Nicholas Hardesty

April 10, 2019 by Nicholas Hardesty

The game of baseball is a great analogy for an evangelizing parish. We love the analogy so much that we built our evangelization process around the analogy.

One analogy that we can make between baseball and an evangelizing parish has to do with the critical role of the leader.

In the game of baseball, the head coach makes or breaks the team: In baseball you can have all of the talent in the world, but if you do not have a head coach that can direct that talent, your team will suffer. A good head coach has the big picture in mind and works to form a cohesive team that plays together.

In the same way, leadership makes or breaks an evangelizing parish. An evangelizing parish might have the best programs, it might have abundant resources, it might even the best employees, but if it suffers from lack of leadership it will be very difficult to become an evangelizing parish.

The Cincinnati Reds understand this reality. In order to find that edge that could make them a winning team, they are focusing first on leadership, specifically on building a healthy organization using the book The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team by Pat Lencioni. According to the Reds, this is changing their culture from the inside out.

The 5 dysfunctions of a team are:

Absence of Trust
Fear of Conflict
Lack of Commitment
Avoidance of Accountability
Inattention to results.

Not surprisingly, these 5 dysfunctions make or break a healthy parish leadership team as well. Pat Lencioni is not only an internationally sought after business consultant, he is also a faithful Catholic who is really applying his faith to the business world. In the same way, he is giving back to the Church through his leadership development apostolate, the Amazing Parish.

In our experience, a healthy leadership team at a parish is the key that unlocks the potential of an evangelizing parish. Absent healthy leadership, we have seen evangelizing efforts take off but inevitably they will plateau at best and fizzle completely out at the worst.

It turns out that Cincinnati will be doubly blessed by Pat Lencioni’s leadership advice. While the Cincinnati Reds hope the principles of a healthy organization will translate to wins on the baseball field at Great American Ballpark, a few blocks down at the Duke Convention Center, parishes from across the Archdiocese of Cincinnati will join parishes from across the country for the Amazing Parish Conference right here in Cincinnati this May 13-15, 2019.

I will be there with my Evangelization Leadership Team as we are beginning to implement Amazing Parish principals on the diocesan level. If you are looking for the next step to help your parish become an evangelizing parish, this is the first place I would start.

April 5, 2019 by Nicholas Hardesty

Quick, grab your phone, open your calendar app, and mark this date: April 20, 2019. That’s the date for the liturgy of all liturgies, the greatest and most noble of all solemnities: the Easter Vigil.

I love the Easter Vigil. There’s really no better way to seize the Easter season then by celebrating the holy night that ushers it in. If you’ve never been, then consider this your invitation. Here are four reasons why you should definitely attend the Easter Vigil.

Reason #1: Get lit.

The Mass begins at night with the lights out. The only illumination comes from a massive bonfire burning outside. Once the Paschal Candle is lit by the fire, its flame is used to light small candles held by those in the congregation. To see the church alight not by the force of electricity but by a holy fire is truly a sight to behold.

This new light acts as a visceral reminder that Jesus is “the light of the world” (John 8:12) and by our baptism we “are light in the Lord” and “children of light.” (Ephesians 5:8)

Reason #2: Raise the roof.

Once the Paschal Candle takes its place at the front of the church, the deacon (or priest, or lay cantor if need be) chants one of the most effusive and poetic hymns of praise in the history of the Church: The Easter Proclamation, or Exsultet (after the first word of the proclamation in Latin).

The Exsultet is beautiful, even alarmingly so, because it’s overflowing with praise and we haven’t even celebrated any sacraments yet! But that’s how special the light of Christ is. As the prayer itself says in part, the Easter Vigil is an opportunity to “raise the roof” in rejoicing:

“Rejoice, let Mother Church also rejoice,
arrayed with the lightning of his glory,
let this holy building shake with joy,
filled with the mighty voices of the peoples.”

Reason #3: Hear the story.

To make the account of God’s saving work more explicit, the Liturgy of the Word is filled to the point of bursting. Nine readings – seven from the Old Testament and two from the New – provide a grand tour through salvation history, as reader after reader tells the story of God working mightily to rescue us from sin and death.

