Archbishop Chaput needs a red hat!

I love the guy – he’s so pastoral, such a teacher, as The Curt Jester reminds us with this excerpt:

God remakes the world with our deeds, not our intentions. What distinguishes real faith from surface piety is whether we actually do what we say we believe.

Our mission as disciples is not simply to pass along good morals to our children, or convey a sense of God’s hand in the world. These things are vital, of course, but they don’t exhaust our vocation. Our mission is to bring the world to Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ to the world. Each of us is a missionary, and our primary work is the conversion of our own hearts and the hearts of others so that someday the whole world will acknowledge Jesus Christ as humanity’s only savior and Lord.

That’s a big task. We can’t do it by just “dialoguing” about it, any more than Christ could redeem us by writing an essay on sin. The Gospels have power because they tell the story of what God did; what his only son did; and what Christ’s followers did. The Passion accounts of Christ’s suffering and death move us so deeply because they show in bitter detail how unashamedly God loves us.

Read the whole thing.