Educational Resource
Catechetical Sunday Resource: Promoting Evangelization at Home and Abroad (2012)
Catechetical Sunday, September 16, 2012 Resource
Promoting Evangelization at Home and Abroad by Fr. Michael Montoya, MJ, DMin, Executive Director of United States Catholic Mission Association
"A new evangelization is synonymous with mission, requiring the capacity to set out anew, go beyond boundaries and broaden horizons. (Synod of Bishops, XIII Ordinary General Assembly, The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith, Lineamenta [LNE], no. 10)
Go to any parish on any given Sunday and ask the congregation who among them know of a missionary, and only a few will raise their hands. Then ask who among them are baptized, and the majority, if not all, will raise their hands. This has been my experience for the past four years, asking the same questions every time I go to a parish to preach about mission and evangelization.
All of us, by virtue of our Baptism, are missionaries! However, we are seldom referred to as missionaries. In fact, if one looks at the different programs we have in our parishes— religious education, RCIA, sacramental preparations, youth ministry, young adult ministry—we seldom hear about our identity as missionaries, despite the fact that we claim that the Church by its very nature is missionary."