Evangelization: Challenge Accepted

I grew up as a cradle Catholic, attending Mass every week and going through a traditional religious education program at my local parish.  I believe many people in the Church have grown up this way.  Either that, or they received their catechesis by attending Catholic school.  Whichever category you fall into, I bet you didn’t hear a whole lot of talk about evangelization while you were being formed in the faith.  This is definitely true for me.  It was not until I was in college that I started to become more familiar with evangelization and what it was.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines Evangelization as “the proclamation of Christ and his Gospel by word and testimony of life, in fulfillment of Christ’s command.”  We are to do this in the ordinary circumstances of the world by actively looking for occasions of announcing Christ by word and deed.  If this is what the Church is teaching, then how do most of us not know this, and how do we not have experience in evangelization?  I used to think that it was just a protestant thing, and I think many people in the US would agree with me on this.  So why do we think this, and how do we change this mindset?
It is sad to say, but the main reason is that here, in the US; many Catholics have not been evangelized.  It wasn’t until recently that I became familiar with this concept.  In the book, Forming Intentional Disciples by Sherry A. Weddell, she points out that the US, as a nation, did not get its Catholicism from being evangelized.  Immigrants brought Catholicism here and it grew quickly, not by the sharing of faith, but by the continued immigration of more Catholics.  So, the church in the US had no reason to promote itself through evangelization, because it was growing exponentially without evangelization.  Since there was no evangelistic effort towards spreading the faith, no body learned how to do it.  And now that the huge waves of immigration are over we have a problem.  We Catholics don’t know how to evangelize, because we never were evangelized.
We share the faith by the way it was shared with us.  If you look at history you can see evidence of this.  For example, in the 9th century the Emperor Charlemagne spread the faith by the sword, forcing people he had conquered to be baptized or face death.  When these people were no longer under Charlemagne’s rule, they continued to spread the faith by military force because that is how they were taught to spread the faith. 
We have to learn how to share our faith and evangelize better, so that we can teach the next generation.  Most of us in ministry have seen this already happening.  We as ministers have to make sure the word gets out about the New Evangelization going on in the Church.  It should not be just a fad that people are jumping on the bandwagon for.  Evangelization is something that all of us, as followers of Christ, need to be a part of in order to pass on the faith to more people.  Are you a part of this movement in the Church?  Have you begun to familiarize your self with it and learn more about it?  I believe you should, for the sake of the Church and the souls that we come in contact with.  
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
Mathew 28:19 
            

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