Prepare for something beautiful, Smith urges

Catholics should get ready to encounter Christ

- WCR photo by Ramon Gonzalez Archbishop Richard Smith celebrates the Eucharist at St. Joseph Basilica Sept. 24, Smith urged Catholics in the archdiocese to spiritually prepare for the launch of the Nothing More Beautiful evangelization program in December.

By RAMON GONZALEZ
WCR Staff Writer
Edmonton

Archbishop Richard Smith is urging Catholics to prepare through prayer and reflection before embarking on the new evangelization program Nothing More Beautiful.

“The Church exists to evangelize, to make known the person of Jesus Christ and the life that the Father offers us in him,” Smith told a packed St. Joseph’s Basilica Sept. 14, the feast of the Triumph of the Cross.

“This is the mission of the Church: to announce to the world the good news of God’s love in Christ, to proclaim that, in Christ Jesus, we have found the reason for true hope. Such a proclamation to the world is what is meant by the term evangelization.”

But to evangelize in a way that is convincing, “the members of the Church must also be renewed in their love for the Lord and their embracing of the faith of the Church,” the archbishop said in his homily at the 10:30 a.m. Mass.

In May, Smith announced an initiative by which the Edmonton Archdiocese will respond to the call to a new evangelization in Alberta.

“Beginning in December, we shall embark upon a five-year process of celebrating the beauty of the Church’s faith,” he said Sept. 14, noting that a series of four presentations will be held at the basilica.

Smith said his hope is that everyone in the archdiocese will experience in these events “a new and life-transforming encounter with Jesus Christ, who is always present whenever two or three gather in his name.

“Such an encounter cannot fail to inspire within our hearts a deep desire to tell others of the love and hope we have found in Jesus.”

The archbishop noted that with any encounter with the Lord, “we prepare through self-examination and prayer.

“Accordingly, I am today asking every member of the archdiocese to pray for the light of the Holy Spirit and, in that light, to examine honestly and hopefully their relationship with Jesus Christ and his Church.”

“Please pray each day that this endeavour will give rise within the hearts of each of us to a renewed relationship with Jesus Christ,” Smith told the congregation.

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