It is truly awe-inspiring to see the plan of God unfolding. If you’ve ever wanted a birds-eye view of the whole bible, this is it. If you’ve ever wanted to hear the greatest story ever told, this is it. Be sure to soak it all in.

Reason #4: Welcome them home.

It doesn’t take a lot of effort for you to attend this liturgy. You just have to decide that it’s a good idea. But, there are Candidates (baptized non-Catholics) and Catechumens (unbaptized persons) who have been diligently preparing for as much as two years to come, finally, to this grand occasion. You don’t put that kind of work in unless you desperately want to become Catholic. The Easter Vigil is the climactic point of that long journey.

Knowing this, what kind of an impression do you think it would make if these precious people were to be baptized and confirmed, and then were to look out on a mere spattering of people? This year I challenge you: Make your church like the finish line of a marathon. Show the runners that we appreciate and celebrate them for running the race Christ set before them.

These new Catholics are a gift and a treasure. Praise God for them! Greet them, get to know them, invite them over for dinner, plug them into whatever you do for fun or to grow in holiness. Show them that they have come all this way not to be stranded in a desert wasteland, but to prosper in a loving and enriching community of faith.

Nicholas Hardesty

March 28, 2019 by Nicholas Hardesty

“After receiving the Good News told to her by the Archangel Gabriel, Mary, in her Magnificat, prophetically sings of the mercy whereby God chose her. The Virgin of Nazareth, betrothed to Joseph, thus becomes the perfect icon of the Church which evangelizes, for she was, and continues to be, evangelized by the Holy Spirit, who made her virginal womb fruitful.”

– Pope Francis, Message for Lent 2016 Tweet

Pope Francis has upheld Mary, the Mother of God as an example of both someone who is open to continually be evangelized and as an expert evangelist.

3 Ways Mary Teaches Us to be Evangelized

Always Say Yes. (Luke 1:38)
Jesus will ask of you the impossible. When you give Jesus your “yes” he will change your life.
Meditate on God’s Word. (Luke 2:19)
God’s Word will always change you if you take the time to meditate and “store it up” in your heart.
Cling to the Cross. (John 19:25)
The path to new life in Christ always goes through the cross. Allow the sufferings of your life to draw you closer to Jesus.

3 Ways Mary Teaches Us to Evangelize

In all things point to Jesus. (John 2:5)
Obedience to Christ is the beginning of conversion. Encourage others to listen and obey to Jesus.
Don’t wait around, take Jesus to others. (Luke 1:39)
Look for every opportunity to introduce your best friend Jesus to others.
Intercede for others. (John 2:3)
Praying for others is critical for evangelization. Spend your day praying for the conversion of people in your life.

Sean Ater

March 19, 2019 by Nicholas Hardesty

In his Introduction to the Devout Life, St. Francis de Sales writes that genuine, living devotion exists when a person not only does good, but does it carefully, frequently, and promptly. This kind of instinctive, loving action is also called “docility of the spirit.” As Scripture reveals, an excellent role model of this docility is St. Joseph.

The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph was in peril from the start. That the inn was full was only one of their many troubles. But, despite the obstacles that the Holy Family had to overcome, they prevailed. This is due in large part to Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus. Any time there was confusion or danger that threatened the Holy Family, God needed only to speak to Joseph in a dream and Joseph would immediately do whatever was necessary to care for and protect his family.

The Birth of Jesus

The Holy Family threatened to unravel before it was even fully created! Mary was found to be pregnant while she and Joseph were betrothed, but before Joseph brought her into his home to consummate the marriage. Mary’s pregnancy could have caused tremendous scandal in the community and the shaming of Mary, but “Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to send her away quietly” (Mt 1:19) – a noble gesture, and from Joseph’s point-of-view, the only thing he could have done. But, God had something else in mind:

“As [Joseph] considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which his conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins’” (Mt 1:20-21)

What did Joseph do? Did he question the dream? Did he wonder if it was really a message from God? Did he put off making a decision, or choose contrary to what he heard in the dream? No. “When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him” (Mt 1:24).

