Last year, CCH had a big success. Buying commercial time on local television stations in the Diocese of Phoenix, it was responsible for bringing back to the Church 90,000 people. It has done this in other areas as well, and its goal is to undertake a media campaign in every American diocese. Earlier this week, it announced it will buy media time in the Diocese of Sacramento.

Reports the Catholic News Agency:

Hoping to encourage at least 100,000 non-practicing Catholics to return to church, the Diocese of Sacramento is preparing a “come home” advertising campaign for this December and January.

At Mass over the next several weeks, church leaders will outline the program and ask parishioners to help pay for the ads. The ads are produced by the Catholics Come Home project.

“There’s a large number of people who have left the church and are waiting for an invitation to come back,” Msgr. James Murphy, vicar general of the diocese, told the Sacramento Bee. “This is their invitation.”

Currently, eight other dioceses are running the CCH ads. We pray for a remarkable success in those dioceses as well as in Sacramento, and look forward to more great work — and the resulting Church homecomings — in the future from Catholics Come Home.

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.