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We are at your service. PREPARE THE WORD was developed years ago as a resource to help preachers prepare homilies that hit home. That remains our fundamental focus. But we have expanded our approach with the ultimate goal of helping you nourish and strengthen the faith of the people you serve. Not only are we committed to helping you achieve consistently excellent homilies, but we want to make sure that you and your parish ministers have content used to preach, teach, and distribute to the members you serve that is engaging, enlightening, and true to the teachings of the church and the word. We are intimately familiar with the work that you do and the expectations that come with it. We know what inspires you and what challenges you. And because of this, we take our mission very seriously—we see our work as a very real extension of your ministry. We're grateful to be partners in ministry.

Evangelization faith-formation preaching spreading the Word
Exploring the word

12 Jul 2015 - Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

Last fall a young woman from our parish, Amanda, volunteered to serve a mission in Albania, the poorest and most neglected of European countries. Albania is a Muslim society, so Amanda’s been missing a familiar Christian context. She missed Christmas and Easter decorations, the sense of a shared celebration. For the amusement of friends back home, she’s been composing an ABC list of things you don’t have on the mission trail. “C” includes churches, Captain Crunch, couches, crèches, candy bars, and Communion reliably on Sundays. “E” includes hearing English spoken. “P” includes peanut butter and her parents. Our young missionary’s deprivations range from the serious to the silly, but they all highlight our spectacularly privileged American lives. The ABCs of the mission trail and its sacrifices are what Jesus offers to the 12 apostles this week. The list in Mark doesn’t always harmonize with mission supplies recorded elsewhere. Mark is softer on missionaries: Those sent get to take a walking stick and wear sandals. Luke nixes the stick and sandals (9:2, 10:4), as does Matthew (10:10). We can imagine the disciples making their own ABCs of deprivation: “P” is for no pillow on which to lay your head. “S” is for no sandals, stick, or guaranteed shelter for the night. Of course, sacrifices are not what missionary service is about. Rabbinic tradition speaks of a figure known as the shaliach: one sent by a person of authority fully invested to do as that person wills. The shaliach perfectly embodies the one who sends him. Jesus echoes this role in saying, “Whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me” (Mark 9:37), and also in the great judgment of the nations: “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these, you did for me” (Matt. 25:40). It’s clear from these sayings that Jesus invests his disciples with the power of the shaliach: not simply to deliver the gospel message far and wide, but to act in the place of Jesus as if we are Jesus! That young missionary friend of ours isn’t just bringing Christian-talk to Albania. Amanda brought her Christ-self there and is sharing that most radiant self with a community that hasn’t met Jesus yet. Our parish sent a donation to the mission house recently, and the reply came swiftly: “Thank you for the money, which can surely be put to good use here. But we are grateful most of all for the gift of Amanda, who is a great light among us.” Which makes me wonder: Since we are all sent, how well do we bring our Christ-selves wherever we go? Do people see simply us, or do they catch a glimpse of the One who sends us? Related scripture links Believe that you will receive: Matt. 17:19-20; Mark 11:22-24; Luke 11:9-13; John 14:12-14 Ask and you shall receive: Matt. 6:25-34; Luke 12:11-12 Taking no offense in Jesus: Luke 7:18-23 Parallel gospels: Matt. 10:1-11:1; Luke 9:1-6 Mission of the 72: Luke 10:1-12, 17-20

Authors Alice Camille

Evangelization sacrifice evangelize Missionary

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The inner word

12 Jul 2015 - Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

Jesus’ “sending” of the apostles (in Greek: apostolos, “one who is sent”) to extend his mission of healing reflects the missionary strategy of the Early Church: travel light and keep moving, do what is good, and put your trust completely in God. Actually that’s a good approach for Christians of any time and place. Life is a journey, a pilgrimage to holiness. “To take nothing for your journey” brings home the truth that in the end the only thing you really have is God. To have “nothing,” then means to have everything. The less you have, the more you gain. The deepest security lies in not worrying about security. What can you unload from your life to bring you closer to God?

