PARISHES REPRESENTED: St. Ambrose, Our Lady of the Assumption, St. Pius
X, St. Clare's, Our Lady Of Mercy and St. Francis de Sales SR. ANNE: Just the people that were here last month, let's talk about
what you think happened. What happened, what was good for you? One at
a time so we can hear. INDIVIDUAL PARTICIPANTS: • commonality of values; SR. ANNE: I want to keep the groups mixed up again, so that we will get
to know each other. And we have minutes, lots of minutes. So, anyone who would like to read
those minutes, talk to the people who were here last time. Because everyone
received copies of that. So, you can read word for word everything that
we did here. I'm just saying that if you would like to get caught up. SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION SR. ANNE: As we begin our session tonight, it's going to be on evangelization.
Basically we want to look at the mission and at the ministry of the parish
– of all of our parishes. And so, looking at evangelization tonight, I'm sure you enter with much
enthusiasm and probably have already even reflected on the first few questions.
However, to do this -- and I think we will do it in a variety of ways
-- I don't know how much is written on your sheets as far as possible
things -- but I think we're not going to milk every question in each group.
We'll kind of look at how we can of get a feedback from all the groups
working together. (The participants were separated and proceeded to ten individual tables;
a recorder was assigned at each table.) SR. ANNE: Now what I'm going to ask you to do as we begin to look at
evangelization, one of the things we need to do is first of all reflect
ourselves. And there are a couple of questions that were put on the sheet,
and I'm going to ask you if you would share just with your table -- and
the recorder please record these things: Before you prepared for the session,
what came to mind when you heard or saw the word “evangelization”? And the second question was: How did your reading and preparation for
this session change or expand your understanding of “evangelization”? We're only going to take a few minutes to do this. But if you could just
surface what did that mean to you, what did you think evangelization was,
and where are you today because of the readings? Now, would you just share
that for a few seconds, please? (A small group discussion among each individual table followed.) SR. ANNE: Let's take a few minutes just to kind of hear the kind of feedback
that's been going around the tables. And what I want to ask tonight is
if the recorders will talk over toward Lil because she's the one that
needs to also hear you, so talk loud so that she can hear you. Let's just start with this group here, give us some feedback. Let's listen
to Table 7. PARTICIPANT: I'll start with the first question. We hear these words
a lot and have heard them so long that in many cases they kind of lose
their meaning for us. Evangelization is what other religions do, missionaries,
the Mormons, the people who knock at the door. Somebody said it's the
way you act, it's the way you treat others. And that's pretty much what
we came up with for the first part. SR. ANNE: Super. PARTICIPANT: Do you want the second part? SR. ANNE: Please. PARTICIPANT: After reading the material, we had a sense that, really,
we do evangelization. We may not call it evangelization, but we do it.
It's how we present ourselves to people, how we treat others. On the other
hand, we probably need to do it a lot more actively than we do now. SR. ANNE: Super. How about that group over there. Give us some feedback. PARTICIPANT: On the first question, what the Gospel means to us, evangelize
to those who have fallen away. One member didn't have ideas so much as
a feeling of fearful, of ridicule, of reaching out especially with the
church scandal that we had to deal with. It was identified that we have
some self-serving communities, and that we can also reach out to non-participating
Catholics. The second question became apparent that evangelization is not as daunting
of a task as we first thought. There are many non-threatening ways with
which we can evangelize. It's a twenty-four hour a day job. And one means
to get started is to evangelize within families on a personal basis. SR. ANNE: Wonderful. This group over here, please. PARTICIPANT: This was a very homogenous group. It was interesting, but
that the idea was reaching out to our circle of friends, coworkers, those
around us in our family, to witness and bear witness to Christ in your
life. It isn't pounding on doors. But it's actively representing yourself
to others. It's knowing that we are loved by Jesus, and are bringing back
that love by loving others was another point that was brought out. But
basically the emphasis has changed from the past to that we now have a
responsibility to reach out and to share this Good News. SR. ANNE: Wonderful. That group over there, please. PARTICIPANT: For the first part (what it meant), spread the Good News,
spread the word through Baptism, preach the Gospel, bring people back
to faith, that was the word I heard. It's important to die -- the reawakening.
How important it is to publicly live the faith. And the second part was more of a personal thing in your own life by
your everyday actions. What is it -- you know, the joy of having your
faith, and public prayer. An example that was given is the example of
the Super Bowl with the coaches and how they work. They were witnesses
by publicly admitting that they were Christian. They were not afraid in
the secular world and to show witness to that. Another person had said to leave Mass as a different person each week
as building blocks. That strength allows you to give the witness. And
there was one more thing. It was an example. Would you be willing to share
what you said? PARTICIPANT: Oh, it was just an expression. “Show me your life,
and I'll tell you your prayer.” SR. ANNE: Thank you. This group over here. PARTICIPANT: On the first question, we turned it around and said that
the people who are annoying are of concern, and about the depth of the
faith of some of these people. TV evangelists, there was negative connotations.
Everyday actions. And communicating in various ways and living out your
faith the way it should be. We just started getting into number two, and what it came down to out
of that one was that you can see how many different ways there are to
evangelize. SR. ANNE: Okay. This group here, please. PARTICIPANT: We didn't have a lot of changes even before. We had a number
of people who were already very -- knew what they were talking about.
