The Pastoral-Evangelizing Ministry Response in Pandemic

NCCL Virtual Conference – Witness (May 2020)

Tom Quinlan - Director, St. Joseph Educational Center, West Des Moines, IA

tomquinlan@evangelizingcatechesis.org

Be in contact. I want to hear from you! I’m happy to share this PPT and more resources.

The Pastoral-Evangelizing Ministry Response in Pandemic

Where there is grief, fear and loss, there too is the grace needed to bring new life…greater life. This is the Good News in pandemic. This is our tenacious

Christian hope for a world that is suffering. Let us explore this unique moment of opportunity, envisioning the Church’s pastoral response and how it can unleash the transformational, evangelizing Spirit of God to trigger a New Pentecost. What if this is the moment of our lifetime as Catholic leaders?

Come, Holy Spirit…renew my soul, draw me more deeply into your love

Come, Holy Spirit…renew the Church, inspire us with your wisdom and joy

Come, Holy Spirit…renew the face of the Earth, foster an openness to divine hope and trust

Come, Holy Spirit…so that we may all radically surrender to you

Fundamental ShiftFROM TO

There is a God who desires to save us. God has saved me!

Teacher (3rd person information) Witness (1st person experience of Truth)

Transactional engagement Transformational engagement

Search for well-being (therapeutic faith) Search for meaning (existential faith)

Diffuse maintenance activity Singular missional focus

Anxiety and resistance Contemplation and paschal surrender

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Grace (and holiness) as aspirational AND Grace (and holiness) as immanent

Pastoral-Evangelizing Opportunity• We are in this for the long haul…to a vaccine and well-beyond (with destructive

consequences rippling through society for years and collective PTSD).

• Pastoral care is vital for our parishioners. Grief is a predominant emotion for many. (“People remember who was there for them when their mother died.”)

• This is the evangelization opportunity of our lifetime. (There is/will be a global hitting of the reset button…existentially)

• There are the “actives”, the “marginals”…and then “everyone else”. All must be on our radar.

Catholic Ministry LandscapeParishioners – Actives(pastoral/catechizing)

Parishioners – Marginals(pastoral/evangelizing)

Everyone Else!(pastoral/evangelizing)

Evangelization as Mission to the World• Broaden the Who: Operational demands of the Church and focus on caring for our

“actives” risks our being insular in crisis, rather than being prophetic and evangelizing. Fear and preoccupation pull us inward. The Spirit calls us out!

• Post this question at all parish (and diocesan) work stations :

How does this impact our marginals and/or everyone else?

• Narrow the What: In crisis, “noise” can make focusing difficult. Let’s simplify…which requires us to name what must fade or die.

• We must become mission-driven…Apostolic Age mission-driven! Singular in our purpose to proclaim the person and message of Jesus Christ. Paradox: full engagement in the world and profound contemplation…closing reflection.

• Holy Spirit must be in charge…our role is risky docility…or docile risk-taking.

Conversion and WitnessResponding to pandemic (and beyond) in paschal grace…from inside out:

1. Interiority of leadership: Opening ourselves to a new, radical surrender of our lives to God. (Spiritual trust-fall into the arms of God.)

2. Ministering out of that experience of deepening, ongoing conversion…being vulnerable and transparent in our ministry (personally and collectively as Church)…to become a humble – hopeful – joyful – authentic – attractive –compelling witness to Good News for the world. Church as paschal sacrament.

3. Attend to initial and ongoing conversion in parishioners (actives and marginals).

4. Inspire (and form) our parishioners to embrace full-on ownership of their baptismal identity and call to missionary engagement in the world and accompaniment of people.

Conversion and Witness• The pivot to this populist “witness-accompaniment” model of Church requires us

to die to the desire for November 2019. If it’s not excruciatingly hard, we’re probably playing it too safe.

• The pivot calls us to resist offering what the world thinks it wants: a mere therapeutic faith…a search for well-being (homeostasis). Paschal faith satisfies on the deeper, ultimate level of human hunger…search for meaning.

• The pivot invites us to challenge anything that smacks of transactionalministry…and to implore the Holy Spirit to activate transformational ministry in and through our weak and gifted selves.

Renewal or Restoration• Must raise our eye-level above merely getting back to normal.

• The Church has been hit with a financial double-whammy of Masses stopping, starting, and likely stopping again. Fewer will return. (We were hemorrhaging people, before!) AND, we will be in a recession or worse…for an extended time.

• Aiming for normal will leave us a weaker, smaller, poorer Church…increasingly irrelevant for having missed the moment of meeting “everyone else” where they are at, in crisis.

• All-baptized-hands-on-deck and evangelizing-missional approach will (Come, Holy Spirit) grow the Church. If we bring Jesus’ Good News directly into engagement with people’s existential dislocation/devastation, the Holy Spirit can blow the lid off the Church…New Pentecost in our midst, in our time!

Paschal Grace• Our deepest Paschal sufferings become (can become) our greatest experiences of

grace…if we open ourselves and surrender our lives to God. Pandemic can be that for us…and for the Church!

• Paschal Mystery is what the “world” does not understand. (St. Paul has been right all along.) An understanding and embrace of Paschal Mystery in lives and in society will be more game-changing than any vaccine!