Evangelization Missionary

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In other words

12 Jul 2015 - Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

Jesus told them, “A prophet has little honor in his hometown, among his relatives, on the streets he played in as a child.” Jesus wasn’t able to do much of anything there—he laid hands on a few sick people and healed them, that’s all. He couldn’t get over their stubbornness. He left and made a circuit of the other villages, teaching. Jesus called the Twelve to him, and sent them out in pairs. He gave them authority and power to deal with the evil opposition. He sent them off with these instructions: “Don’t think you need a lot of extra equipment for this. You are the equipment. No special appeals for funds. Keep it simple. “And no luxury inns. Get a modest place and be content there until you leave. If you’re not welcomed, not listened to, quietly withdraw. Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way.” Then they were on the road. They preached with joyful urgency that life can be radically different; right and left they sent the demons packing; they brought wellness to the sick, anointing their bodies, healing their spirits (from Mark 6). Taken from The Message: Catholic/Ecumenical Edition by Eugene Peterson (ACTA Publications, 2014 ); actapublications.com; 800-397-2282.

Evangelization evangelize Missionary

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Exploring the word

12 May 2013 - Seventh Sunday of Easter, Cycle C

The marketplace of ancient Greece was known as agora, the gathering place. When Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI still sat in Peter’s Chair back in January, he noted that the development of digital social networks have created a new agora, “an open public square in which people share ideas, information, and opinions, and in which new relationships and forms of community can come into being.” While that may seem an attractive notion aimed at the geeks and teenagers in your family, it’s actually meant for all of us to consider, because today is World Communications Day, and utilizing the new agora is where the church is at—or where it wants to be. World Communications Day annually exploits the feast of Saint Francis de Sales, the patron saint of journalists, writers, and educators. For the last 47 years on this day church leaders have wondered how best to use burgeoning media resources to fulfill the gospel mandate to bring the Good News of Jesus to the ends of the earth. When Saint Matthew first wrote about it, the idea may have sounded like poetry, but in the 21st century it’s as close as ever to a real possibility. Evangelization used to be engaged the way Saint Stephen does it in the first reading: by walking into the streets, opening your mouth, and taking your chances. If it was good enough for Jesus, it was certainly good enough for his followers. After all, getting the message out is the mandate, not merely a nice idea. When Jesus offers his Last Supper prayer, it’s not only for the disciples around his table that night but for all who will believe as a result of their testimony. Today some people in this world will undoubtedly receive that testimony via the internet. As the pope emeritus stated in his January address: “Believers are increasingly aware that, unless the Good News is made known also in the digital world, it may be absent in the experience of many people for whom this existential space is important. The digital environment is not a parallel or purely virtual world but is part of the daily experience of many people, especially the young.” (I would add: Anyone who has a computer-savvy grandparent knows that sending around inspirational messages is a mission for which they have a special charism.) The Christian message has always been much more than a disembodied word but also a rich tradition of icons and images, statues and stained glass, music and incense, gathering and ritual. The new digital evangelization makes use of nearly all of these elements to great effect, from websites that pray continuous rosaries with those who clock (or click) in to folks who email daily reflections complete with slide-shows and hymns to others. Maybe, just this once, the mission of Francis de Sales might share the spotlight with Mother’s Day. Related scripture links Kingdom geography: Matt. 3:2; 4:17; 5:3-11; 6:10; 12:28; Mark 1:15; Luke 4:18-21; 4:43; 8:1; 9:11; 10:9-11; 11:20; 17:20-21; John 3:3-6 Kingdom come: Matt. 6:9-13 Put on Christ: Rom. 6:3-11; 10:6-8; Col. 2:24; 2 Tim. 2:11-12 It is no longer I who live: Gal. 2:19-20 Catechism links Heaven: CCC 325-327; 1023-1029; 1042-1050 Kingdom: CCC 436-440; 668-670 Second Coming: CCC 671-679; 1038-1041

Authors Alice Camille

Evangelization Technology

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