"the Church" and "the mission"

The Pope is calling upon "the Church" to have a "change of mentality" about its identity. Two days ago at a conference in Rome he said, "There is still a tendency to unilaterally identify the Church with the hierarchy, forgetting the common responsibility, the common mission" of all the baptized. He continued, "In Christ, we become really the People of God," which, he affirmed, means everyone, "from the Pope to the last child." More on this at ZENIT. A brief video reporting on the conference can be seen below:

Unfortunately its seems that the "clergy" - "laity" divide that reached a height in previous generations (known as clericalism) - still maintains a hold on mentality of much of the Church (both clergy and laity alike).

Post Vatican II there was a shift upon emphasizing the laity - but the Church was a bit confused about how to do this and what to do - and there was a movement to highlight "laity" in pastoral ministry (lay participation in the apostolate of the hierarchy) - which tended to liberalize certain essential truths about the ministerial priesthood - rather than emphasize the "apostolate of the laity" - which is the laity's commitment to evangelization.

Two important articles on this:

• What Should the Laity be Doing?
  This article, excerpted from Russell Shaw's book Catholic Laity in the Mission of the Church, discusses various ineffective attempts in incorporating the laity into the Church's mission and offers valuable insight into how laity can revitalize the Church in the future.


• What is the lay apostolate?
  This brief article explains what the lay apostolate is and why it is essential to the new evangelization. Following the article are several useful links on the apostolate.

What has your experience been? What do you like about what the Pope is saying? What challenges you?

Discovering Christ!

Blessed be God! With the help of a friend, Phil Rosensteel of Wired Different Media, we produced the following video that shares what Discovering Christ is and are plans to video produce it this summer:

I hope you enjoyed this video. Please consider committing to pray for us and to making a donation to the cause of the Gospel! Thank you!

We also produced second video - based on the same video shoot - that is shorter and ends before the appeal about evangelizing, the video production, and interceding. This version is an "invitation" for young adults we are inviting to this summer's course!

Steadfast in purpose. An amazing example!

Recently while prayerfully reading Acts chapter 11:19-26, I was struck, once again, by the early church's missionary zeal.

It is the account of those who were scattered because of the persecution in Jerusalem and how they continued to witness to Jesus as Lord! They weren't silenced or intimidated by the persecution.They couldn't stop talking about this good news of what God had done in Jesus of Nazareth who was raised from the dead. Some of those who were evangelizing began to share with non-Jews, Greeks, about the Lord Jesus. As a result many came to believe! The Church in Jerusalem sent Barnabas to Antioch to see what was happening and to help build up the new believers. When he saw the grace of God evident in the lives of those who believed, he was glad. Barnabas then exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord and steadfast in purpose (vs 23). I felt like that was a word for me and for those of us who serve in and our friends of ChristLife. It is a good word, isn't it? Something we all want in our walk with the Lord Jesus. To be faithful to him and absolutely steadfast in our purpose.

While in Michigan last week presenting a mission for two parishes, the pastor of St. Therese's shared a YouTube video that really illustrates faithfulness and steadfastness in purpose. Take a look and give thanks to the Lord for this man! You may not feel called to do what he did, but the key point that all of us should admire is his steadfastness in doing what he was called to do!

May we all have such passion to make the Lord known to others! May each of us be steadfast in purpose.

Believe Again A. N. Wilson Returns to the Faith

This is a great article from Breakpoint with Chuck Colson.

Two decades ago, A. N. Wilson wrote a critically acclaimed biography of C.S. Lewis. This and some other of his writings led some Christians to hope that Wilson might become what Alan Jacobs once called “that figure for whom so many have been waiting for so long, The Next C. S. Lewis.”

It therefore came as a surprise and a disappointment when Wilson publicly repudiated his Christian faith a few years later and became a mocker of Christianity.

Yet, this past Easter, in the U.K.’s Daily Mail, Wilson was urging British Christians not be cowed by “sneering” and “self-satisfied” critics like Richard Dawkins.

A. N. Wilson, you see, has returned to the faith. Why? In large measure because of the strongest evidence for the truth of the Gospel—that is, its impact on people’s lives.
Wilson wrote that in his “young manhood,” he “began to wonder how much of the Easter story [he] accepted.” By his thirties, he had lost all religious belief.

Why? He attributes it to growing up in a culture that was increasingly and “overwhelmingly secular and anti-religious.” To his “shame,” he says, he went along with the cultural tide. He felt that Christian faith was “uncool” and “unsexy.”

Wilson didn’t stop at what he calls this “playground attitude”: he “began to rail against Christianity” and wrote a book that described Jesus as a “messianic prophet who had . . . truly failed, and died.”

Yet on Palm Sunday just a few weeks ago, Wilson reported that he “heard the Gospel being chanted,” and could assent to it “with complete simplicity.” Sometime in the past 5 years, he went from writing a book about a failed messianic prophet to believing that Jesus had risen from the dead.

Again, the question is “why?” Part of the reason was that atheism and atheists in his words, “[miss] out on some very basic experiences of life.” He described listening to Bach or reading the works of Christian authors and realizing that their “perception of life was deeper, wiser, more rounded than [his] own.” seeing the world through the eyes of faith is “much more interesting” he said, than the alternatives.

Then there was the low esteem in which Darwinism holds man. The people who insist that we are “simply anthropoid apes” can’t account for something as basic as language. The “existence of language,” love and music, to name but a few, convinced Wilson that we are “spiritual beings.” For Wilson, they prove that “the religion of the incarnation, asserting that God made humanity in His image, and continually restores humanity in His image, is simply true.”

Then there’s what he regards the “an even stronger argument”: “the way that Christian faith transforms individual lives.” From “Bonhoeffer’s serenity before he was hanged” to the person next to you at church, Christians bear witness to the truth of Christianity and that as a “working blueprint for life” and “template against which to measure experience, it fits.”

I couldn’t put it any better. Welcome home, Mr. Wilson. It’s great to have you back.

Copyright (c) 2008 Prison Fellowship