The Escape to Egypt

The wise men who followed the star to the Holy Family’s house were supposed to return to Herod and report to him where they had found the child. But they didn’t! They too had great docility of spirit and, heeding the warning they received in a dream, decided to depart to their own country by another way (Mt 2:12).

Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the Wise Men, “was in furious rage, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to that time which he had ascertained from the Wise Men.” (Mt 2:16)

But, God again intervened, and Joseph responded:

“[B]ehold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there till I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ And he rose and took the child and his mother by night, and departed to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod” (Mt 2:13-15).

Joseph didn’t wait to make preparations and plans. He didn’t even ask where in Egypt he was to go or how he was going to get there. He rose that very night, gathered up his precious family, and left. It’s alarming to the modern mind to see how singularly focused he was on being obedient to the promptings of God. Nothing else mattered in comparison to that.

The Return from Egypt

After the death of Herod, we see that God told Joseph in a dream that it was safe to return to Israel, and then, on the way there, God told him in another dream exactly where he should settle.

“[W]hen Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead.’ And he rose and took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archela′us reigned over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee. And he went and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He shall be called a Nazarene’” (Mt 2:19-23)

It’s interesting that, for this particular mission, God appeared to Joseph twice. Perhaps God did this because Joseph had proven himself keen to respond carefully, frequently, and promptly to the Lord.

Follow and Know

Joseph’s life is an example to us that if we readily respond to the guidance and promptings of God’s grace, then we will receive more guidance and more promptings from Him. In other words, in order to know the Will of God, we have to follow the Will of God! It’s radically counter-intuitive, but that is the message of the life of St. Joseph.

Just imagine how many mistakes we could avoid and good fruit we could produce as missionary disciples if only we had St. Joseph’s docility! When we come to a place of uncertainty and we’re unsure what God’s Will is, we tend towards stagnation. We tend to think, “I must stop and do nothing until I know what His Will is.” But, that’s not what St. Joseph did. Instead, he kept going, kept following, kept responding, kept doing what he knew was right. He stayed open and faithful, and as a result, God’s Will was further and further revealed in his life.

St. Joseph reminds us: Stay docile and witness God’s plan unfolding!

Nicholas Hardesty

March 15, 2019 by Nicholas Hardesty

“You have been using water continuously for the last three months,” they told us. Not the kind of news any homeowner wishes to receive. We had a leak.

When the plumber arrived on a Monday morning to identify its location, we took a walk to the meter. He asked me how long I had lived there and why we had moved, with the logical follow-up being a question regarding the nature of my profession. I was all too happy to tell him that I was the Director for Evangelization for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. It was my day off. Elbow deep in my meter, smiling, he said, “Well you don’t need to evangelize me, I’m already Catholic.” Also smiling, I thought to myself, “We’ll see about that.”

Work-life balance is a myth.

Now it was my turn to play talk show host. I asked about his parish and he spoke positively about his life as a Catholic, recalling schools and parishes he attended over his life. I asked about his work and he again spoke openly, vulnerably in fact, describing his decision to start his own business about 5 years prior in an industry dominated by large competitors. I heard the risk in his voice and the Holy Spirit began to convict my heart. I wanted to bless him. I wanted to identify the grace of the moment.

I reminded him with the urgency worthy of the Gospel that his work was his apostolate – to be Jesus in the lives of people when they are vulnerable and stressed, for I knew quite well that ain’t anybody having their best day when the water line leaks.

Work-life balance is a myth.

His eyes began to well up. I don’t recall exactly what he said next, only that it was prefaced with the phrase, “Us believers…” I was with him in that moment. He then went on to tell me about a near death experience from his twenties following a car accident that should have otherwise killed him.

Work-life balance is a myth. There is only the Kingdom.