So, our communication, we also have large gatherings, reaching out, showing
excitement by action, by good example, by mentoring others. The second part was being spirited, again living our actions, being welcoming,
being accepting, using everything -- the media -- everything can be used
to evangelize. And also by sharing stories. SR. ANNE: And this group here, please. PARTICIPANT: First of all, we said that a couple of people felt there's
not enough priests now; so, why are we looking for more? So, it was kind
of a negative feeling towards it. And we evolved from the first question
to the second, I think. We talked about, like, Billy Graham, Jehovah Witnesses,
that kind of thing. And then somebody brought up that there's really,
like, two kinds of groups: one are those who were brought up in the church
and now they have left the church; and then there are the others who never
had our faith. And, you know, trying to show them rather than forcing
anything -- you can't really force anything. Good acts. St. Francis de
Sales said, "Preach the Gospel at all times, use words when necessary."
So, one-to-one encounters are most important too, to be one-on-one with
people. And also, "God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the
called". So, also we need to be more enthusiastic ourselves. In order to evangelize
you have to be pretty enthusiastic yourself about your religion. SR. ANNE: As we listen to all of us this -- Oh, I'm sorry, we have one
more group. PARTICIPANT: Similar to one of the first groups, missionaries going out
and doing evangelization, how we live our lives, sharing the Gospel with
others, sharing ministry or ministering to others, bringing Jesus and
being Jesus to others. Somebody thought to evangelize is with a specific
goal in mind, to minister to the unchurched for those who have fallen
away. Sharing the Gospel again. Somebody said they saw that in the word
“evangelization” is the word “angel” which means
“messenger”. And the messenger goes out and brings the Good
News. And also evangelization being a safe and loving environment. SR. ANNE: Wonderful. Now, as we listen, a lot of people are saying the
same things. It was non-Catholics or -- you know, sometimes we can get
uncomfortable talking about our faith or sharing our faith. And yet evangelization
is so central, so central to the church and what we really need to talk
about. LARGE GROUP DISCUSSION SR. ANNE: What I would like to do now is have a whole group discussion,
not tables now, but all of us talk together. We are not going to milk
all of these facts, because we're not going to spend till tomorrow evening
together. So, what we want to do is start to surface some of this. But
as we do this, let me just kind of read them out loud, and then let's
chime in for a few minutes and talk together, what does this mean? These
are the questions -- because this is really the heart of the mission of
the church: • what do we understand by evangelization? If it is at the heart of the mission of the Church -- why we exist as
Church -- how can it become a "lens" to view everything we do;
and if this happened, what would change? As you just even hear them again -- and I'm sure you read them over before
-- but let us now just have a whole group discussion with each other for
a few minutes on this whole thing of evangelization and what this really
means. PARTICIPANT: Making our faith known. PARTICIPANT: Well, I was always impressed at the power of the Pope to
be world conscious. And, you know, I think people of many faiths want
to look up to the Pope and how he works for us, so to speak. And, in a
sense, the same thing translates down. People look up to him because he
represents more than the self-interest of this nation or that nation,
or that leader, but he represents Christ and he represents the Christian
principles. And that's why I like him to do a good job. And the same I
guess translates down whether you're talking about the bishop, the pastor,
or ourselves in terms of what we represent to the rest of the community. PARTICIPANT: I'll readily admit that I read the paper at 6:20 tonight
because it got buried on my kitchen table. I wish I had read it earlier
because I had interaction with a student today and I could have taken
that opportunity to be more positive and to share my -- just to interact
with him more as a Christian as Jesus would want me to, and I did not.
And so, after reading this information and hearing people talk now, living
your life and use words as you need to and stuff like that, I see a bad
habit that I've gotten into, one that I'm going to be able to change. PARTICIPANT: I think that's an excellent point. Because I think that,
in order to be a good evangelizer, we have to be truly spirited within
ourselves and have a strong sense of faith and commitment. PARTICIPANT: The evangelists wrote down the story of Jesus so that other
people could read it and become acquainted with it. PARTICIPANT: In the south, some of the Baptists are very -- if you move
in many areas of the south, when you meet a person, the very first question
is what church do you belong to – and people are very up front about
it -- which Baptist church do you belong to because there are so many.
But it's a thing -- and they will immediately invite you to come to their
church or to their community. I have a nephew who died in Georgia last August, and his brother, another
nephew, his wife is a very strong Baptist, so he has joined her church.
And it's a very, very small congregation. The Catholic congregation did
nothing for him. I went to the church and there was nobody there to meet
me. It was like Jesus coming into the house. There was nobody there to
put anything out. I had to learn where things were from the undertaker.
Lights weren't turned on. I wasn't given a speaker, nothing. This other
small church came and put on the whole dinner. And it wasn't even a member
of their congregation; it was a member of their congregation -- his brother.
And they did the whole thing. And they all came to the funeral besides.
