Was St. Augustine a Catholic or a Protestant?
Do you wish that your fellow parishoners (or fallen away relatives) understood the Catholic faith better? Do you want to know more about your own faith? I know that you do because you are reading Catholic365!
So, what can we do? For starters, your parish should be a community of faith, not just a place you go to once a week and don't talk to anybody.
The next time you are on the verge of falling asleep from reading your parish bulletin, think about this: Maybe it's time for you to stop waiting for someone else to invite you to a group at your parish and start one YOURSELF! Yes, YOU!
Ask the Lord in prayer, ask a friend to help, ask a priest to support you, get it in the bulletin, and then YOU can do the inviting!
While there are many important needs for a faith community, there is obviously a lack of accurate knowledge about the faith. To meet this challenge, here are five resources to consider using as content for a monthly discussion group:
1) Scripture studies, an inexhaustible treasure! One study program called The Great Adventure was designed by Jeff Cavins-
http://biblestudyforcatholics.com/
2) The Catechism of the Catholic Church. You don't even need to buy the book, it's all for free online organized by topic, pick a topic you like and print it out!
3) Select an Encyclical to study, which are generally on a particular topic of interest. For instance, the relationship between faith and reason was explored by Pope St. John Paul II in his 1998 encyclical named "Fides et Ratio"
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/all.htm
4) Pamphlets or materials from Catholic Answers, organized into various categories here
http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/browse/more/all/all
5) Instead of reading, show a video talk from the Institute of Catholic Culture
http://www.instituteofcatholicculture.org/library/
You don't need to be a teacher, you can just be a facilitator. There are so many great resources out there already, we just need to bring them to people!