Rebuilding the Church, One Neighborhood at a Time
We are a Catholic missionary community serving parishes that long for renewal. Through prayer, fellowship, and neighborhood missions, we help families rediscover faith, unity, and the call to live as small communities of love and service.
The Mission
Renewal of the Church following the call of Jesus to St. Francis on the cross of San Damiano: Rebuild my Church. We embrace the vision of the Church of Latin America and the Caribbean to build the parish into a COMMUNITY of SMALL COMMUNITIES.
We offer our service to any parish that is in need and where the pastor wishes the renewal.
The Vision
We live in community, inviting others to join us and from teams to go to parishes 2x2 as Jesus sent His disciples. we visit the houses in the barrios of neighborhoods, one by one as jesus taught His disciples.
We invite the families to a 5 night misiion of conversion and commitment to live their faith in solidarity with the parish church and with their neighbors. We teach the people to examine their lives in the light of the gospels, seeking God's will to work for justice and build a "Civilization of love."
Each community meets weekly, called together by the servant Leaders who work with the parish priest. the Servants Leaders are elected by the communities.
How It Works
Our service is the formation of Base Ecclesial Communities in parishes where we are invited. Our ministry is the Parish Renewal based on the Small communities in every neighborhood of the parish.
Preparation & Arrival
Parish members begin with a time of prayer in preparation for the arrival of the Evangelization Community; everyone at home prays one Our Father and one Hail Mary for the renewal of the parish.
Upon reaching the parish, the team separates the area in sectors of 50 families. Then a married couple will be identified as the hosts for the next week; they must be respected by the neighborhood.
Neighborhood Introductions
The team will walk through the neighborhood to get to know it, along with the couple. They will draw a sketch indicating in which houses there are Catholic families; because the mission is aimed at Catholic neighbors, Other churches are not invited because it is a meeting to renew the faith of Catholics.
Five Night Missions
After this is done, the five-nights or days mission, will take place. The meetings will last one hour and a half each night. The base of this mission is the dialogue about God’s Word. Because we seek to promote an open dialogue, neighbors should share their faith experiences and thus we expect greater solidarity between each other. Each night we use a symbol, plus there will be confessions.
Ongoing Meetings
By the last night, in the context of the Eucharist, people are eager to continue these meeting once a week. To assist them people choose their servant-leaders in order to help conduct the meetings in the future.
Small Team Prayer & Invitation
Then a team of visitors will go to each house of the neighborhood, praying for the sick, seeing the needs of families and blessing them. They will also make the invitation to the five-night mission in the host's home.
An Evangelization Community
We are a Catholic Missionary Community, called “Evangelization Community” whose ministry is the formation of Base Ecclesial Communities (CEBs) in all parishes where we are invited to work. This community is made up of married and unmarried lay people, religious sisters and priests, everybody living in community as equals.
The History
In 1975, Father Thomas Maney, Maryknoll Missioner, who was working in Chile, forming CEBs, met Sister Joan Gerads, OSF missioner of the Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls, at a Catholic Charismatic Renewal meeting held in Puerto Rico.
Sr. Joan worked in Maracay, Venezuela forming communities with a methodology that started from a personal encounter of people with Christ the Lord and a meeting with neighbors in an atmosphere of faith.
After the meeting, Fr. Thomas went to Venezuela to experience the method, and he liked it so much that he told Sr. Joan that they should form an international mission team to form Communities in all parishes of the world. It was February 6, 1975. After various difficulties, especially after the fall of the government of Salvador Allende in Chile, Fr. Thomas had to leave the country and his community sent him to work in Venezuela.
Being there, the team with Sister Joan began and they formed communities across Venezuela. Then, they were sent to USA to the Diocese of Duluth in Minnesota. Bishop Paul Anderson encouraged them to form a community that admits laity, not just priests and religious, and by that time several priests and religious from different congregations had obtained permission from their communities to enter in the Evangelization Community.
This is when the first lay couples also become part of the community, the Skeltons and the Chernugles. They returned to Latin America in 1978, serving in Colombia and then Ecuador.
Since then, many people (laity and religious) have come and gone. Currently, the Baque Prieto family and Sister Joan Gerads form the nucleus of the community. They continue forming Communities across Latin America.