Making the Vision Real

My two years at Sacred Heart Major Seminary were challenging, enjoyable, and beneficial. I found that the emphasis on detailed study of primary texts across a range of subjects has been helpful ever since.

One of the classes I attended was on leadership. At one point, we had to write a vision statement in which we stated our evangelistic goals and the ways in which we intended to accomplish them.

Recently, when I re-read my statement, I thanked God that I had accomplished many of my stated goals. Here are some of them.

• In 2009, I joined with three other people to found the New Springtime Community (NSC) in Dublin. It is devoted to evangelizing and training evangelizers.
• I along with NSC members wrote and teach a twenty-six week certificate course on the theory and practice of the New Evangelization. It is attended each year by about forty participants.
• Members of the NSC have also written and taught a six-week course for use in parishes, the Parish Evangelization Course.
• The NSC runs a yearly summer school on different aspects of the New Evangelization, for example, in 2014 on The teaching of Evangelii Gaudium, The Joy of the Gospel.

I believe there will be no genuine revival, renewal, or effective evangelization unless we are guided by the Holy Spirit. As such, I have just completed a book, Guided by God: Ordinary and Charismatic Ways of Discovering God's Will, which will be published in England in the spring of 2014. Other books I have been moved to publish since composing that vision statement are Gifted and Sent (2009), The Gifts of the Spirit and the New Evangelization (2009), and Basic Evangelization: Guidelines for Catholics (2010).

Since that vision statement, I have been invited to speak about different aspects of the New Evangelization in a number of European countries, such as England, Scotland, Portugal, Italy, the Slovak Republic, the Ukraine, Malta, and the Czech Republic, where sixteen of my talks were broadcast on Catholic TV. I try to conduct short parish missions. Recently I ran one in Tuscany, Italy, and afterwards in London for the Travelling People (who are itinerant people of Irish descent living outside of Ireland, similar to the Romani, or gypsy, people). Hundreds of Travelers attended and committed themselves to Christ and the task of evangelization.

In retrospect, I can say, without hesitation, that the Licentiate in Sacred Theology I received at Sacred Heart has been a great help in my ongoing commitment to the New Evangelization in cooperation with others.

Fr. Patrick Collins, CM, is a native of Dublin, Ireland. He joined the Congregation of the Mission religious community (Vincentians) in 1963 and was ordained a priest in 1971. Father is a retreat master and conference speaker, and has authored twenty-one books and numerous articles on spirituality and evangelization. He completed his Licentiate in Sacred Theology in the New Evangelization from Sacred Heart in 2008. He resides in Dublin today.