by David Cooley

It’s a new year—a fresh start—and The Catholic Telegraph has a new cover design to support our exciting and bold initiative to help build up the Kingdom of God in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. For five years now, The Catholic Telegraph as a magazine has been “bringing faith into the home,” and that is something we will always strive to do. Yet, we know that while everything begins in the home—the place where we nurture our faith and the faith of our family—we can’t just stay within its confines and comforts. As Christians, we are called to go out into the world and bring the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to our community and everywhere we go! Mission territory awaits right outside the front door, and we want to partner with you on that Christian adventure.

And so, we decided this year on the theme “Building the Kingdom.”  We will do our best each month to expand on that theme with stories and articles to inform and inspire. My team and I have talked at length about our mission to evangelize, and our new cover is just one way through which we hope to reach more people. We seek to lead with beauty and include more information on the cover to encourage people to not only open and read it, but also share it with another person who might find it interesting or helpful.

Additionally, we hope to expand our reach through the various channels available to us. We want a more robust digital presence to better engage with the community, so we plan to produce more videos and photos for our stories on our website, as well as share and communicate with people via social media. Whether we like it or not, the digital arena is also mission territory and, on the positive side, allows us more flexibility and space than the printed page.

Sharing the Gospel in today’s world is not for the faint of heart but for the brave and joyful. We often find ourselves in environments that are indifferent or even hostile. We are all called to build the Kingdom, but the task is sometimes daunting and overwhelming, leaving us uncertain of where or how to begin. 

It’s always a good idea to start small. If we are building something beautiful for God, let’s do it brick by brick; with one small action at a time, focusing on one person at a time. This might be reaching out to a neighbor in need, getting more involved at our parish, starting a new apostolate, or simply setting aside more time to pray and inviting others to join us. Whenever I get overwhelmed, I like to remember Mother Teresa’s famous quote: “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”

When constructing a building or bridge, the work is done board by board, brick by brick. It’s a good analogy and a reminder to take things one step at a time. The worker’s key task when building is ensuring the foundation is strong. If we are to help build God’s Kingdom here on earth, we must have Christ as the foundation, the cornerstone upon which we build. If we keep Christ at the center of everything we do, we can at least know we are on the right track even if we don’t see the results we hoped for. I’ll close with another quote from Mother Teresa: “God doesn’t ask that we succeed in everything, but that we are faithful.”

David Cooley

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