But because they are external, corporate, and memorized, people who don't have a relationship with Jesus Christ are left feeling disconnected to God because of the formalism of the liturgy and the sacraments. The thing is, the liturgy of the Church presupposes a personal prayer life at home. Community worship is supposed to extend and support the personal worship.
But for many Catholics their personal prayer life consists of a few Paters and Aves and the rest is liturgical. And thus, boring. There are no depths to the words spoken from the altar because their is no depth of living faith being actively cultivated in the hearer's heart. They are bored because they are disconnected between the words they say and the realities that unfold.
And when you are bored with something, you do not look hard for resolutions when conflicts come up. "Oh no, Billy has a Sunday soccer game in another city? I guess we will miss Mass." "Oh no, the Houston Texans are playing (and losing) a home game this Sunday? I guess we will miss Mass." When you are bored, you look for excuses to get out of it. When it isn't life-giving, every excuse is a good excuse.
So here is my solution to remedy some of this problem, and yes, it involves talking.
My Little Series Continues...
Here is my second post on the interrelationship between community and evangelization. If you have not read the post on community, go and do so now. It will blow your mind. Or, it will prepare you for this article, at least.
PART TWO: EVANGELIZATION TODAY
I have about 15 articles on this website about evangelization. You can check those out to get a bigger picture of my views on evangelization and what it is all about, but for now, I am going to paint for you a quick portrait of evangelization in order to hasten the point of this most excellent blog series.
First, evangelization is the whole work of the Church, starting from grace and ending in glory. It is also a work of the whole Church, not left up to the priests on the altar, the monks in foreign lands, or the nuns in the inner-city Catholic schools. It is just as much your responsibility as it is mine, and I have a fancy website! So this means that evangelization is why the Church exists, how the Church continues to exist, and is the reason for our existence within the Church.
But what is evangelization?