People involved in the mission of handing on the faith will discover a reliable reference point for content and pedagogy in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This series examines how to make use of this gift of the Church for the task of evangelization and catechesis.
A moment at the end of the feeding of the five thousand vividly captures the task of the new evangelization. After all had eaten from the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fish, there was one further task to be undertaken: “And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish” (Mk. 6:43).
The image of broken pieces left after a feeding that prefigures the Eucharist—the sum and summary of the faith—is a compelling image. The ecclesial culture that Pope St. John Paul II asked us to mend, as the priority for the new evangelization (a priority on which the mending of a Christian society depends) is a fragmented one:
"Without doubt a mending of the Christian fabric of society is urgently needed in all parts of the world. But for this to come about what is needed is to first remake the Christian fabric of the ecclesial community itself present in these countries and nations."[1]
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