Working together to grow church

	Bishop Robert J. Banks

We had a major diocesan celebration two Sundays ago. It took place at Our Lady of Lourdes church in De Pere and it filled that church with close to a thousand people.

Lent
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The occasion was the annual Rite of Election that regularly takes place on the First Sunday of Lent. It is the next to last step by which a person becomes a member of the Church. The final step is, of course, the reception of the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist at the Easter Vigil.

Most of you reading this column became Catholics the easy way. Your parents carried you to church as an infant for Baptism and then they made sure you received your First Holy Communion when you were in the second grade. Finally, with the encouragement of your parents, you presented yourself for Confirmation in the eighth grade or at the end of high school.

Your main preparation was simply the fact of growing up in a Catholic family plus the religious education you received at a Catholic school or parish religious education program. Your decision that you wanted to be a disciple of Jesus, a Catholic follower of the Lord, was so gradual that you might have difficulty pinning it down to one moment or answering that person who asks if you have accepted Jesus as your personal savior.

That is not the way an adult becomes a member of the Catholic Church these days. There is a process that we call the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. While it is intended primarily for those who were never baptized, it also serves to welcome other baptized Christians into the Catholic Church and to prepare Catholics who missed out on First Communion or Confirmation when they were young.

It includes some serious religious education, participation in the life of the local parish and a number of liturgical ceremonies. But most important is the work of the Holy Spirit within the heart and mind of the person preparing. I like the way this is described in the official literature: "The rite of Christian initiation presented here is designed for adults who, after hearing the mystery of Christ proclaimed, consciously and freely seek the living God and enter the way of faith and conversion as the Holy Spirit opens their hearts."

That is what happened to the first Christians centuries ago, and when you think of it, that is what has happened to each one of us. You and I are Catholic followers of the Lord because we too have heard Christ proclaimed and we too seek the living God as the Holy Spirit opens our hearts.

But to get back to the First Sunday of Lent, those persons who have been through a period of preparation for some months in their local parish are finally judged by their parishes to be ready to enter the final preparation for the Easter sacraments during Lent. So they are presented by the parish representatives to the bishop as worthy candidates. The bishop, after asking the congregation to approve the candidates, formally chooses or elects them to be among those who prepare for the sacraments of initiation at Easter.

It is a great liturgy. You can feel the enthusiasm of both those who have been "chosen" and those who have come with them. It makes you realize how special it is to be a chosen follower of Jesus Christ and member of his Catholic Church. Looking at it in a very human way, it must be special if a person is willing to go through so much for months in order to become a member of Christ's Church.

The liturgy also reminded those present of the diversity in our Church of Green Bay. The whole ceremony was in English and Spanish because of the number of Hispanics who were present and who were preparing for the Easter sacraments. I also had a chance to use my two words of Hmong, because we had some Hmong candidates.

For me, the annual celebration is a forceful reminder that our Church of Green Bay is supposed to be a missionary church, spreading the Good News of Jesus and inviting more and more people to know and be nourished by that Good News. While we had good numbers of people presenting themselves on Sunday for membership in the Church, I cannot say that every parish was represented nor were the numbers of candidates what they could be, perhaps, with more effort.

As Catholics, we have an obligation "to grow the Church." I do not mean in the sense that we should grow our membership or market share like a fraternal organization or business. We have been given a command by Jesus: "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you"(Mt 28:19-20).

At the last meeting of the Presbyteral Council, I was talking about our need to have more of this missionary spirit. I wondered aloud how many of our parishes included in their mission statements something about always seeking new members. I also said I was not sure if our diocesan mission statement said anything about this. When I returned to my office, I was happy to find that the diocesan statement does include "spreading the Good News," but it really does not emphasize it as well as it should.

The Holy Father, Pope John Paul II has talked time and again about the need for a new evangelization and one of the best letters of Pope Paul VI was on the subject of evangelization. Our Bishops' Conference has also issued a major statement on the issue, but I do not think we have yet come up with the enthusiasm or the tools to respond to the challenge of spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ in our very secular and rather self-satisfied culture.

And to be fair, I think that the popular culture in our Church is also kind of self-satisfied with the way things are, figuring that God takes care of good people whether or not they believe in Jesus or in God. I very much doubt that was in Jesus' mind as he went to the cross or when he left that message with his apostles: "Go and make disciples of all nations."