And there was no parishioners that showed up. So that was right in that
same community where the Catholics there should have been thinking a little
bit more from their Protestant neighbors. And seeing that first-hand,
the Baptist thing of reaching out and being there. PARTICIPANT: And, at the same time, I have this prejudice against certain
evangelists because I think that they're not all Christian, according
to what I think Christian values are. When somebody, for instance, says
that New Orleans had it coming, or that people with AIDS deserve what
they get, or something like that. So that what you're saying counterbalances
what I'm trying to say, this other prejudice that I have, which I don't
necessarily know exactly what those people represent, but probably as
Christians have been embarrassed by some of the things that have been
said in the name of Christianity. PARTICIPANT: But who is the one to evangelize? And actually I think we
need to tell our story. What has my faith done for me personally, what
are my personal stories of where God has entered into my life and touched
me in a way or touched one of my family. And I don't think we just need
to tell these stories to strangers, I think we need to tell these stories
to each other within our parishes. I think we need to get up front and
maybe have Sundays where we actually tell these stories to each other
and listen to other people's stories. I don't think we do that the way
we should as Catholics. Because God truly has helped all of us, each one
of us in this room has been touched by Christ in one way or another. How
many people have we told or shared the story with? Or maybe they can be
written down and shared. I have no idea. But I think that's where it needs
to begin, it needs to begin with us. Maybe if we practice, then we can
get out there. You know what I'm saying. PARTICIPANT: When you talk about whose responsibility is this, you're
better at it than I am. You wear a collar, you got a cross around your
neck. Until tonight, it's mine, it's nobody else's responsibility, it's
mine. And I'm not going to dictate to you what you should be doing, I
can only pay attention to me, and it's my job. PARTICIPANT: I don't always feel very much like evangelizing myself,
though. I don't know if anyone else has that same feeling. I feel like
a lot of times I'm the one that needs to work on myself, or I'm the one
that needs to get the support to uplift my own faith. So, I don't always
feel that I'm enthusiastic enough, for whatever reason, to evangelize.
And I think that's one of the things I learned from reading this stuff
and thinking about it. I started thinking how excited am I, and I wasn't
that excited to broadcast or whatever. I don't know if anybody else feels
that way. PARTICIPANT: I'd love to hear somebody tackle the fourth question. Because
I have thoughts on all of those points except for the fourth one. I'm
really struggling with that fourth one. SR. ANNE: Well, how is it related to pastoral planning for our parishes
and the diocese as a whole? PARTICIPANT: Well, I go back to what is the purpose or the -- what is
the goal of evangelization? Is it to get more people, or what is the goal?
And I think if I understood the goal, maybe then I could look at how we
plan to get there. I think I first need to understand what is truly the
goal of evangelization. PARTICIPANT: The diocese just put out a record of all of those accounts
that were done in the parishes, and they sent out a report within each
district, in the Town of Colonie, the deanery, and then the diocese. And
it averages out to about 25 percent of the registered parishioners were
coming to Mass on any kind of a regular basis. But I just read somewhere
that Roman Catholics are the largest single Christian denomination in
the United States. Southern Baptists are the second. But if we were to
separate out the Roman Catholics and the inactive Catholics, they would
be the second largest denomination in the country. Which is more than
the southern Baptists. It's very, very scary. And it's growing all the
while. So, that's the thing that we need to be looking at, to find some
way to bring back some of our own because it's just not there. PARTICIPANT: I was just thinking. Really, what's the relationship if
you relate it to pastoral planning and to our parish and stuff. And it
really is how our parish or how the diocese comes out and is seen by other
people other than Catholics. And it's by the diocese -- if we look at
the diocese action, if we look at the DDP, we have great programs, but
are we seeing individual action or reflections from these programs of
Catholics? And this is what we have to be looking at. Evangelizing is
-- as the gentleman down there said, it’s himself, it's every single
one of us. It's how we walk around and how we present ourselves, or how
we do things to go around and show that we believe that Jesus Christ is
our Lord and Savior, and that we are practicing that. PARTICIPANT: How I see this fitting in together with pastoral planning
– evangelization fitting in with pastoral planning -- is that as
people we have to realize that the church is not our buildings, and that
if we don't get excited ourselves about our faith and know that we're
coming into changing times, everything is changing; if we do not work
together and if we do not feel that this is that important, then it doesn't
matter about the people outside because it's up to us to keep this living,
and it's up to us to keep it going. It won't grow unless we grow ourselves
and unless we come together. So, we need to evangelize together and to
realize that we are not separate entities, we're one. The Diocese of Albany
is the church of Albany, and that's us. It's not this; it's us. PARTICIPANT: I think it was one of those shows about who is the best
comedian -- and I'm not going to get it exactly right but it was one lady
up there -- maybe she was a comic or something or other -- but she said
something like, well, you know, I'm a Catholic, I don't have to pray,
I have people who do that for me. In a way I think there's really a lot
of truth underneath that in the sense especially that historically in
Catholic communities everybody was Catholic. And the world goes on and
we count people who aren't in a way not necessarily participating, they're
not -- not only Catholics. So, I just thought that was interesting, that
that's probably something that's more true in the Catholic faith than
other faiths, and that people in some ways -- I don't know -- I think
it's a cultural thing and maybe it's our problem that in that sense we're
not very attentive listeners even in the sense of what we read here, we're
not very evangelistic, never mind our prejudice or idea of what evangelists
are. Most Catholics probably don't feel that that's part of their role
or that they need to do that. So, maybe that's the difference. I don't
know the answer, but I think it's probably a very deep cultural thing.
And I'm not saying I really understand it, but I just thought it was interesting
that it was brought out in a comedy routine, but sometimes it's also very
true. PARTICIPANT: When I think about pastoral planning and I think about each
individual parish, and some of what we talked about are the words of evangelism
but not necessarily the acts of evangelism. And in each one of our parishes
when you think about Catholics, there are holes. Some of our parishes
react to senior citizens very well; some of the rest of us don't. Some
parishes do very well with adult education; some of the rest of us don't.
