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What I learned at Lunch about the Love of Jesus Christ

The protestors were united against a brutal regime, and they achieved solidarity in and through their faith, not in spite of it. Learn that lesson!He even got to speak on contemporary issues, especially what's going on in Egypt right now. He showed us a picture of an Egyptian Coptic Orthodox man holding up a cross next to a Muslim holding up the Koran, and how they are holding each other's hands. It was a gesture of solidarity.

Something fascinating and under-reported: in the midst of the protest, the Muslims cleared a path for the Christians to gather and to celebrate Mass and the Christians made room so that the Muslims could pray.

Spirituality, TheologyMichael GormleyFebruary 11, 2011Muslim-Catholic Relations, enemy, neighbor, radical love

I don't evangelize. I'm Catholic.

Intro: I got it all wrong

Evangelization, evangelism and evangelical are all pretty much Protestant words for most American Catholics today. I considered myself one of those Catholics for a while. Catholics did not preach on street corners, did not pass out pamphlets, and did not knock on doors to spread the Gospel. If we did anything, the most we did was toss in the collection plate a few bucks on Mission Sunday in order to donate to those religious orders who were taking the Gospel to strange lands on the otherside of the world. Not the average pew-sitter's vocation.

Church Life, TheologyMichael GormleyFebruary 6, 2011evangelization, inculturation

Apostolate of the Laity, excerpts

Here is our lovely Ambrosian Rite Pope Paul VI.What is the point of this website, and of my ministry in general? The Second Vatican Council released a document entitled Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity or Apostolicam Actuositatem. Promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1965, this document builds upon Lumen Gentium's understanding of the role of the Laity in the Church by speaking directly to the activity of the laity in spreading the Gospel and living it out.

This document, in my opinion, is deep, timely, and prophetic, but is largely forgotten from Vatican II history. I think, more so than anything I have come across lately in Church documents, this Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity sums up the mission and purpose of LayEvangelist.com and what I believe my mission is for the Church today.

From the first paragraph, the Council Fathers state their intent for this document:

In this decree the Council seeks to describe the nature, character, and diversity of the lay apostolate, to state its basic principles, and to give pastoral directives for its more effective exercise. All these should be regarded as norms when the canon law, as it pertains to the lay apostolate, is revised. (AA, 1)

Church Life, TheologyMichael GormleyDecember 2, 2010Apostolicam Actuositatem, Laity, evangelization

Confession and God's Loving Generosity

Recently I was blessed with the opportunity to speak to the parents of children who are preparing to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation. As I prayed and thought about what I would say, I decided to implement one of my fancy new evangelization approaches. I would situate my catechesis on Confession and it's importance for the family within an all-out kerygmatic evangelization.

I wanted to go beyond a catechesis on the purpose and practice of Reconciliation. I wanted to break open the whole drama of humanity to give people a renewed vision of the gravity of sin, the immensity of forgiveness, the power of mercy, and the eternal depths of reconcilation with God.

Spirituality, TheologyMichael GormleyNovember 14, 2010Confession, generosity

Pro-Life Work and the New Evangelization

The New Evangelization of the nations and the renewal of pro-life work go hand-in-hand, for at their core is what we must call the primacy of the individual human person. The person is everything. Win over just one person to Christ and you have won the world. Too often today, probably as the recycled leftovers of a tired and disgraced Marxism, we all tend to focus on what I call the primacy of Bigness, where aggregation and collectivism looses sight of the individual person for the sake of the group. As far as I can tell, this is the milieu previous pro-life work operated in and this is what cost us the so-called culture war.

Here is the still point of my website's thesis: I believe we already lost the culture war. But not all is lost! There are moral and spiritual principles that we need right now that can bring about both the New Evangelization of the world, and the revitalization of pro-life work right here at home. This website will layout Catholic pro-life moral principles and consistently apply them to four main life issues: abortion, euthanasia, the death penalty and warfare.

Spirituality, TheologyMichael GormleyNovember 9, 2010New Evangelization, pro-life

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