Question: What is the Paulist Mission?

This past week the novices spent some time with Fr. Colgan learning more about the Paulist mission.  Seemed a good excuse to post a few words about what make the Paulists unique.

In short, the Paulists are a missionary order who work primarily in North America.

Their three-fold mission is:

— Evangelization, by giving the Word of God a voice “using tools of the modern age”

— Reconciliation with Catholics who have left the church

— Ecumenical outreach to build bridges with other faiths

All of this relates back to Fr. Isaac Hecker, a Redemptorist priest who was called by the Holy Spirit as a missionary to the people of North America.  This puts the Paulist priests out into the community as much as possible, finding ways to build bridges and understanding.

A couple of notable examples of this ministry include The Busted Halo and Fr. James DiLuzio’s Luke Live.

Busted Halo is a far reaching ministry designed to reach out to the young who have questions of faith.  (Although those of us who are “older” can learn a lot there as well.)  Among the tools of Busted Halo you’ll find a comprehensive and frequently-updated website, a daily radio program on Sirius XM, and a variety of podcasts which include homilies and a more-or-less-weekly Q&A show with Fr. Dave Dwyer and Fr. Steven Bell.

Luke Live is a parish mission in which Fr. James brings his considerable vocal and theatrical talents into play to illuminate and instruct around the Gospel of Luke.  We’ve been privileged to have him bring the mission to our parish twice now and both visits were remarkable and uplifting.

And, of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention two of their more well-known ministries; Paulist Press and Paulist Productions.  The first of these is a publishing house and the second a film production company.

One last note, this week Evan will be meeting with a Sulpician priest.  I had never heard of the Sulpicians and was surprised to discover that they are an order which is dedicated to the formation of priests.  Kind of neat that such and order exists.  I look forward to hearing more about them in the future.

— Dad