• Those who have suffered and “died”…and experienced saving mercy in the person of Jesus…and new (and more abundant) life…are called to be our field-hospital caregivers and are the Church’s best evangelizers. “Blessed are the sorrowful…” (This is us…this is the Body of Christ, broken and given for the world.)

A Vision of Evangelical Mobilization

…Imagine the power of our parishioners taking up the great commission to reflect the love and mercy of God, gently and confidently sharing their hope and their joy in Jesus! Especially in such a time as this! We can call parishioners to this and it will inspire in many a sense of purpose in the midst of fear, sadness and loss. We can mobilize the baptized now to help foster a contagion of grace and conversion that will long survive the pandemic!

4/2/20 Message to Parish Staffs

Practical – Tactical: Pastoral

1. Outreach phone calls (or video or safe in-person visits)

• Staff and gifted parishioners…and/or train callers to be active listeners.

• This will provide valuable input for parish leaders on the pulse of people.

• Questions:• How are you doing?

• What do you need?

• Any thoughts on how the parish can serve you?

• How would you feel about us praying together?

• How might you be feeling called to serve others?

• Who can you reach out to and care for in the name of Jesus?

Practical-Tactical: Pastoral

2. Invitation to post prayer intentions on parish website• For all parishioners to lift up in prayer

• For inclusion on the altar (literally, in a book) at Masses

3. Resourcing provided• By active (digital communications) and passive means (on website)

• On subjects of faith and beyond…physical/mental/emotional health, marriage and parenting, finances and career/jobs, gardening, cooking, etc.

Practical-Tactical: Pastoral

4. eGroups/Zoom Gatherings• Small group ministry

• Facilitated

• Light on agenda vs. well-defined?

5. Appropriate, safe gathering• Yes, Mass…but more, different, new?

Practical-Tactical: Evangelizing

1. Visibility in the community• On parish grounds

• Out and about in town, including parishioners’ property• ie.) Crosses during Lent; “We Believe” signs

2. Inspire, form, empower parishioners for evangelization• Expand from mere recipients of grace to also agents of grace

• Make the primary, intentional, ongoing theme in preaching, resourcing, etc.

Practical-Tactical: Evangelizing

3. Resource the Resourcers• Digitally push out evangelizing resources to parishioners for them to share

with people in their circles.

4. eGroups/Zoom Gatherings• Ask parishioners to invite their circle of people (friends, family, neighbors, co-

workers, etc.) into small digital sharing communities

• Agenda flexible to meet the needs…maybe Lectionary-based as a grounding component?

Practical-Tactical: Evangelizing

5. Seeker gatherings• Not RCIA inquiry

• Inviting people (by any/all means) to gather in church and/or digitally to talk through questions, struggles, longings

• Even if few participate, the expression of care and openness is a win in the community!

Overarching principle in the pastoral and the evangelizing:

Be real with people…with and for them.

Non-Denominational Resonance

• Vision Statement: See what God can do through you.

• Mission Statement: The Church exists so that people far from God will be raised to life in Christ.

• Our Code:• Jesus is the center (integrated priorities)

• We are contributors, not consumers (taking action)

• We can do more by doing less (focused excellence)

• We don’t maintain, we multiply (ongoing growth)

Your Moment…Our Moment…The Holy Spirit’s Moment

…If this crisis is revealing anything, it is our interdependence as a world and as the Body of Christ. Your personal modeling and strategic leadership in this very moment will define the future path of the entire Catholic Church, not just your parish. There are no borders that can contain grace! We can and must be committed to channeling the Holy Spirit, who is sowing the seeds of New Pentecost, which, if Paschal Mystery can be believed, is ready to burst forth from this seemingly barren Lenten soil.

4/2/20 Message to Parish Staffs

Resources

• Acts of the Apostles – Luke

• Evangelii Nuntiandi – Pope Paul VI

• Evangelii Gaudium – Pope Francis

• Forming Intentional Disciples – Sherry Weddell

• Divine Renovation – Fr. James Mallon

• Leadership in Turbulent Times – Doris Kearns Goodwin

• (Eucharist: Group Reading Guide – Tom Quinlan)

Resources from Loyola Press

• Start with Jesus – Julianne Stanz

Resources from Loyola Press

• Effective Catechetical Leader Series

Web Resources

• Divine Renovation – www.divinerenovation.org

• USCCB – www.usccb.org

www.bit.ly/cvd194min

• Catholic Apostolate Center – www.catholicapostolatecenter.org

• Encuentro – www.encuentro.org

• The Pastoral Center – www.pastoral.center

• Amazing Parish – www.amazingparish.org

• (Tom Quinlan on YouTube – search “evangelizing catechesis”)

Surrender Novena:

Oh Jesus, I surrender myself to you.

Take care of everything.

Come, Holy Spirit…renew my soul, draw me more deeply into your love

Come, Holy Spirit…renew the Church, inspire us with your wisdom and joy

Come, Holy Spirit…renew the face of the Earth, foster an openness to divine hope and trust

Come, Holy Spirit…so that we may all radically surrender to you

The Pastoral-Evangelizing Ministry Response in Pandemic

NCCL Virtual Conference – Witness (May 2020)

Tom Quinlan - Director, St. Joseph Educational Center, West Des Moines, IA

tomquinlan@evangelizingcatechesis.org

Be in contact. I want to hear from you! I’m happy to share this PPT and more resources.