There are acts which we -- if we decided in our planning and the group
of us as six parishes -- just to give you an example -- what if all six
of us parishes decided that no child in the Town of Colonie would go hungry.
That is one heck of an evangelization. So, I think sometimes you can get
off on the words issue. And I think I heard somebody say if all else fails,
then use words. And I don't mean to diminish them, but acts are the strongest
thing, and we all can do acts. Some of us may have difficulty saying the
words, but if we collectively get together and decide in terms of planning,
if we decide what's working for the people in the parish and the community,
and we collectively act together, that is a strong commitment. PARTICIPANT: I agree with that. And when I was thinking about the fourth
question, I relate it to pastoral planning because if we're doing that
and we're living out our lives or trying to live our lives every day the
way Jesus wants us to live it, that's what evangelization is. I think
we are going to start including more people in their parish and in their
faith. Whether it's non-practicing Catholics or whatever, I see pastoral
planning as bringing more people into the daily support of the church.
And if I'm doing my part, if I'm living my life the way that Jesus wants
me to and I'm evangelizing, I'm going to eventually affect other people.
And if I affect other people within my church or within my parish, I'm
going to bring them back to my parish. And I think that's part of pastoral
planning because it's going to be supporting the entire parish. PARTICIPANT: So far what I heard most people saying is all very excitable
and very close to hitting the mark on what many of the questions that
are eliciting comments and thoughts about. And, of course, it has a lot
to do with the adults. Now, just by a show of hands, is there anyone here
besides myself still under forty? I think my point is well taken. By that I mean that, even here in our group, there's few if any young
adults. What I think our report is asking inasmuch as we need to reach
out to the perhaps disenfranchised or the lapsed Catholics in the church,
is not so much the past -- as well as that's very important to respect
it and to regard it well -- but also the future. Most people in here I'm sure have a couple of children maybe right around
my age. Do most of them go to church every week? I think we're asking
more to get involved in inviting them to continue, especially if they
themselves have children and inviting them to continue or to regain or
rediscover the riches of their faith. And I think what part of our mark needs to be in terms of future planning
is a greater emphasis on retaining the youth, inasmuch as they will be
the future. I think that's going to be a significant aspect of that. So,
evangelization somehow has to necessarily one way or the another continue
to work at being a welcoming environment from the church, working on young
people, especially those who have a very different experience other than
most all of you who are older than me and in your time growing up in church,
whether or not you're a cradle Catholic or even a convert. Because the
church that you grew up in, and to a certain extent the little bit that
I grew up in, is far passing that of our generation behind us. So, their
experiences are going to be radically different. And again it goes back to in terms of properly paraphrasing St. Francis,
preach the Gospel at all times, use words when necessary. And I think
maybe the gentle reminders and the encouragement that parents and families
give -- because ultimately that's where all the vocations are -- which
is what our meetings are all about these next eighteen months to work
on some of that. So, perhaps we can try to put that in the front of our
minds when we're thinking about some of the future planning for the pastoral
planning purposes. PARTICIPANT: I don't know if anyone here saw -- there was a news article
this week regarding the Latin -- or there was a special about the Latin
communities throughout the United States, and how so many -- you know,
they've all been raised Catholic and they're all leaving the church and
they're leaving to join evangelic Christian churches. And one of the big
things that was brought out by a lot of these people is that they have
learned that God loves them, and they have learned that it's okay to say
that. And the Catholic church has always been very quiet -- you know,
nobody really talks about their faith, nobody really goes out and communicates
that. And they have found that it's okay to do that. And they're finding
strength through that in other parishes and these other churches. And
maybe that's something that we need to do. PARTICIPANT: One of the things that we must be able to do in a number
of years is to work on an RCIA team. And one of the consistencies –
you know, I've been asked a number of times why am I a Catholic; so, I'm
forced to think about that and come up with an answer. But most of the
people who come, I never heard anybody say -- although this may be true
-- I never heard anybody say I want to be a Catholic because I decided
-- I've done a lot of research on a lot of churches and the Catholic faith
is the faith that's the best, that's the true faith, that's the one faith.
People come to the church because they're comfortable in the community.
They may have a spouse who is a practicing Catholic and they want to become
a Catholic as well, they may have been going to church for a long time,
they may know people who go to a particular church. But what brings people
into the church is the community. And when we talk about the planning
for evangelization, we need to talk about community. I don't want to say
the people who don't come to us are choosing some other community -- that's
probably true – but the thing that draws people that I found in
the years that I've been in RCIA it's the community. People choose the
community. They choose Our Lady of Mercy, or they choose St. Pius, but
they choose a community. They don't necessarily choose a big church but
they choose a community because we live our beliefs. PARTICIPANT: I think too that we need to recognize the value of the Catholic
faith. And I don't think -- I think we have been brought up with it and
we take it for granted. All the rituals and all of the support that we
know we have because it's been engrained in us from when we were little.
