Spring 2025 - St. Bernard's Magazine (1) - Flipbook - Page 5
“St. Peter Preaching” by Masolino da Panicale, 1426-1427
Certificate in Evangelization:
Believing the Beauty and Truth of
Christianity
by Fr. Ignacio Llorente
In the past few decades, the Catholic Church has been waking up to the need for evangelization. The call to
evangelize can be traced back to the Great Commission of Matthew 28, so it is not something new. However,
as Catholics, we are gaining a greater awareness of the need for making disciples through the proclamation of
the kerygma.
Among many factors, this realization is driven by the wave of secularization that is affecting Western society.
We live in a less Christian world, and fewer people come to Church. Consequently, like the Good Shepherd of
Luke 15, we are compelled to go out in search of the lost sheep.
Because the Catholic Church is like a big ship, we can attest that any change in direction takes quite a bit of
time. We are witnessing the first stages of this turn: (1) The last few popes have spoken about the need for
evangelization; (2) we are seeing, at least in the US, a proliferation of new apostolic activities (FOCUS, Acts
XIX, Divine Renovation, Alpha, St. Paul Outreach, etc.); (3) and many parishes are becoming more intentional
about being mission-oriented.
We should not forget that the Holy Spirit is the main agent of evangelization. He is the one influencing all
these changes, but we are called to accompany this movement of grace. There are many things that we can do
as Catholics to help the Church move from a Christendom mentality to an Apostolic mentality.
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