Commission on Evangelization

Father Bruce Brylinski, artist/evangelizer, and his life-size puppet Zoeisha share the Good News in a fresh way in Eastern Kentucky.

Evangelizing Through the Arts

The Glenmary Commission on Evangelization (CoE) recently explored the cross-fertilization of evangelization and the arts. Father George Mathis and Father Bruce Brylinski spoke from their experiences as pastors, evangelizers and artists. The discussions sought to identify how the arts can help us evangelize people who do not respond to the usual evangelization approaches.

As part of Father. George’s presentation, he was asked to comment on a tension that many Glenmary parishes are experiencing—diverse cultures, several languages and divergent ways of artistically expressing one’s faith.

He proposed thinking of three “zones” in the lived Catholic experience. The most basic being an “obligation” zone; the next, a comfort zone of rituals, devotions, statues and finally, a zone of “stretching” such as social justice issues. He commented that most of us are satisfied living within the first two zones, our “comfort zones” but the Church is always calling us to keep stretching. That’s what this tension is calling us to do: stretch.

To make this more concrete, he proposed a possible pastoral strategy for a parish with different cultures/languages and Sunday Eucharistic worship. Father George based his remarks on the already established precedent of the Children’s Liturgy of the Word. The principles on which the Children’s Liturgy of the Word is based could apply to our current cultural situation. By creating “mini chapels” and using trained lay catechists, his proposal seeks to provide for the language, devotional and artistic needs of the communities involved.

Rather than scheduling separate Eucharist celebrations for the different ethnic groups, which only emphasizes the group’s “differentness, his approach would “bring all the groups together in community with one another, which is at the heart of what Eucharist celebrates.” (For more, see Chew On This: Many Languages--One Community: A Proposal for Sunday Eucharist.)

Father Bruce presented “Planting the Seed,” an original drama using life size puppets (aee photo above). The CoE focused on how drama as a “carrier” of religious values and themes could be used by parishes to reach out to the local community.

Father Bruce proposed using the drama as the starting point and foundation for a retreat day. The process would culminate in original skits and puppets created by the participants using the same themes. He is currently working on a puppet drama dealing with prejudice, classism and stereotyping entitled, “Flocking Together.”

For more about Father Bruce's use of art in his ministry see Missioner Evangelizes Through Art

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