The next generation may not have that same bringing-up and don't understand
or -- when the need is there for the strength, it's not there. So, I think
we should as a Catholic community praise and be grateful for some of the
rituals and the traditions that we have with God's love around us. God's
love within us needs to be presented to the world, not all of the negative
aspects that sometimes the community sees in the Catholic faith. PARTICIPANT: Just going off on what she just said, I have several young
children and I get very concerned about this next generation. You know,
because the church traditions that we were taught are not being carried
on. Families are not carrying them on. And I'm very nervous that they
are not going to know right from wrong. And in response to I think what
everyone is saying is we need to also sustain our new members, our old
members from the time they first enter the church, we need to sustain
that relationship with these people whether they come through RCIA, whether
they come through parish prep, Baptismal prep. I think it's hard work,
but we have to do it and we have to do it on a very ongoing basis. We
just have to keep going and keep evangelizing and making sure that the
phases that new members and old members go through, that we're there,
you know, as mentors. And I think that it has to filter down -- you know,
my generation has to be mentors for that next generation, and then above
me I have several people who are older who are mentors. And I think mentoring
is a really important part, and I think that we need to all take that
responsibility to mentor people. PARTICIPANT: Grace Fellowship over on Delatour Road, if you are having
a baby, for two weeks members of that community bring dinner to your home
every single night. Those are the kinds of things that are happening in
the evangelical churches in places like Grace Fellowship. I don't see
us doing anything like that. The other thing that will happen is if you go to Grace Fellowship, someone
will take your name and your phone number, and you will get a phone call
if you want. They will call you, they will offer you rides. I don't see
us doing that. So, it's true, there are other ways to evangelize besides
just speaking. I don't know if Catholics -- if we really do that piece
very well. PARTICIPANT: Years ago at St. Clare's they did have the (unintelligible)
Society, and it was run by the Altar Rosary Society. And they did that
very thing. And I can speak for that because I was a recipient several
times. But recently -- in recent years we started the Elizabeth Ministry
in St. Clare's. And every couple that went to the Baptismal preparation
ceremony was given a gift bag and it included in there a certificate for
a free meal. If two people took advantage of that – I will say maybe
three or four -- we didn't get the response and I don't know who took
care of it because they certainly weren't interested in the Elizabeth
Ministry doing it and it died. It didn't go anywhere. PARTICIPANT: I think what people are saying is that within the individual
parishes or within – I think what they're saying is that there needs
to be some kind of a formal outreach program or programs within the parish,
whether that means reaching out to those couples who are newly married
or those who were recently Baptized, but some kind of – from each
parish some kind of a formal outreach program. PARTICIPANT: If my understanding is correct, the growth in the United
States and the church -- the Catholic church -- isn't coming so much from
people who weren't Catholic and becoming Catholic. It's coming from the
Hispanic community that is migrating to this country. That's a large percentage
of our growth. So, every year we put out a big report saying we have grown
by another four percent or whatever. A huge chunk of that is Hispanic.
And I do think our church -- we don't feel that so much in this part of
the country I think. While we do have a growing Hispanic population, it's
nothing like the southwest or west and in certain parts of some of the
southern states because of the migration. So, I think we have to keep
that in mind. And I do think that the church has come awake to that. I
sense at least in the church on our level, the national level in this
country there's a real sense of that. Even to recapture some of the traditions,
the devotions, because they become mediating factors. And the other thing is somehow we can't get caught up in the numbers
game. A fellow named Rizenberg once said something to the effect that
we may become a smaller church but we need to be – in my words --
more -- a church which is a greater level in the world. We may have to
face the fact that we will be a smaller community, but a more energized
community that goes out and evangelizes. The third thing that I have in my mind, it has always been touted that
the United States has the highest percentage -- even at only 25 percent
of our registered people going to church -- it's always touted that that's
probably one of the highest percentages in the world except in areas like
France, Poland, Central and South America -- although Poland is changing.
The last statistics I saw was that France for the last couple of decades,
two percent go to church -- two percent. Italy -- my people -- I think
it's like around ten percent. I mean, these are cultures that have become
a huge secularize -- very secularized. Those are the percentages when
we were still at 35 and 40 percent. We are going in that direction because
we have the same forces working on us that Western Europe has. And I don't
know how all that fits in. But somehow we want to talk about planning
in the diocese and in our parishes, these are things we have to talk about. I mean, our kids are being pulled away. We didn't have half the things
these kids have to pull them away today. So, I don't know where all that
fits in, but somehow it fits in. SR. ANNE: I'm just going to start to put this together a little. Because
we don't have to close this topic tonight. Remember the next couple of
sessions are on evangelization. And you may walk out of here tonight with
more questions than you have answers. That's all right. We are going in
the right direction. The focus tonight is really going to be on these three goals of Catholic
Evangelization. So, we need to start to work on these. So, I will give
you only a seven minute break to grab something to eat or whatever, and
come back to the table. (A brief recess followed.) SR. ANNE: Instead of everybody doing all three, let us instead have this
table do one, this table do two, this table do three, this table do one,
this table do two. It's pretty self-explanatory as you look at the goal.
What you want to do is to be able to look at how the parishes and the
local planning groups are fulfilling and living out these goals. We need
to develop them and primarily make recommendations as parish communities.
And then as you notice, the goals are listed and have questions after
each one. They're all spelled out. So, you as a table have about fifteen
to twenty minutes to do this assignment, and then we'll put the ones together,
the twos together, and the threes together. (A brief recess followed.) SR. ANNE: Let's see if we can pull this together. Let's do goal one.
We had three tables I believe with goal one. So, let's do goal one: To
bring about in all Catholics such an enthusiasm for their faith that in
living their faith in Jesus they freely share it with others. What we want to do is focus on these three questions from our experience:
What do we consider the best ways for Catholics to share our faith within
our parish community. So, let's let each group with goal one first address
that before we move to the next question. I believe that was goal one
over there. PARTICIPANT: When we were talking about goal one, we spoke of fulfilling
-- how is goal one fulfilled and lived out in our parish communities.
