Hosffman Ospino speaks on “The Joy of the Gospel and the Vocation to Evangelizing Discipleship in a Time of Change” during the Vision 20/20 Convocation general session June 8.
By Lindsay Steele
The Catholic Messenger
The Catholic Church in the United States may be in the midst of transitions and challenges, but there is still hope, Hosffman Ospino told delegates at the Vision 20/20 Convocation earlier this year. “It’s a wonderful time to be Catholic.”
The associate professor of theology and religious education at Boston College gave the final general session talk June 8 at St. Ambrose University in Davenport. During his talk, “The Joy of the Gospel and the Vocation to Evangelizing Discipleship in a Time of Change,” Ospino described the Vision 20/20 Convocation as a turning point for the Diocese of Davenport.
He said the “new evangelization” described in Pope Francis’ encyclical, “The Joy of the Gospel,” is about “understanding the here and now of our reality.” The faith hasn’t changed. The call to evangelization hasn’t changed. But times have changed, so Catholics need to understand what it means “to be a joyful missionary disciple” in today’s world.
Ospino explained that even in troubled times, there is Christian hope. “Christian hope is not carried out in the abstract. Christian hope is always embodied in the faithful. It is embodied in the community. It is embodied in the practices we perform or carry out every single day.”
He and other speakers at the Vision 20/20 Convocation shared their wisdom with the delegates from throughout the Diocese of Davenport in hopes of helping the faithful embrace and live out the Holy Father’s message. Podcasts and videos of most of the presentations are available online.
To hear the presentations, go to https://diocese-of-davenport.simplecast. com. Topics include: sharing faith stories; reaching out to families; evangelizing the churched; evangelizing youths and young adults; sexuality and sexual identity; reaching out to the nones; evangelizing in an age of secularism, atheism and scientism; hospitality; immigrant voices; accompaniment; evangelizing in smaller parishes; and evangelizing to married couples. Video recordings can be found at https://tinyurl.com/y5xjtocw.
