The following is an excerpt from a commentary written for Catholic News Service by Carolyn Woo, president of Catholic Relief Services.

The new evangelization has focused on bringing Catholics back to the church so that the word of God and his sacraments can take hold of us and join us to him. At the same time, there is much work to be done for Catholics to bring God into the world.

What does it say about our faith if God is only relevant in “God’s world” confined to church, families and communities where we play nice, act gracious, break bread and leave behind the “dirty” work of making a living?

Is “God’s world” a retreat, a bubble, an escape from what is real? Did Christ not come into the real world to dwell among us with all our frailties, hurts, failings, needs, fears and pride? Did God not charge us to go into the world and proclaim his good news? How can we do that if we do not believe he is there? What good news would we have to proclaim?

Did God not take the fruits of our work and convert these into his own body and blood? Why do we assume that this “real world” is impenetrable to God’s grace, his goodness, his wisdom, his power, his unbounded love and mercy?

Doesn’t “Lumen Gentium” tell us that it is in the expanse of our daily life (including work) that we are to be the light of the world? “Now the laity are called in a special way to make the Church present and operative in those places and circumstances where only through them can it become the salt of the earth. Thus every layman, in virtue of the very gifts bestowed upon him, is at the same time a witness and a living instrument of the mission of the church itself according to the measure of Christ’s bestowal.”