And some of them addressed the spiritual renewal experiences during Advent
and Lent; they're well attended. There's adoration on Wednesdays, followed
by a soup social gathering and then liturgy; Generations of Faith, which
are activities before each of the holy seasons. There are also social
events that are going on each month in some parishes. And when you look
at the first question -- I guess it's on page five -- from our experience
what do we consider the best ways for Catholics to share our faith within
our faith communities. And it was suggested the personal touch as in --
I'll say Generations of Faith in our parish, you see the people that show
up for it, there are so many more people that could come. Maybe a personal
phone call or a contact with them, somehow, some way, may entice them
to come because they'll feel that they're really welcome and wanted and
needed to enhance everybody's experience. SR. ANNE: Okay. Another group one. PARTICIPANT: At the time of the preparation for the sacraments, even
though people have been away, if they only come for Baptism, or they only
come for their kid's First Communion, and then Confirmation, that even
though they may not have been to church, that at those times when they
come for the preparation, there's still time to plant the seed and you
never know what will happen. So, at the preparation for sacraments, whether
individually -- you're saying the personal touch, individually, with people
we come into contact with -- because we're each in touch with different
people in different communities -- during the eucharist and also in faith
sharing. SR. ANNE: Another goal one. PARTICIPANT: A couple of points. It's to get our youth more involved.
The churches in our groups which already have successful youth programs,
perhaps they could share what they know with the churches that don't.
And also see what we can learn from the churches that have had enthusiastic
youth participation in our geographic locality. We also felt it was important to reach out to people, again personally
contacting members, perhaps setting up a committee to meet with people
who are already registered in our church and personally invite them to
come and hopefully bring them back. PARTICIPANT: Can I make a comment even though we didn't get to this?
We have a bible study once a week. It's a non-denominational bible study.
The study we're using is on “Joy”. So, the questions today
where we talked about joy and we talked about music, and you might see
somebody clapping, or singing, or dancing. A couple of us who are Catholics,
we're saying “not in our church; you wouldn't see somebody clapping
or somebody dancing down the aisles”. In the evangelical churches,
yes. But, you know, somebody said she has a very more traditional parish.
She said you would be hard pressed to find someone that was joyful in
the church. Just a comment. SR. ANNE: Anyone else want to make a comment on what we can do to bring
our -- to make our joy in and our enthusiasm for our faith more evident
in relation to goal number one? PARTICIPANT: Smile and look pleasant at others, sing, talk to each other,
touch, shake hands. SR. ANNE: Okay. All right. Good. Anybody else? And then I'm assuming
since you didn't do the second one, you never got to the third one; specifically,
what are some ideas for enhancing goal one immediately and as potential
recommendations in June, 2008 in our local planning group? You didn't
get to that, did you? PARTICIPANT: No. But what I would suggest that when you have Baptisms
in your church that -- it's my feeling that's the last time they ever
get in contact with the church. So, we stay in touch with those families
who have their children baptized. And we need to reach out and if they're
uncomfortable bringing their child to church and bringing them to our
baby-sitting service, if they're not uncomfortable with having a member
of the parish go once a month or something so they can get out and go
to church, make the offer. SR. ANNE: Anybody else want to make any other comments? PARTICIPANT: This may be the appropriate place in terms of potential
recommendations in June of 2008. I think we all have the same issues on
evangelization. I don't think anyone of us are unique. Evangelization
is ongoing. But there's also a great advantage to having an initial thrust,
something very appropriate for lack of another word. I don't think that
that has to be just a given parish. I think there's a potential for, say,
a group of parishes to work together and pool their resources to adopt
the same initial thrust and follow through. And even if we have to hire
somebody to, you know, coordinate; what one parish can't do, we all can
do. But even if we all could do it individually, why should we bother
since it's a common problem. We should all get together and work on the
evangelization program as a region. PARTICIPANT: We talked about in our own church, we think we should get
the Times Union Center and have a big huge joyful Catholic Mass celebration
of the church. You know, have a really -- a lot of nice music, and get
everybody together in one big, you know... PARTICIPANT: I just wanted to say that Father Frank Disienna is coming
at the end of August. I think it's a two and a half day workshop specific
to evangelization. I think it's the 22nd through the 24th, and they're
inviting teams to come. So, if you're looking for that thrust of evangelization,
that connection, this is something to go to together. PARTICIPANT: As far as specific suggestions -- we didn't get to it but
this was mentioned a minute ago -- my wife and I are members of a bible
study group that is non-denominational. And I think if we can somehow
form committees within each parish to go out to either active members
or non-practicing Catholics and try to involve them in -- you know, call
it a discussion group if bible study scares some people off -- and just
talk about what we mentioned grass roots a minute ago, on a neighborhood
by neighborhood type basis. And the other thing that I feel pretty strongly about. I'm a cradle Catholic.
I was an altar boy, I was in the choir, and everything else. And we have
a pretty special faith. And I think a lot of our parishioners -- not just
the younger generations like you mentioned earlier, but even other generations
-- we don't know a lot about our traditions and our rituals and some of
the things that make us Catholic. And I think maybe an overall educational
process to maybe re-educate all of us on some of the things that make
us Catholic. PARTICIPANT: I was cornered after Mass when Father announced please send
an e-mail message to the committee members and give us your ideas on evangelization,
and my friend said, "I don't do e-mail." But she said she's
extremely concerned about the lack of young people in the church. And
as much as she loves the church, obviously we're not providing something
that they're looking for. So, her thought was have a Sunday 5:00 p.m.
