Thursday, October 11, 2012

The Secret to Successful Catholic Christian Evangelization

This is a little piece of brilliance. Can you imagine what the world would look like if it was put into action? If this had been present at my past schools, for instance, or at youth groups, or parishes, or...geez, any of the many, many local Catholic organizations I've attended on the way up?  For some sense of what's meant by the interior life, see The Fulfillment of All Desire: A Guidebook for the Journey to God Based on the Wisdom of the Saints, The Three Conversions in the Spiritual Life, and The Soul of the Apostolate.  Excerpts:
...These two priests had the following plan:
1. To bring to light, from among the hundreds of young Christians in their movement, a minority, even though infinitesimally small, capable of really desiring and seriously practicing the interior life.
2. Then to enkindle their souls to white heat with love for Our Lord, inspiring them with the ideal of the evangelical virtues, and isolating them as much as possible from contact with other students, clerks, or workers, etc., as long as their interior life had not reached the point where it could truly make them immune to all contagion.
3. Finally, at the right time, to give these young men a zeal for souls, in order to use them to reach their comrades more effectively.
It would take too long to say precisely what was the minimum which these two priests demanded of non-fervent candidates, to keep them for a certain length of time in the movement. Let us, rather, draw attention to the great importance they gave to spiritual direction in carrying out their plan.
Fr. Allemand undertook the individual direction of each youth, and excelled in arousing holy enthusiasm for perfection, and in convincing them that the best proof of devotion to the Sacred Heart is to imitate the virtues of our Divine Model.
As for Canon Timon-David, he was not only an excellent confessor, highly skilled in discovering and dressing wounds of the soul, but also a remarkable spiritual director. No one knew better than he did how to set hearts on fire with love of virtue, and he stirred up those who shared this work of direction with him not to be content, in their guidance of souls, with the principles of moral theology proper to the purgative life, but to make use of their directions to steer souls towards the illuminative life. His earnest desire to make his priestly collaborators true directors of souls was something hard to equal.
Both of these men considered that their short exhortations before the weekly absolution were not enough, nor were they content to stop at their talks to the youths as a group, their organization of the liturgical life, nor even their extremely interesting conferences for the select group. They considered that personal direction, for each member, once a month, was indispensable.
They were convinced that after prayer and sacrifice the most effective means of obtaining from God the grace to form these shock troops, which are to rebuild the world, is the activity of a real priest in all the branches of his ministry, but especially in spiritual direction...

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