A Year of Faith

On October 16th, Pope Benedict XVI announced that a "Year of Faith" will begin next October 11, 2012, the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, and end on November 24th, 2013, the feast of Christ the King.  Concerned with the global "drifting away" from the faith, the absence of a catchesis which promotes a personal relationship with Jesus and an active and joyfilled living of that relationship, the Church is mustering up massive efforts for "New Evangelization".  The Pope wrote in his letter, "The Door of Faith" (Porta Fidei), released on October 17th, "What the world is in particular need of today is the credible witness of people enlightened in mind and heart by the word of the Lord, and capable of opening the hearts and minds of many to the desire for God and for true life, life without end."  With Sunday Mass attendance down to 17% in the Archdiocese of Boston, fewer and fewer weddings in Churches, a rapidly increasing number of burials without Mass, and a startling number of unbaptized children, it is time for the awakening of witnesses to come forward to stir the desire for God, so displaced by materialism and secularism in the hearts of a growing number of Christians of all denominations.  While the YEAR does not begin until a year from now, it would be good to pray and reflect over the temperature of our own faith...lukewarm? cold? hot?...and ask that it be enkindled so that we might be agents of this NEW EVANGELIZATION. 
Bro. Rene