It keeps coming back...

Isn't there a song "It keeps coming back like a song?".

Well both here and here we read about new calls for a new political party. In the comments to the former post, Tom mentions that we need to change hearts among fellow Catholics and then we won't need a new political party. Of course he is correct, but in the meantime...

I am sure the 'new evangelization' written about by John Paul II (of happy memory) starts very close to home. We must re-evangelize fellow-Catholics who have fallen away or have never really understood the fullness of the Catholic Faith due to poor catechesis-at the same time, or even before we evangelize the larger culture. In reality, you work on all fronts according to your vocation and state of life.

There is an absolutely wonderful article in this week's (last week's?) The Wanderer (article not on line) by Alice Von Hildebrand on growing up in a Catholic family in a Catholic culture. Her first paragraph:

When one reads the stories of great conversions-and there are many-one wonders wheter it is a priviledge to be a cradel Catholic. The ardor of converts, their gratitude, their spiritual alerntess often put to shame those of us who since our infancy were blessed to be members of the Holy Catholic Church. Each conversion is a clarion call to both contirtion and gratitude.

Oh how true. But she goes on to explain that the wonder and ardor of the convert can be had and cultivated in at cradle-Catholic.

But back to the point....we do need both-but they are in different realms. We must re-evangelize our family members and fellow Catholics one soul at a time through our example and friendship. Yet we need also to put the ideas of a truly Catholic humanism into the marketplace of ideas (since we live in a democratic republic) -which is not being championed by either major party.

I have a feeling we wil be hearing more on this....