By Vernon Khelawan

This weekend marks the formal end of the period which the local Church dedicated specifically to spreading the Good News. It was a Synod mandate that the Pastoral Priority The New Evangelisation be espoused from December 8, 2009 through December 7, 2010.

So important was this priority that in October 2010, the Synod Implementation Team with the approval of Archbishop Gilbert decided to extend the time-frame of The New Evangelisation – Catholic Family Become What You Are to May 31, 2011. Was it successful? That is difficult to determine. What is certain however, is that the majority of parishes in the Archdiocese, through their various teams and committees, did a lot of work to ensure the mission was carried out – that all Catholics come to know Jesus and live their lives animated by His love, example and values resulting in the evangelisation of culture and integral human development.

The campaign “Catholic Family, Become What You Are” touched a lot of people and impacted positively on many families who have come to realise the importance of the work of evangelisation, starting in the very household, spreading to the parish and school communities and more widely to the country.

The prayers for success of the mission of the New Evangelisation have been many and while it might be difficult at this time to determine the extent of the fruits of this mission, the Archdiocese, I believe, can rest assured that there has been a determined effort on the part of most of us to carry out the mandate given at Synod 2009.

The goal of the second Pastoral Priority Revitalising Catholic Culture and Identity is that “our Eucharistic world view, our daily living and our celebrations are in the service of building a culture and identity that keeps the ‘memory of Jesus’ alive; the Jesus who died to gather all who were scattered.”

As we await the official launch of this second priority in a few weeks, we pray that as Catholics we begin to prepare ourselves for the serious task ahead in the full knowledge that Jesus invited us to follow Him and our acceptance of this invitation marks us out in a particular way and gives us our identity.