Friday, October 05, 2007

If It's Evangelization You Want...

Then here's a great read!

(We note that the Priests' Council of Milwaukee thinks "evangelization" is the answer to 30% Mass attendance. Here are a couple of snips of old-time Evangelization for their consideration.)

Where do our disobedient devices take us? These devices of the wicked heart, where do they leave us? The Babylonian captives confess to serving other gods and doing evil in the sight of the Lord. Am I left serving alien gods and doing evil when I run after the plans, the schemes of my wicked heart? A heart turned from the Lord will not be fed by the Lord. And a heart not fed by the Lord starts to quickly die of starvation and thirst, it will grasp at any spiritual morsel offered by any passing spirit. Having feasted on the Lamb of Heaven, a heart turned from the Lord will be satisified with the cotton candies of New Age “spirituality,” or the junk snacks of secular philosophies, or the Happy Meals the little gods of ego and vice feed it.

...You know as well as I do what plugs our ears and covers our eyes. A need for self-sufficiency. A desire for independence from others. The temptations of hatred, venegance, violence, despair. The seductive call of alien gods—those deities who live and thrive in the love of money, power, prestige, and celebrity. But do we see and hear all of the dangers of this postmodern age? The sinkhole of boredom. The erotic pull of extreme experience. The numbing mantras of moral indifference. All those puny gods that whisper to us: You can be gods w/o God.

Fr Phil Powell is a Dominican priest teaching at the University of Dallas.

No comments: