MY PARISH,
YOUR
PARISH
Living the Gospel in the Local Church
Parish Evangelization: Where Do You Begin?
Part I of a series on ways to engage the parish
with the New Evangelization.
Fr. Charles
Canoy
L
ay people who understand their vocation
to be Christ’s presence in the world is
not enough for the new evangelization
to flourish. They likewise must be formed and
equipped to be those evangelizers who will draw
people into the life of the Church.
Therefore, among the paramount duties
of the clergy is providing that necessary
formation for the lay faithful to fulfill the new
evangelization.
Where does
a pastor even
begin with such a
formidable task?
Since there is a
multitude of ways to begin this work of the
new evangelization at the parish, I would like
to propose just one initial step.
Upon arriving at my new assignment at
St. John the Evangelist Parish in Jackson,
Michigan, this past summer, I addressed the
congregation at all six weekend Masses as their
new pastor. I shared that I would be following
the advice of Pope Francis, who encouraged
priests to go out and “be shepherds with the
smell of the sheep.”
In striving to accomplish that, I said that
I wouldn’t wait for everyone to come to
church, but that I would visit them in their
neighborhoods and homes.
I recognized that they might wonder how
such an endeavor is possible in a parish with
over two thousand households. That may take
all nineteen years that my predecessor w