Channelling Saint Paul in the Twin Cities

Ed. Note. The Bellarmine Forum is pleased to welcome this guest commentary by Mr. Terence Sweeney. Mr. Sweeney writes of an important initiative of evangelization in Minneapolis-St. Paul that takes the truths of the Gospel to places where it would not otherwise be heard–hipster coffee shops. This fearless group of mostly 20-something Catholics are unafraid of taking on the secular zeitgeist by meeting these souls where they are at, while in no way diminishing the Gospel. In addition, they are fiercely loyal to the Magisterium of the Church. It is because of their zeal and fortitude that we applaud them and welcome Mr. Sweeney’s commentary.

At the beginning of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, Paul criticizes the Corinthians for falling into various camps, belonging to “Paul,” “Appolos,” or “Cephas.” Their divisions undermine the Church and make it difficult to “preach the gospel…. To preach Christ crucified.” It is not a new story in the Church that Catholics are distracted from the imperative to preach the gospel. We become attached to figures, political movement, countries, or ideologies instead of the one thing needful. The New Evangelization is the call to preach the full truth of the Church, and at The Heart of the Matter, we are trying to do just that, to bring the Church’s Amen to Christ to the Twin Cities and beyond.

The recent Bishop’s Synod called on the laity of the Church to be on the front lines of the New Evangelization. The Synod recommends small base communities to act as an evangelizing leaven in their communities. In a sense, our little cadre of young adults anticipated this call. There are not too many of us, none of us are theologians, and we haven’t been trained. We just know that when we get to the Kingdom, God will ask us “where are the others?” To respond this question we will need to have put our best efforts into evangelizing. Even if we have no guarantee of success, we are trying to live out this mission of drawing “the others” in our community into the Kingdom.

It seems essential for an evangelist to love the community they are working with. This has been true of all the great missionaries: Paul, Patrick, Bartolome de las Casas, Francis Xavier, Mother Teresa, etc. We are no saints, but we know that in our beloved Twin Cities, there are young adults who are never confronted with the message of the Church. Too often, Catholics preach to the 99 and leave the wandering sheep alone or even worse, we allow ourselves to be divided into rival camps that drive each other away.

Recognizing this dynamic, we decided two years ago to try to find venues where we could reach those who have not heard the Church’s message. The primary way we do this is dropping off over 600 copies of our publication in 40+ coffee shops in St Paul and Minneapolis. Our vision was simple, a small publication with a vintage black and white look placed in a secular location. Our writers provide a variety of short articles on faith, doctrine, and life. In all different facets, we try to represent the heart of the matter: Christ’s love living in the Catholic Church. This means we, as sinners, do not preach the “no” of condemnation but always the Yes of Jesus.

In addition to our print publication, we have a blog featuring our articles. We have links to Catholic websites and provide various articles on faith and culture. We share this blog through members’ Facebook accounts reaching beyond the Twin Cities, without losing our Minnesota focus. We also have occasional happy hours, attend liturgical events, and try to do various charitable works.

In the end, we are just a group of young Catholics, who are not trained evangelists. We just know that we must evangelize. We believe that the work will teach us how to do it and that in the end it is Jesus and the Holy Spirit who do the real work. The Heart of the Matter is just one small way the New Evangelization is being carried out. All we can do is move beyond divisions living and preaching the gospel in our small way to our fellow residents of St Paul and Minneapolis.

Terence Sweeney is native to Saint Paul but is on special assignment in Los Angeles studying for his Masters in Philosophy at the University of Loyola Marymount.

This article, Channelling Saint Paul in the Twin Cities is a post from The Bellarmine Forum.
https://bellarmineforum.org/channelling-saint-paul/
Do not repost the entire article without written permission. Reasonable excerpts may be reposted so long as it is linked to this page.