The Office of Evangelization and Catechesis

08/05/2024

From Pope Benedict XVI's last and supposedly "controversial" book, What Is Christianity? :

"At the end of my reflections, I would like to thank Pope Francis for everything he is doing to show us, over and over again, the light of God, which even today has not waned. Thank you, Holy Father!" (196)

Rejection of Pope Francis as a and the legitimate Pope is a work of the Devil. Period. Please don't be fooled by the Prince of Lies.

07/20/2024

During the Procession, at the National Eucharistic Congress:

Lady on a scooter: "Oh my God! Why are there so many frickin' people in the Mall?!?!"
Other lady on a scooter: "It's a priest convention!"
First lady, again: "Jesus Christ!"

Well, one of them was correct.

06/24/2024

Please consider these beautiful words of Pope Benedict XVI:

"The task of communicating the Gospel of Jesus Christ to others [evangelization] remains reasonable...There is... a... way to justify this task today.

Joy needs to be communicated. Love needs to be communicated. Truth needs to be communicated.

Someone who has received a great joy cannot simply keep it for himself; he has to hand it on. The same is true for the gift of love and for the gift of recognizing the truth that is manifested...

Let us proclaim Jesus Christ, not in order to gain as many members as possible for our community, much less for the sake of power. Let us speak about him because we feel that we must hand on this joy that was given to us.

We will be credible announcers of Jesus Christ when we have truly encountered him in the depths of our being, when through the encounter with him, we have received the gift of the great experience of truth, love, and joy" (22-23).

-- What Is Christianity? The Last Writings (2023)

06/20/2024

Gosh, how vitally important is this well-known insight of Mother Teresa's, in terms of the spiritual growth for which we're striving in our Eucharistic Revival:

"Our lives have to continuously feed on the Eucharist. If we were not able to see Christ under the appearance of bread, neither would it be possible for us to discover Him under the humble appearances of the bruised bodies of the poor."

-- St. Teresa of Calcutta

Christianity: Love God, and love your neighbor.

05/16/2024

“The Eucharist is the sacrament of communion that brings us out of individualism so that we may follow him together, living out our faith in him. Therefore, we should all ask ourselves before the Lord: how do I live the Eucharist?”
--Pope Francis (Corpus Christi Homily, 5/30/13)

05/16/2024

“Eucharistic communion includes the reality both of being loved and of loving others in turn. A Eucharist which does not pass over into the concrete practice of love is intrinsically fragmented.”

--Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, #14

05/15/2024

“There is no true evangelization if the name, the teaching, the promises, the Kingdom and the mystery of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God are not proclaimed.”

"On Evangelization in the Modern World," 22

This document is 49 years old.

05/15/2024

“Don’t allow anything to interfere with your love for Jesus. You belong to Him. Nothing can separate you from Him. That one sentence is important to remember. He will be your joy, your strength. If you hold onto that sentence, temptations and difficulties will come, but nothing will break you. Remember, you have been created for great things.”
-- Saint Teresa of Calcutta

04/03/2024

I think that some Catholics might be surprised to know that Francis Cardinal Arinze wrote this little piece:

"Many people on earth seem disoriented. They are not sure from where they come, why they exist on earth, where they are going, and how they can get there. They want to see meaning in their life on earth... Only God can give to the human heart everlasting happiness in the beatific vision. Life on earth is not one monotonous activity after another. It is not a heap of scattered mosaics without unity, meaning, or design. People need to see a clear meaning in their lives and in the details of their daily work, which are often like those of the day before.

Those Christians are mistaken who think that religion consists in saving their souls in the sense of simply frequenting the sacraments and saying their daily prayers while they pay very little or no attention to their duties toward their neighbor. They have to learn that to be a good father, mother, spouse, son, daughter, citizen, worker, or official is an essential part of what it means to be a good Christian. A dishonest or negligent worker is not a good Christian. An authentic Christian is a good citizen. The Second Vatican Council uses rather strong language: 'The Christian who neglects his temporal duties neglects his duties toward his neighbor and even God, and jeopardizes his eternal salvation.' An authentic practice of Christianity relates life on earth to life in the world to come. Gaudium et Spes comes once more to our help: 'While we are warned that it profits a man nothing if he gains the whole world and loses himself, the expectation of a new earth must not weaken but rather stimulate our concern for cultivating this one. For here grows the body of a new human family, a body which even now is able to give some kind of foreshadowing of the new age.'

Our Catholic faith gives joy to our life on earth. It gives our life a meaning and a sense of direction. It helps us to avoid the feeling of monotony in our daily work. It shows us how the universal call to holiness should be concretely lived according to each person’s vocation and mission. There are, therefore, canonized saints from all categories and vocations: spouses, parents, young people, adults, people from various professions in the world, clerics, and consecrated persons."

02/14/2024

Here's a synod listening-session flyer to share:

View this file, and add comments too.

02/14/2024

The Synod on Synodality continues! We'll have 6 diocesan-wide listening sessions. Please read more about this, below.

The Diocese requests the honor of your presence!
The Synod on Synodality Continues
Towards October 2024
The Interim Stage
For a Synodal Church: Community, Participation, Mission

After three years of the Universal Church’s journey of Synodality, we still must ask ourselves…

Do we yet know how to be a synodal Church in mission?

We must identify the paths to follow and the tools to adopt
to empower all of the baptized to contribute to the Church’s one…

MISSION: To Proclaim the Risen Lord and His Gospel to the World Today

Let us remember what Pope Francis has taught, regarding this Synod: “The important thing is how the reflection is done, that is, in a synodal way.”

Diocesan-Wide Listening Sessions
The Bishops are asking us to hold more listening sessions – at the Diocesan level – to deepen our reflection.
Therefore, we will be conducting six (6) listening sessions, one in each vicariate, starting at 6:30 PM. They are:

Wednesday, February 21st: St. John XXIII P.C., Charleston
Thursday, February 22nd: St. Leo, Inwood
Tuesday, February 27th: St. Francis de Sales, Beckley
Wednesday, February 28th: Immaculate Conception, Clarksburg
Thursday, February 29th: St. Francis Xavier, Parkersburg
Thursday, March 7th: St. Michael, Wheeling

The Nature of This Year’s Sessions
More than just listening sessions, these gatherings are to be “Conversations in the Spirit” to discern the Will of God for our Church, by listening both to the stirrings of the Holy Spirit, within, and the contributions of one another.

Two Guiding Questions
The Bishops have provided us with two (2) guiding questions that we are going to discern responses to, together.
1. Where have I seen or experienced successes—and distresses—within the Church’s structure(s)/organization/leadership/life that encourage or hinder the mission?
2. How can the structures and organization of the Church help all the baptized to respond to the call to proclaim the Gospel and to live as a community of love and mercy in Christ?

Preparing Yourself for These Sessions
We need to prayerfully and spiritually prepare for these sessions, by personally reflecting upon synodality.
We ask that you read and reflect upon some Scripture, in preparation for the listening session:
John 14, Romans 12, and Isaiah 61.

Entrust yourself to the Father, converse with the Lord Jesus, & listen to the Holy Spirit, about these questions.