Mass but have Christian rock music there, things that will appeal to that
particular segment of our society. I don't know if I'd feel comfortable
at it, but so what? I don't have to go. But if you're doing something
that's not attracting people and you do the same thing over and over again
and expect a different response, then that's insanity. I can't play anything,
but I'll beat a drum. PARTICIPANT: It says: This goal calls us to give priority to our own
spiritual renewal and to deepen our own personal relationship with Jesus.
Now, that's the goal. The next question would be: How do we do that? How
do we force our own spiritual renewal in that relationship with Jesus?
The answer is in these other things -- you know, the spiritual renewal,
the scripture study, adoration society, and things like that. But I think
it's important that the whole purpose of this first question is our own
personal spirituality and our growth. And these are the means that are
going to help us to achieve that goal. SR. ANNE: That's very well pointed out. Let us just move to goal two. So, we have table two, that table over
there. The goal is to invite all people in the United States, whatever
their social or cultural background, to hear the message of salvation
in Jesus Christ so that they may come to join us in the fullness of the
Catholic faith. Again, the goal is to invite the fullness of the Catholic
faith. PARTICIPANT: Well, part of the first question I think we had a problem,
at least with Our Lady of the Assumption and St. Ambrose, are getting
people from Watervliet. We are getting -- I don't want to say refugees
from Watervliet, but we're getting people from Watervliet who are disenfranchised
or who feel disenfranchised with what has happened. So, that is changing
our faith community because of the influx of people coming in from other
communities that no longer exist, or they don't feel at home any more
so they're looking for a home. And also we mentioned about parishes getting older and fewer people attending.
There is not a lot of outreach to those younger people as somebody else
was saying. But if that man wants a rock band, he can come to Life Team
on Sunday night at 5:30, it's already in existence, and we can see that
in action. The second part of that is who in our local community should we reach
out to? First of all our own people….people who are in the pews.
And then as we are ministering to them, then reach out to other people,
but first minister to the ones that are there. So often we don't do enough
for the people who are there, trying to reach out to them and their needs. The third part is to increase community activities, taking care of health
issues, taking care of things that are going to bring people in social
issues on both levels. Again, we don't all have to do that as individual
parishes; this is a great opportunity for us to come together to do health
issues together, to do social activities together. In other words again,
we form one community. Somebody said earlier about the community of Colonie,
making sure the children who don't have food, have food and are taken
care of. All those issues are really coming together saying we are really
one community, not six separate parishes, but one unit of faith taking
care of what the people of this community call Colonie. SR. ANNE: Table two over there, goal two. PARTICIPANT: I think the first thing that we did was to focus on the
question. The idea of all of the people in the United States, we have
to tone that down because that's not exactly the goal in our sphere of
influence. But we did -- at first we thought maybe within our geographic
frame. But we expanded that because people who have friends and relatives
in various parts of the country or the world, many people travel. So that
we can also be doing this in other than our own geographic area. We decided
that, in order to be practical, we have to put it in some frame that's
doable in our sphere of influence. And these were some of the ideas here.
The changing population -- and I think this is probably true in the whole
Town of Colonie – is that our parishes are aging and we are changing
demographics within the parish. And that we have to use that as an opportunity
to reach out. I think one of the other groups just reported to take care of the people
that are in the parish already, and we came up with the idea right from
the time that people are newly baptized in the parish, that we should
have the support of those families, their parents and their close relatives
to support them in growing in their faith. The newly married, oftentimes they'll show up at the wedding ceremony
and we don't see them again until possibly a child arrives. So, if we
have these types of support groups or activities, not support groups in
the traditional sense, but something there to just support them along
the way in their roles in life at that point. What about the ones who don't fit into the communities? Do we get to
know their cultural values and that type of thing? In our parish we do
have a Korean community, but it's a little -- it's kind of set aside.
We don't see them too much in our (unintelligible). We need to maybe reach
out to that community or in any community where we have a population that
hasn't been present before. What about people that are divorced and separated? Oftentimes we don't
have specific programs for them, and they have very special needs. What about, as we talked earlier, former clergy and religious? They have
separate needs from the main body of parishioners, and we need to have
things in place for these various groups. On a practical level it was suggested that, yes, we have a welcoming
committee, a greeting committee, but to be able to spot newcomers in our
parish and go up to them and welcome and have something a little more
formal to draw them in. We talked at St. Francis this afternoon about perhaps having dialogue
sessions. Everyone was concerned about having people -- we didn't like
to use the word the fallen away, but those who are not actively participating
but who were baptized as Catholics, how could we reach out and not invite
them right away to come back into X, Y or Z, but let's have a dialogue
and invite them back for that as a stepping stone perhaps to something
else. Another idea that came up is a healing – we have a healing ceremony
after Mass on I think the third Sunday of the month. And that's very,
very well received within our parish. And we thought about expanding that
idea to make it a separate occasion of a healing Mass or a healing ceremony
that we could invite people in the parish to invite their friends, relatives,
whoever they knew that needed either physical healing or spiritual healing
as a way to perhaps entice people into the richness of our parish activities. And as old-fashioned as it seems, just get a program of asking people
to participate, an active asking people to participate – “Hey,
everyone, we need help on our committees and on our groups, we need you”. SR. ANNE: How about another group two. PARTICIPANT: A lot of the stuff was covered already. The way in which
our population is changing. And we also said that the population is aging,
and is changing demographics, is shifting to the suburbs. One thing we
said is that people are much more questioning, are less fearful of hell
– going to hell if they miss Mass now. So, that's a real change.
