If you are not familiar with Catholics Come Home, take some time to do so. It does great work.
You may have seen its videos on EWTN, or if you live in the Diocese of Phoenix you may know its work first hand. Its mission is to bring back Catholics who have left the Church for whatever reason or reasons, and it is doing so through modern media techniques. It has produced three world class videos/commercials that inspire even the hardest hearts.
While it has received air time on EWTN, through the Internet and some news programs, CCH now is hitting its stride. In the last year it developed a plan to buy commerical air time in each diocese in the country. It started in the Phoenix Diocese during Lent 2008 and was responsible for bringing back to the Church 92,000 Catholics (see CNS article here).
We are called to bring people to the Lord. A good place to start is reaching out to family, friends, associates, even people we don’t know that well, who have stopped attending church. If you think it’s an odd proposition, remember, Jesus sent the Apostles out to visit strangers and preach to them.
When the priest ends Mass with “Let us now go forth to love and serve the Lord,” it is our commission to spread His Word. As Pope Benedict XVI said at his first World Youth Day homily in 2005: Every day we have good news we can’t wait to share with family and friends — good grades at school, a promotion at work — but how often do we share the Good News of the Gospel?
Probably not often. But a good way to start is to share the Catholic Come Home videos. (Forward this link with the first video. We’ll post the others in the near future.) Visit its Web page and find out how you can help it with its goal, and see if you can facilitate its work in your diocese. It can also provide tips as to what you can do within your parish. Or simply speak to that someone you are concerned about and ask them to come to Church with you Sunday.
A priest I know told the story of a woman who told him she wanted to come back to the Church, but had been away for years and didn’t know how. He replied, “Just come back.” It’s not complicated.
An epic video worth sharing.
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Catholics Come Home: Movie » Real Catholic Blog 2 says:
August 3, 2009 at 11:48 am
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Catholics Come Home . . . In Sacramento » Real Catholic Blog says:
August 28, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Comments[...] Home About Catholics Come Home: Movie Posted in Apologetics, Catholicism In Media by Brother Stephen Aug 03 2009 TrackBack Address. What if your life was a movie . . . what would you like edited out of it? Or placed into it? It’s a moot point because we can’t change the past. But we can re-establish a relationship with God, our Father. If you know any Catholics who have left the faith, you know they must be in some type of spiritual pain. Bring them home, where, with a renewed faith, all is possible and true hope exists. Share this two-minute Catholics Come Home video with them, entitled, ”Movie.” (To learn more about CCH, please see this previous post and view and share the video there, entitled….”) [...]
[...] Posted in Apologetics, Catholicism In Media by Brother Stephen Aug 28 2009 TrackBack Address. As I’ve written about previously — and if you’ve even lightly perused this blog, you would know — we’re big fans [...]