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| Evangelisation as the purpse of the parish community |
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The business associates at the adjacent table at the Chinese restaurant in Dundalk were hard to ignore, so loud were their voices as they spoke to each other. I remember little of what they said, but the little I do remember has stayed with me ever since. In his unmistakable American accent one of them proclaimed, "We have to evangelise!" What interested me was that he was using a religious word in a business context. What struck me was that he spoke about evangelisation with great passion and enthusiasm. Over the last few months, I have noticed myself reflecting on questions about my lifestyle. I have found myself wondering: to what extent do my core convictions as a Christian, which I speak about in my preaching and formation work with adults, find their way into how I live my life? How much of my behaviour is being shaped by the secular culture I imbibe everyday? In what ways does my way of being with others, in a variety of settings, give witness to my relationship with Christ, if at all? In a real way these are questions of evangelisation. In their work of exploring an approach to faith formation which they call total community catechesis and in the light of what is said in the General Catechetical Directory (published by the Congregation for the Clergy in 1997) Tom Groome and Jane Regan both propose that evangelisation is at the heart of what the parish community does. The parish community exists in order to evangelise, each parishioner participates in that work and the function of faith formation in the parish is to enable the parish community to fulfill its primary task of evangelisation. The word evangelisation is rooted in the Greek word for "good news" but what do we mean by evangelisation as we use it in a church setting in the 21st century? Let's begin with what it is not. It is not proselytising – telling people what they ought to believe. Nor is it an activity simply aimed at getting results in the form of new church members. I am suspicious that there was a little of that in the businessman's approach – we tell people "the good news" about our product in order to sell more. Essentially, evangelisation is about us witnessing to our relationship with Jesus Christ by the way we live. Groom says: "The church now emphasises evangelisation as bringing Christians out into the world to live their faith in the marketplaces of life. Its focus is not to make non-Catholics into Catholics, but to make Catholics into Christians who live their faith in every arena and on every level – personal, interpersonal, and social/political." (p. 4-5) Regan builds on this when she says: "To claim that we are an evangelising community means that we have the responsibility of bringing the word of God into every dimension of human life. Evangelisation brings us beyond the boundaries of parochial life and requires that we recognise that all action, both corporate and individual, must have the goal of furthering the reign of God and enhancing a context of justice." (p. 35) This understanding of the purpose of the parish to be an evangelizing community offers us, I think, four affirmations and four corresponding challenges. The first is the affirmation that all members of the parish community, by virtue of our baptism and participation in the parish community have an active role to play in the life of the parish. The good news it that it is not a role that involves going to time-consuming parish meetings. Rather it is about how we are at home, in school, in the work place, in our places of recreation and recuperation. Also it is something that we can all do, no matter what our age. The challenge is to make the shift in understanding of the parish as a place we go to get what we need to parish as being the people who together witness to the values of God's reign by the way we live. The second affirmation is that faith formation, particularly the faith formation of adults becomes essential to this endeavour. Regan states: "Catechesis is at the heart of the process whereby the person who has been evangelised becomes an evangeliser. Through catechesis the parish is formed and transformed into an evangelising community." (p. 36) She goes on to say that "if we understand that we what we are about is forming an evangelizing church, the focus has to be adult faith formation – not in an exclusive way but in a radical way." (p.36) The challenge for our parishes and diocese is the make the shift from a predominantly child focused catechesis with adult catechesis as an optional extra to adult faith formation being the primary focus in the parish because it is adults who have the task of living evangelising lives and of enabling children to become evangelising adults. Which leads to the third affirmation: family life (all family life – not just the ideal family type that none of us live up to) is a school for evangelisation and parents and grandparents play an essential role in helping children to grow up to be adults who live lives that reflect the lifestyle of Jesus. Lessons of sharing, saying sorry, forgiving and loving without counting the cost are learned, first and foremost, at home. Attentive parents, grandparents and other relations can assist children in learning those lessons. The challenge for parents and grandparents is to be aware of the many moments in the day when they can be catechists in their own home and that in many ordinary ways they are helping their children to grown in faith. The challenge for the parish community is to have an effective family ministry that truly supports families as schools of evangelisation. Groom says: "Parishes must empower parents – with resources, training, suggestions, support, encouragement, expectation – to share faith within the interactions of family life." (p. 22) And the fourth affirmation follows on: faith formation is the task of the total parish community for the total parish community. The role of parents in the religious socialisation of children is supported and enhanced, but never replaced by the religious formation that the children participate in at school. Also the rest of parishioners by the example of their own lives participate in the faith formation of the children of the parish. But children are only part of the story. Returning to the second affirmation we are reminded that the primary focus of catechesis is the adults in the community. Thus faith formation is for everyone in the parish and all of us have our part play – we become teachers and learners in the catechetical endeavour of the parish. The challenge therefore is a total challenge for all of us. It the challenge of focus – to recognise that our purpose is to evangelise, that faith formation is at the service of evangelisation and that each of us has the responsibility to be a learner and a teacher. It is in this action of the total parish together that the parish participates in promoting the reign of God and becomes an evangelizing community. Something to get passionate and enthusiastic about. Tom Groome and Jane Regan's articles are published in Horizons and Hope: the Future of Religious Education, edited by Thomas Groome and Harold Daly Horell, (Paulist: Mahwah), 2003. Andrew McNally |
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