The Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) is a ministry dedicated to evangelizing students on college campuses. They describe the three types of evangelization, which are the mission to the nations, the mission to Christian communities, and the new evangelization. In an effort to answer Pope Francis’s call to evangelize, we updated our website to evangelize through each of these three ways.

Mission ad gentes - the mission to the nations

We have a duty to proclaim the Gospel where “Christ and his Gospel are not known.” We want to use our web presence to reach out to those who have never heard the fullness of the Gospel in the Catholic Church, not just those of us who are already Catholic and attend church. On our homepage, we put information about becoming Catholic front and center. We also updated our RCIA information and resources about the sacraments. Finally, we invite those who are not Catholic to join us at mass and talk to our priests.

Mission to the Christian communities

FOCUS describes this mission as taking place in the communities where the Church already “carries out her activity and pastoral care.” This is the evangelization of those who are already “fervent in the faith.” In other words, this is the evangelization of those who already are dedicated to walking with Christ in His Church. This is where our website fulfills a normal parish website role - it provides contact information, mass times, confession times, adoration times, prayer times, upcoming events and news, and information about how to receive the sacraments. The homepage also invites everyone who is new to the parish and looking to become involved.

New evangelization

Pope Saint John Paul II said that “where entire groups of the baptized have lost a living sense of the faith, or even no longer consider themselves members of the Church, and live a life far removed from Christ and his Gospel. In this case what is needed is a ‘new evangelization’ or a ‘re-evangelization.’” We here at St. Catherine’s Newman Center are perfectly positioned to evangelize college students, young adults, and all others who have fallen away from the faith. Our homepage invites new students and fallen-away Catholics to get involved and learn more about their faith. The website also lists all of the college student and young adult ministries.

Why evangelize?

What are we inviting everyone to? We invite them to the Eucharist, the source and summit of our Catholic faith. We invite them to the mass, which prefigures the mystical liturgy that the sains celebrate eternally in heaven. More than all our ministries and events, we invite everyone to the mass, confession, and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.