"In our contemporary situation, above all in Europe, a continuous process of secularisation has meant that we find ourselves faced with a practical paganism. To evangelise the man of today, the Church, following the Second Vatican Council, has to rediscover a synthesis of theology and catechesis in which announcement (kerygma), change of life (moral practice) and liturgy form the new man who announces the risen Christ." "Today the Neocatechumenal Way offers itself as a way that God has given to the Church after the Council for the opening within the parish of an itinerary of Christian initiation, similar to that of the primitive Church, carried out in stages, where contemporary man can be born into the new life that the risen Christ brought with his coming." "This way of Christian initiation is carried out in small communities, following the example of the Holy Family of Nazareth, so that the seed that we received in Baptism can grow to its adult stature." "The Neocatechumenal Way is neither a movement nor an association in the sense given to these terms today. Rather it is a time of intense formation at the end of which the brothers and sisters remain in the parishes, forming communities of adult Christians as an expression of the missionary Church, giving witness to the world with the signs that call man to faith: love in the dimension of the cross and perfect unity: 'Be one so that the world will believe'(Jn 17:21)."--BOOK JACKET.