'The Church grows by attraction'

Archbishop Thomas Wenski preached this homily during a Mass opening the 35th annual Catechetical Conference. The Mass was celebrated Oct. 19, 2013 at Msgr. Edward Pace High School.

Today the Church celebrates the feast day of St. Isaac Jogues and his companions. They are referred to as the North American Martyrs. They were Jesuit missionaries who came from France to preach the Gospel to the Native Americans and were martyred for their efforts. Father Isaac Jogues, some years before he was martyred � by a tomahawk to the back of his neck � had been taken prisoner; he was tortured � his fingers were eaten or burned off � and for 13 months he was kept in slavery until he escaped and made his way back to Europe. Without fingers he could not celebrate Mass � especially since at that time liturgical law required a priest to hold the host with his thumb and forefinger. But the Pope gave him a special dispensation to celebrate Mass with his mutilated fingers � which inspired him to go back to North America and resume his missionary work until his martyrdom shortly after his return.

We hear Jesus in the Gospel reading today tell us, �Everyone who acknowledges me before others the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God.� Today, we honor St. Isaac Jogues and his companions because they � even in the face of great adversity � acknowledged Jesus before others. And, in a special way, we acknowledge all of you � and while we�re not asking you to offer up your hands to be mutilated � we acknowledge and thank you, for that same generosity of spirit that inspired these North American Martyrs is at work in you as you carry out this important ministry of catechesis. You too acknowledge Christ before those who come to our religious education programs.

The lives and martyrdom of these North American martyrs teach us that to know Jesus Christ by faith brings us true joy, to follow him is a real grace, and to pass on this treasure to others is the great commission that the Lord has entrusted to each one of us. I pray that your commitment to catechetical formation will be for you � and for the people you will serve � a joy, a grace, a treasure received and shared.

I thank you for your generosity � a generosity already shown in your commitment to formation. I am pleased to see the numbers who are enrolled in our catechist certification program � and every year more of you are receiving certification � which is more than just getting a �paper� � the process is about giving you the tools you need to be effective catechists. Your involvement in parish religious education programs is truly an exercise of great stewardship � and, balancing the demands of family, work and Church, you give of yourselves and your time, talent, and treasure for the building up of the Kingdom.

And building up the Kingdom requires more than just good will � it requires planning, preparation, training and formation. Too often, and this is because of the demands placed on us and the immensity of the challenges before us, we in the Church have contented ourselves with �improvising on the fly.� And a lot of times pastoral ministry can seem a bit like battlefield medicine. Even Pope Francis made some allusions about this recently. Since we encounter those wounded in the struggles of life, and since they are so many out there needing our help, we sometimes are forced to do some triage. Take care of the emergency now � and we do the clean up later on.

But, I am convinced that, if we are to evangelize seriously, we have to take up the task with the seriousness that planning, preparation, training and formation imply. And for the past many months, we have been about that task in our Archdiocesan Synod which comes to a happy conclusion next Saturday. As �disciples in faith and missionaries of hope,� we should give our best � God and his people deserve no less.

The Church exists to evangelize � to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to all. And what we do in your parishes is all about evangelization. And given the fact that today the culture does not support us, we need to look always for more effective means in order to better evangelize and catechize our people.

In a beautiful document that concluded their meeting with the Holy Father in Aparecida in 2007, the bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean wrote: �The Church, as a �community of love�, is called to reflect the glory of God�s love, and thus attract persons and peoples to Christ�.The Church grows not by proselytizing but �by attraction�: as Christ �attracts all to himself with the power of his love�. The Church �attracts� when it lives in communion, for the disciples of Jesus will be recognized if they love one another as He loved us.� (#159 concluding document, Aparecida).

�The Church grows by attraction.� What a wonderful insight! What a challenge for us as we seek to �indoctrinate� those in our religious education programs. In many parishes, we still call our faith formation programs CCD (the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine). Yet, as Pope Benedict, said in Deus Caritas Est, �Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.�

As Catholics we have received a great treasure - the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel is not something we created or shaped or formed. Whether we are ordained ministers or laity, we have no authority to change the Gospel. Rather, it is given to us to shape us, form us, and re-create us so that in the words of St. Paul to the Romans we become �children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.� Once in a while I�ll hear somebody tell me that religion is �boring� � and certainly today too many Christians, too many Catholics, give the impression that they are �tired� of believing. But, rather than allow such attitudes to annoy us, we should be challenged by them. If we are �boring� people, perhaps it might be because we�re not communicating to them the joy of faith � and if we�re not communicating the joy of faith, we�re not fully communicating the good news of Jesus Christ. Our mandate � that Great Commission � is to proclaim Jesus to all and as we do so to allow his Gospel to change us� and in changing us, to enable us change the world.

I appreciate what you do to help me and the pastors of our parishes to teach our people, and to help them and especially our young people, to grow in the faith and love of the Lord. I thank you for your commitment, for your joy, and for your hard work.