Annual Theme

The Diocese of Arlington consists of the 70 Catholic parishes in the northern half of Virginia and in November 2024 will be celebrating 50 years since being established by the Vatican! If you are a member of one of those parishes, this is a big deal and much like a big birthday celebration! 

The theme of the Golden Jubilee year for the Diocese of Arlington is “Renew!” This theme is meant to emphasize renewing and strengthening our faith in order to share it with others through evangelization and Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy. The seven Spiritual Works of Mercy guide us to help our neighbor in their spiritual needs. These are to counsel the doubtful, instruct the ignorant, admonish the sinner, comfort the sorrowful, forgive injuries, bear wrongs patiently, and to pray for the living and the dead. 

The seven Corporal Works of Mercy are found in the teachings of Jesus and give us a model for how we should treat all others, as if they were Christ in disguise. These works of mercy are to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, visit the prisoners, bury the dead, and give alms to the poor. 

The Jubilee theme comes from Revelation 21:5, “Behold, I make all things new.” It is a statement of hope and renewal by emphasizing the transformative power of Jesus Christ. He is capable of creating something new and beautiful out of the old and broken. This is a reminder that no matter how difficult or challenging our circumstances may be, or how far we have distanced ourselves from God, we can always find hope in a renewed relationship with Him.

Throughout this year, seek to renew and strengthen your faith by spending more time with Jesus in prayer, participating more regularly in the sacraments (especially Mass and confession!), and discovering the joy of sharing the Good News with others!

Look for more resources and special Jubilee Events added throughout the year on the Jubilee Website. We encourage you to make use of these and to incorporate them into your ministry.

en español

If you would like to use the the annual theme image for your ministry, please contact us at youthministry@arlingtondiocese.org. 

Post Card Resource

“It is impossible to grasp the concept of evangelization unless one tries to keep in view all its essential elements.” - EN 17

In order to assist you with understanding the Church's language about the process of evangelization as well as contemporary verbiage we have provided a post card with what we hope will be some helpful visuals. Special thanks to the Diocese of Sioux Falls for the idea. See below for details.

front of card

This graphic illustrates the process of evangelization as described in ecclesial documents. We have also provided you with references to these documents that will help explain the individual steps in greater detail.

EN - Evangelii Nuntiandi - Paul VI

RM - Redemptoris Missio - John Paul II 

CT - Catechesi Tradendae - John Paul II 

GDC - General Directory for Catechesis - Congregation for Clergy 

back of card

The Five Thresholds of Conversion are the five steps that every person goes through on the path to discipleship as Sherry Weddell describes in her popular book, Forming Intentional Disciples. These steps are based on Doug Schaupp's work in evangelization at UCLA. For a very informative description of these five steps please watch this short video by Fr. Robert Barron.

The Pyramid of Spiritual Commitment: Duffy Robins describes a typical youth ministry program as a “mixed bag of kids whose commitments are all over the place.” The Pyramid of Spiritual Commitment provides an illustration of this point. In his book Building a Youth Ministry that Builds Disciples he details what all of these spiritual commitments look like and later helps the reader understand what they can do to help teens move forward in their spiritual commitments.

The Four Earmarks of Discipleship are described in an article by Greg Ogden entitled, Making Disciples Jesus' Way: A Few at a Time. In this article he discusses his observations on the necessary components for building true and lasting disciples. In this article he asserts that disciples are made in relationship, not programs. He goes on to outline four earmarks or hallmarks of how a disciple relationship differs from a program. We especially like that he outlines a way to do this most effectively in small groups and not in a one-on-one relationship. The full article can be downloaded here.

Downloads

If you are interested in reproducing this postcard for your youth ministry program we have provided two versions for your convenience. The first is a pdf you can download and send to a printer to print your own copies of the postcard or you can download an 8.5 x 11 version that can easily be printed at your home or office.

If you have any questions on downloading or printing this resource please contact the Office of Youth, Campus, and Young Adult Ministries at 703-841-2559.