There are fewer baptisms and sacraments in general, and less ethnic. We
need to open our local community, we should be reaching out to youth,
young married couples, newlyweds, college students, widows, widowers,
broken families. You know, I like the dialoguing. In fact, I would like to invite some
people here some time, the people that we're talking about today….nobody
is here. So, it would be nice to have some people here and maybe gently
ask questions or have some kind of forum for them to share stuff with
us, or maybe do it at people's homes or something. My son whose thirty
said, "I'll come, Mom. I'll tell them." Anyway, he's a very
spiritual person but he doesn't go to Mass every Sunday any more. But
he's very spiritual and very well read on all different religions and
stuff. We need to find ways for us to invite people into our faith community,
phone calls, letters, cards, home visits, e-mails. Somebody said “theology
on tap”. I'm not sure what that means, but maybe they can explain. SR. ANNE: There's a program within the diocese that's geared toward people
in their thirties or so, and basically they meet once a month at a pizza
place and they have a speaker. And hopefully it's to get the people to
come out and get into a discussion. PARTICIPANT: I like the idea to have day care, get a day care going.
Once you grab young children to come, families will follow. And I know
that because my grandson went to 4:00 o'clock Mass which I would never
go to because it's too chaotic, but because he was there we all followed. SR. ANNE: All right. So, that would be goal two. A lot of contact and
we're going to keep that going. Now we're going to go to goal three. Goal three is to foster Gospel values
in our society, promoting the dignity of the human person, the importance
of the family, and the common good of our society, so that our nation
may continue to be transformed by the saving power of Jesus Christ. PARTICIPANT: We thought that, before we get to that question, we thought
we might talk a little bit more about what we would do and why we would
do it, instead of just collecting food, and collecting coats and doing
a lot of things. Why we would do it? What would be our motivation? What
is our intent in doing things, and then how we would get there. And we
were thinking more about why we were doing things instead of what we would
do, and assessing what we need. Because we're doing many things that are
listed here but we would need to assess what we also would want to add. SR. ANNE: Okay, there's a table three – goal three. PARTICIPANT: Our talk was just generalized in that we never really and
truly talked about a real commitment or comments. PARTICIPANT: One thing that a young lady at our table is a teacher and
she talked about fostering the Gospel in the work that she does, teaching. SR. ANNE: We only had two tables for goal three. So, if anyone else wants
to talk about that for about a minute. PARTICIPANT: Nobody can tell me what the seven social principles of the
Catholic church are. I'm ignorant as to what those principles are, integrating
the seven principles of Catholic social teaching. So, if it's a reflection
on my past, I don't really know what those seven principles are. If they're
important, I should know about them. PARTICIPANT: • Dignity to a human person. SR. ANNE: Okay, now we have three more that we didn't have when we started. PARTICIPANT: And living wage. SR. ANNE: Living wage. That’s four. PARTICIPANT: I think food, water, basic human needs. (Unintelligible...web
site). PARTICIPANT: One of my thoughts about this is that some of these principles
are not necessarily popular, they're not necessarily -- you know, if you
ask people about these things, they might disagree with that. So, unlike
-- in some ways some of the general beatitudes, probably most people would
say I think that's good, but not necessarily do it. Some of these social
principles might be a little controversial here. PARTICIPANT: The church's position is strongly against the death penalty.
And I wouldn't be surprised if maybe even the majority of Catholics think
this way. (Unintelligible). SR. ANNE: We are going to be addressing this topic again. So, it's all
right. I hope we all go home with questions too because that's our goal
here as we keep on searching and doing our homework to try to be able
to respond to this. We have a prayer to end with. But before we do, again I am glad to see
that people are in contact with the facilitator -- the liaison I guess
is the word that's used -- for each parish. We want to just -- I don't
want to do a lot more tonight. I think we're boxed into that. You have
covered a lot of work tonight. Go home, throw up your feet. You know, feel free to share ideas with each other because that's how
we're all going to do this………together. Let us pray. (CLOSING PRAYER – “O MARY, STAR OF EVANGELIZATION”
WAS RECITED BY ALL.) Your homework is on the back. It's a life-long process here, formation.
And March will be early childhood, birth to five, and it should be an
experience for several of us in this room. Observe children at this age.
Talk with parents, asking how does our parish nurture your family and
your children's faith formation. (The meeting was concluded at 9:15 p.m.)
“CALLED TO BE CHURCH” INITIATIVE
LOCAL PLANNING GROUP MEETING NOTES
FEBRUARY 7, 2007
(HELD AT ST. AMBROSE CHURCH, LATHAM, N.Y.)
• how we all fit together;
• owning the process;
• we looked at our demographics;
• we reviewed parish profiles;
• we started to get to know each other.
• whose responsibility is this?
• who is to be evangelized?
• how is this related to pastoral planning for our parishes and
the diocese as a whole?
• what help do we need to become a more evangelizing parish; local
planning group; deanery; diocese?
• Everyone has a right to work.
• Respect of creation and the environment.