The Catholic Church on the street in Cork

 

 

 

https://www.catholicstreetevangelisation.co.uk/

 

                                                     

 

 

All believers are called to spread the truth of the Gospel, and all who have been 

baptised in the name of  The Father and of  The Son and of  The Holy Spirit are 

prophets and priests in this regard.

Last Saturday, March 19, was the first time I participated in street evangelisation.

I was thinking that those who believe already come to Mass, it is logical that we 

need to go outside the confines of the Church walls, to render the Church visible 

to the rest of the population.

I had briefly met Mike, Tadhg and Anthony the previous Sunday in the city, and 

after finding out what they were all about, I checked out their website

https://www.catholicstreetevangelisation.co.uk/     and sent 

an email, and 6 days later, as they were coming back to Cork from Limerick, 

I was on the street with them.

The first person that came up to speak to me said she had just passed, further 

down the street, some people who wanted her to sign a petition to completely 

ban the Catholic Faith  from being taught in Irish schools.

It has already been downgraded in the school curriculum from being the only 

religion, to just one of many, but some people are desperate to eliminate it altogether.

But I was heartened to see so many young people taking the pamphlet, and a lovely 

young man told me he had been brought up in the Sacraments, he was Baptised, 

had his first Holy Communion, Confirmation, but «then all that stuff happened». 

I told him that every one of us, priests and bishops too, are sinners, that evil is 

everywhere, but that the teachings of the Catholic Church are perfect and true. 

Another man who had great memories from his childhood being brought to 

Church by his grandmother, came up to talk about his problems. 

I was prepared for negative reactions from the public; the wounds inflicted on the 

Church by some clergy,  but I didn't get any, apart from a woman who said to me 

that we don't need religion and all the rules that goes with it, she said that all that 

was needed was a good heart and kind actions. I reminded her that those precepts 

have their origin in Christianity, and that they are very important, but that the rules 

are there for good reasons, to heighten our awareness and control of ourselves, to 

enable us to overcome ourselves and to conquer all that prevents and hinders us 

from living in unity with the Living God, here and now. 

In Cork there are many Catholics, many who are sad about the way things are at 

the moment.

This is our opportunity to do something concrete about it, to pass from words to 

actions.

The catholicstreetevangelisation is a grass-root laity movement that helps the 

Church, the Faith, the priests. 

We are Catholics not just to gain our own salvation, we are mandated to go out and 

spread the Good News. 

«He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.» 

Mark 16:15

Good works

 

We are told to put the love of God, who is in us, 

into action;  by acts of charity, to help and come to the aid of others, 

that by loving others we love God; in manifest ways, by our words and actions.

But as we know that the devil, who is also in us, has developed many clever

tricks in his efforts to keep us from knowing God, we have to be careful with this 

just  as with everything else.

The love of God is not self serving, nor is it seeking worldly recognition, neither

is it following slavishly the world's interpretation of what good works are.

Anyone who knows God will recognize and see what they are, at any given

moment. The world is in desperate need of charitable actions; love in motion, 

we don't need to go looking for opportunities or waiting for the television (of all things!), 

or our  secular governments to tell us what we should do for others.

It is not about "ticking boxes", and certainly not about being seen and admired for 

our goodness.

To do things out of such a desire, is the way the pharisees acted, there are

still  many pharisees in the Church today, they tick all the right boxes, but everything 

is according to the standards of the world. 

Two good current examples would be the obedience to injecting oneself with the 

covid experimental injection which has injured and killed very many, and now

of course; to focus our good actions only on Ukraine.

 

When I was little, my mother, who was Christian but a protestant, signed me up for 

the girl guides, the girl section of the scouts. 

I can only say that I hated every moment of it, but I had to go.

My clearest memory from it is a paper sheet that was given to us; it had a list of

"good works", specific actions, to be carried out, and we literally had to tick boxes,

there had to be a minimum of those actions carried out, and I think there was rewards

given out too. I have seen something similar in catechism classes for children.

Once children, whose minds are still in the process of being formed and whose basic frames 

of references are being built for the rest of their lives, gets this idea installed and fixed

inside them,  it is very difficult to change it later on. Because with time, our initial 

installments goes underground, they become unconscious, but nevertheless they operate 

exactly out of the initial understanding. 

 

Obviously, it goes without saying, it is good to do good things for others, 

that is not the problem. 

The problem is that the focus can imperceptibly stay on the exterior, with the world, 

ticking boxes, instead of interior where true understanding flows from the prayer life 

and the Sacraments of the Catholic Church. 

 

The Catholic Church is not first and foremost a place where "we do things", she is the 

world's only bearer of the entire truth about God, and that has to always come first.

Sadly, today, in charge of the transmission of the Faith, we sometimes find people who, 

for example, believes that abortion is ok, and people who does not believe in the 

Real Presence of the Eucharist. 

They are heretical and hypocritical, they claim to represent the teaching, but they do not.

They think the most important thing is to be "nice", not to upset people, not to "judge",

but the truth must always come first. 

There is no true love without truth.

In regard to the work of ecumenism, this is not "good works", it is not about unity, 

it is heresy, and the result is unfortunately very visible in many Catholic parishes.

We can't bring about true unity by denying the truth, or changing it a bit here and a 

bit there, it becomes distorted.  

Furthermore, by playing the world's game by submerging the Church into politics and 

current affairs; if it wasn't for all the true and holy priests that we still have in the Church,  

she would  eventually become totally united with the world, and not with God. 

That is not good works.

 

 

  

 

 

Collaboration with evil

 

When we hear, see or experience evil, in whatever form or degree, and do nothing, 

out of fear, convenience, laziness or cowardice, we enable it to continue.

We become enablers, facilitators of evil. 

We might say to ourselves: " well it isn't me doing it, so I am in the clear".

Not so.

The evil might even be perpetrated against us personally, and still we might not 

react, for fear of standing out, fear of creating a "scandal" or whatever other fear.

Maybe out of fear of being labelled impolite, we might smile and say nothing and 

thus enabling and encouraging abusive behaviour to continue.

This facilitation, lack of resistance to evil, will in this way multiply in magnitude, 

and hurt many more people. That is why we have no real choice only to speak up 

and say clearly that this is wrong and why it is wrong.

From the smallest details of our ordinary lives to the big events on national and 

international levels, the most important always being our own behaviour. 

If someone is aggressive and accuses us falsely, we don't roll over and ask for 

forgiveness unless we think we have actually done something wrong.

That is not humility, it is co-operation with a lie.

We are unable to change another person, but from our own perspective we have 

to always tell the truth.

It is not a question of going to war, if the aggressor comes back heavier with more

lies and accusations, which he/she probably will as an automatic response, we say 

no more, because there is nothing more to say. 

There is no point, and nothing to be gained, from engaging with a dishonest 

person, a person who wants to take what is yours and who tells lies.

We must not be dragged down to that level, or enter into pointless debates that 

leads nowhere apart from mental and spiritual fatigue. 

From the individual level and towards all levels of authority, we need to have 

this fearless and honest attitude.

Within the Church Hierarchy this can be a big problem for many.

It is often interpreted as negative criticism or anti-cleracilisme.

It becomes about protecting, and we know where that has led the Church.

But evil and lies are everywhere, and we are members of the same Church, it is 

our duty to speak out against evil and wrong doing in the Church and everywhere.

In Our Lady's second message during her apparitions in Garabandal between 1961 and 1965, by the way, coinciding with the end of the Second Vatican Council, she said the following regarding the Church: