Keepers of the Aquarium

Archbishop Sean O'Malley had a quote that I liked: Sometimes we are more keepers of the aquarium than fishers of men.

I thought that was apropos, and I was glad to hear it from him, since that seems to summarize the current Catholic approach to evangelization: Much less focus on bringing new non-Christians into the faith than tending the parish. Our Evangelical brothers and sisters put us to shame when it comes to this. Heck, I'm not even sure we're good keepers of the aquarium, given the percentage of baptized Catholics that attend church on Sunday.

Of course, it's easy to say we need to do more evangelism. Doing it is much more difficult. Evangelizing total unbelievers is not my forte. When they start challenging various Christian positions I feel unable to bridge the gap in beliefs; there is just so much ground to cover and the task of convincing them is so difficult. (I probably need less intellectually-inclined subjects!)

But at least we can change the culture to make evangelism an important thing. And I think it is changing, though we need more change. The first step to evangelization is living out the truth in love faithfully. I'm sure everyone reading this has a pretty good handle on that. We want to be witnesses to the truth to everyone we meet, so that unbelievers will see us and say, "Gee — I admire that Christian. I would like to be like him." That's a big start. Then we can find opportunities to share with them the work that Christ has done in our lives.

Perhaps this is something to pray for on a daily basis — that we learn out to reach out to people, and that others in the Catholic Church do as well.