I think we must be convinced that we have a future before any ideas will work. It would be great, for example, if we had closer ties between men who have indicated an interest in a vocation and the eparchies. It would be great if most of our Eastern Catholic Churches would pool their resources into one semiary for all of us, maybe in the Mid West. Finally, it would be wonderful if we reestablished connections with some of the monasteries that we have rebuffed in the past.
Probably one of the best things we could do is to establish some kind of network among the Churches and priests that really believe that we have a future so that we could mutually support one another.
CDL
Comment posted April 15th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Indeed He is Risen!
Comment posted June 13th, 2007 at 10:03 am
Thanks your message is delightful.
I will definitely read your site..
ciao
Comment posted October 15th, 2007 at 6:05 am