Category Archives: Introduction

What Does An Evangelizing Parish Look Like?

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The title of this post is one I’ve been struggling with for some time: What does an evangelizing parish look like? In my opinion, this is a vital question that every person in the Catholic Church, whether clergy, religious or lay, needs to be asking. This question is not asked over concern for the future of the Catholic Church, but for the future salvation of those in our communities and neighborhoods.

Much has been made over the past 20-30 years about parishes establishing “mission statements”, but very few that I’ve seen explicitly mention evangelization. Yet, that is a primary mission which Our Lord gave to the Apostles: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19-20) It’s my contention that we do not evangelize as Catholics because have not made evangelization a primary mission of our parishes.

This post is the first in what should be a lengthy series of intermittent posts discussing various things a “model” evangelizing parish does. My hope is to get a vision that I and other pastors can use to reform our priestly ministry and guide our parishes in becoming evangelizing forces within our communities.

Same Name, New Location, New Look

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After much wailing and gnashing of teeth (OK, maybe not “much”, but there was some), I have decided to say “So Long!” to Blogger and move out on my own. I did this for three reasons: 1) While I haven’t had any problems with either Blogger or Google, I am becoming increasingly uncertain that Google will be able to continue to restrain itself from censoring opinions that it finds to be politically incorrect or troublesome. 2) Having my own domain allows me to more easily explore other media formats, such as podcasts, if I feel drawn to do so. 3) My web development skills are very rusty, and this gives me the space to do some development on my own in preparation for developing new parish websites.

What this means is that eventually the old Blogger-based blog will eventually be deleted. Never fear, however, that old posts will be erased with it. The new blogging software (WordPress) has helpfully imported all the old posts and most of the comments (I think older comments were lost, sorry!) into the new blog, so I can continue where I left off.

With the new blog comes a new look, but I hope that this will be only temporary. I’m in the process of learning how to develop a WordPress theme that will change automatically based on the liturgical season and possibly even for major feasts. I don’t know when (or if) this will happen, but it should be interesting.

With any change comes a period of growth and uncertainty. Please feel free to leave suggestions and comments in the comment box. Welcome!

So, why yet another blog?

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With all the blogs, some good, many not-so-good, why do I feel it necessary to inflict another blog on the world? My hope is that this blog will have a three-fold purpose. First, it will allow me to post my homilies and receive feedback on how good or bad the homily is, what works, what doesn’t, etc. Second, and more importantly, I hope that it can be used in some small way to help spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world. Finally, I hope to just have some fun with it, linking to items and articles that I find interesting, cool, or just plain old strange. In other words, I hope it’ll be quite a mix of posts.

Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!

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The title of the blog comes from the New Vulgate translation of Psalm 150. I always look forward to praying this psalm within the four week psalter of the Liturgy of the Hours, so I have adopted this last line as my personal motto.