The Whole Thing Is “The Real Stuff”

In his book Chance or the Dance, Catholic author Thomas Howard writes:

“But there is the question. What, precisely, is ‘the business of life’? We can get onto an endless carousel if we try to decide which is the serious stuff of life, work or play. It is possible to take either view: either we toil away our eight hours so that we can get down to the real stuff – pleasure and love and recreation – or we enjoy periodic intervals of escape from the real stuff, the work… A little probing reveals the superficiality of either view. We know that the real stuff of life cannot be located at our desk or on the beach. Whatever it is, it won’t be parceled out that way. Experience doesn’t hold off while we are at work and begin when the whistle blows. The whole thing is ‘the real stuff’, and the irony is that, unless we take ourselves by the scruff of the neck and make ourselves reflect upon it, we allow it to tumble past us helter-skelter and never grasp any of it as real.”

The Vocation to the Apostolate

For the Christian, work-life balance is a myth. No, don’t check your email during dinner. Don’t neglect your spouse and kids for the sake of a prospective promotion. That’s most certainly not the point. Priorities are important. But “the Christian vocation is, of its nature, a vocation to the apostolate,” says the Catechism. (CCC 883)

When the Church speaks of “apostolate,” she refers to “‘every activity of the Mystical Body’ that aims ‘to spread the Kingdom of Christ over all the earth.’” (CCC 863) As necessarily a vocation, apostolate is not something that you do or don’t do, stop or start. Apostolate is something that you live; it’s who you are! Or, to borrow from Howard, the “whole thing is ‘the real stuff.’” The whole thing is apostolate.

The Danger of Professional Christianity

Work-life balance is a myth in the same way that compartmentalized Christianity is a myth. It was a myth for my newfound friend, lest he believe that his leak detection business or the quality of his work were anything less than his net and bait as a fisher of men. For myself, an even greater temptation lay before me: the danger of “professional Christianity” that would seek to limit evangelization to the nine to five efforts of experts, not to be bothered on their “day off.”

According to Pope Francis:

“It would be insufficient to envisage a plan of evangelization to be carried out by professionals while the rest of the faithful would simply be passive recipients.” (EG 120)

Similarly, Pope Saint John Paul II writes:

“[Evangelization] cannot be left to a group of ‘specialists’ but must involve the responsibility of all the members of the People of God. Those who have come into genuine contact with Christ cannot keep Him for themselves, they must proclaim Him.” (NMI 40)

Only problems arise when we attempt to separate the work of Christianity from the life of Christians: from moral legalism to minimalism to clericalism to the everyday scandal of my sin.

Work-life balance is a myth. There is only the Kingdom.

Ryan Mahle

March 14, 2019 by Nicholas Hardesty

“Only the interior life can sustain us in the hidden, backbreaking labor of planting the seed that seems to go so long without fruit.”

― Jean-Baptiste Chautard, Soul of the Apostolate Tweet

Think of some of the busiest, most energetic, most fruitful Missionary Disciples of our time, people like St. Mother Teresa, St. John Paul II, and Pope Francis. All of these evangelists had one thing in common: they dedicated an inordinate amount of time to personal prayer.

In order to be a Missionary Disciple we must do the same. We can do nothing apart from Christ. The saints called this dedication to personal prayer the “interior life.” The foundation of the interior life is daily mental prayer.

One classic spiritual manual on prayer that is a must read for those striving for Missionary Discipleship is the Soul of the Apostolate by Jean-Baptiste Chautard. In this manual Chautard gives 6 principles to follow to grow in the interior life:

Pray before your act. Always seek God’s will before jumping headlong into an activity, even the most noble or heroic act of service or evangelization.
No activity is important enough to harm your prayer life. It doesn’t matter how righteous an activity is, if it keeps you from habitual and consistent prayer then cut it out of your life.
Schedule your prayer time. You schedule the most important activities in your life. What does it say about the importance of your prayer life if you not schedule that time and hold yourself to that appointment with God?
The busier you are the more you need a consistent prayer life. The success of our own activity and good works can blind us to the need for a consistent prayer life. All of our activity is for nothing if it is not the fruit of an active life of prayer.
No one is perfect, but do not lose your desire to pray. We are going to have days – or days on end – when we fail at prayer. On those days it is important to take your spiritual temperature. Do you still desire a deep connection with Christ? If so, there is still hope to get back on track!
Keep the goal in mind. The goal is a habitual prayer life in which you are totally dependent on God’s grace for all of your activity. I know for me this will be a life-long pursuit!

Sean Ater