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Announcement from Bishop Wenski

With the First Sunday of Advent, we begin a new liturgical year, a year which here in the Diocese of Orlando will mark a significant milestone: the 40th anniversary of that date in June 1968 when Pope Paul VI created our diocese from counties that had previously belonged to the Dioceses of St. Augustine and Miami.

A 40th anniversary deserves to be celebrated. In fact, 40 does seems to be a favorite number in the Scriptures: Noah and company were in the ark for 40 days; Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments; and, of course, the Hebrews spent 40 years wandering the desert.Jesus fasted 40 days in the desert before beginning his public ministry. But even outside of the Scriptures, the number “forty” is not insignificant: Consider that a woman carries her baby in her womb for approximately 40 weeks before a new life comes forth from her womb.

In anticipation of this anniversary, our recent Diocesan Synod, Starting Afresh from Christ, helped revealed a new vision for our parishes, schools and other institutions. It is a vision that calls us to be “Witnesses to Hope, Alive in Christ”.

Throughout the New Year, many events, including a Festival of Faith at the Orange County Convention Center in May, will help us to mark this highlight in the history of this vibrant local Church of 90 parishes and missions serving an ever growing population of Catholics, today some 800,000 strong.

But the Diocese does not exist for itself: the Church everywhere exists to announce the Good News about Jesus Christ. For this reason, I have designated our anniversary year also as a “Year of Evangelization”. This is not about new programs or activities; it is about our becoming more aware that all we do in our parishes, schools and other institutions should be done in the light of that Great Commission we all have received in our Baptism: “go and announce the good news to all nations:,

As Catholics we do not proselytize – which implies manipulation or even force; and therefore is unworthy of the gospel. Rather, we evangelize.– by inviting others to friendship with Jesus by their walking with him as members of his Catholic Church, i.e., that community of his friends which Jesus united to himself in his Passion, Death and Resurrection and entrusted to Peter and his apostles and their successors.

But we cannot give what we don’t have – and so evangelizing is more than “the talk about Jesus”, it also means “the walk with Jesus”. In other words, to evangelize effectively we must live lives that authentically witness to the Gospel and transparently reveal our joy in having encountered the living Christ.

Recent Popes – from Paul VI, who established our diocese, to Benedict XVI – have called for a “new evangelization” – new, not in its content for Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever, but new “in its ardor, its methods, its expressions”. Our recent Diocesan Synod, Starting Afresh from Christ, was a response to this call. The Year of Evangelization is a further response through which we seek to remember the past with gratitude, celebrate the present with enthusiasm and look to the future with confidence. With renewed “ardor, methods and expressions” may we be “Witnesses to Hope, Alive in Christ.”