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Joined: Jul 2002
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Hello all, my question is this: How does a Byzantine Catholic church stay alive? Is evangilization done from within or from without first; I mean, should we actively prosilitize or seek spiritual reform within our own ranks with the whole "trickle down" theory leading to an increase in parochial attendance and new converts? How do we keep the kids interested without forsaking tradition and substance? Any comments in these areas would be appreciated.
Thanks.

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Glory to Jesus Christ!

Hello Athanasius,
I don't want to throw the topic off (there is always that danger!) but I would like to make some observations based upon my personal experience.

Most inquirers that do not come through a mixed marriage or adoption or that sort of approach will already have some knowledge of what they are looking for and may have already visited other parishes before you see them come to yours.

Everyone likes to be greeted at the door, they like smiles and they appreciate advice. They don't want to be continually bothered during liturgy but if they would like someone to sit with them someone should be available to do that. Greeters should be there an hour early and be available afterward to answer questions! If there are no greeters the visitors will zero in on the ushers, if they don't need to talk to anyone they have done this before and you can bet they are looking at everything.

Give them something to hold during liturgy, they will be looking at it a lot. Most pew books are difficult for the novice to use, a little brochure explaining the liturgy might be worth developing.

I personally think that most protestants will try to become Orthodox before they even think of trying to find an eastern Catholic church, due to some notions carrying over from their own history.

If a protestant should become interested in Catholicism for some reason (reading apologetics works, watching EWTN, learning from a friend) they will hardly be aware that the eastern Catholic churches exist and will not usually seek them out. In other words for them, the merits of Catholicism may be judged solely by the efforts of the Roman Catholic parish down the street.

If a visitor shows up at the Narthex anyway we must assume that she has already been through this and has something to compare your parish with in the back of her mind.

So as just one example if your parish has rosary before liturgy instead of traditional Matins that will disturb more than a few visitors right off the bat, including Roman Catholics who very seldom do those things anymore as a parish. It will encourage the SSPX types and you could become infested with them.

The reason I say it will disturb people is that they will know it does not reflect the tradition of the church and they will not have been looking for public rosaries when they started to look for a new spiritual home! If they had already attended the Orthodox parish down the street you may have lost them without a word being said. If there is no question that these practices will not change soon you are really going to need those greeters!

There are plenty of things like that, in my opinion the authentic tradition is attractive, the bastardized liturgy is less so.

If you see something about the parish that should be changed, discuss it with the pastor!

So how do we get them to come in? Good question, there must be as many ways as there are people, and I am curious to see what others say about it. This modern western culture of ours has already been through Christianity in many forms and has been slipping into atheism and indifferentism for a long time, so it's not like evangelizing the Inuits in Alaska 200 years ago or the Slavs 1000 years ago. We are going to have to reflect on this a bit.

In Christ,
Michael, that sinner

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Athanasius, just one thing--kids are brought in by TRADITION. That is my experience, almost universally. "Keep it real," and the kids will come--they will see their Faith as a contradiction to the world, which will give them a reason to come to Church. If the Liturgy merely serves to express the spirit of the world--the one that most kids "out there" do seem to be interested in--then the ones who would otherwise have been drawn in will have nothing there to draw them; it will be the same as what's out there in the world. If there is no difference between Church and world, kids will see no reason why not to opt for the world.

LatinTrad

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One of our greatest tools of evangelization is the Early Church Fathers. Was it Chesterton, or Newman that said to study early church history is to cease being protestant.

When we present those around with the truths of Scripture as seen by the Fathers of the Church, then it is very hard for them to deny the existance of the Catholic Church.

The next being the participation in the Divine Liturgy of any of the liturgies. Once that participation takes place, they can no longer deny the Bible and the Liturgy. In the Byzantine Liturgy, there are over 220 Scriptural referances.
Scott Hahn, said he came to a mass to tell the Catholics that they were worship idols. But, when the priest elevated the Eucharist and said the Lamb of God, the whole Book of Revelation opened up before him. He was sold on the truths of the faith and Gods Church.

Rose


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