Keith over at Take Your Place is having an interesting discussion about why Catholics have such a viscerally negative reaction to the word evangelization.
It reminds me of an experience I had shortly after my "jump-start conversion" my freshman year of college. That summer, my family drove to Alaska for vacation. As anyone who has taking long road trips before knows, Christian radio stations dot the landscape. On one of the days of the drive, my Dad tuned the radio to a new station that to anyone familiar with CCM would be recognized as a Christian station. Well, my parents probably just thought it was a nice song. But as soon as the DJ came back on and said the word Jesus both of their hands raced for the dash to change the channel.
Now you have to keep in mind that I'm a cradle Catholic. My family attended Mass every week. My brother and I went to CCD. Our family even served often as a Host Family at our home parish (a strange quasi-usher, greeter, altar server role of the parish I grew up in.) As you can imagine, now energized in my faith, the sight of my parents rushing to change the channel at the mention of our Lord's name surprised and shocked me.
As many have mentioned on the thread over at Take Your Place, I think many Catholics confuse proselytization with evangelization. Frankly, that's understandable. Our culture pushes a distorted view of tolerance that has shaped what we think is acceptable behavior when presenting ideas that challenge the ideas accepted by others. Of course, anyone who has heard the Gospel preached and accepted its message will tell you that there is nothing more intolerant than not sharing the treasure of the Good News with our fellow man, be it via word or deed.
But I think the story about my parents has something to do with how we, Catholics, react to the word evangelization. Now, I have learned since that time that it isn't my place to doubt the existence of my parent's faith. (God's given me sufficient experiences to teach me that I'm not a good judge of the souls of others.) But I do know that their experience of the faith has been different than mine. I don't think they have experienced the same type of encounter with Christ that I have. Or if they have they haven't recognized it fully. And to me, the rest of us who are part of the Body of Christ bear some responsibility for not being Christ's presence to folks like my parents.
It should come as no surprise that I think much of the ills of the Church stem from a drastic lack of understanding of the mission of the Catholic laity, such as described in CFL. And I think that re-discovering that identity is rooted in a better formation about what it means to be part of the Body of Christ and of the Church. Which means, Catholics must become comfortable with verbalizing our faith, for I cannot envision a formation approach that doesn't involve, at least in part, talking about the faith. And for that formation to take deep and lasting root, it must tackle the question that the apostles repeatedly asked after encountering Christ: who is He? Maybe then the word evangelization will no longer be a dirty word to us. Probably for a time a scary word, as can be anything new or that we are not sure of our capacity to do. But then in time a natural part of who we are: Christ's people and living presence in the world.
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