Re-Evangelization, Part II

Re-Evangelization, Part II

We need to develop in the Church an attitude – an atmosphere – of evangelization. Paul VI said that the Church exists to evangelize! If that is true (and of course it is true and it ought to be obviously true), then the mission of evangelization ought to be explicit and clear in every parish function and activity.

The mission to evangelize was given to the Church by Jesus personally and specifically. He said to the gathered Apostles, just before He ascended:

Mt 28:18 … "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Mt 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Mt 28:20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age."

This commission reveals the necessary part of teaching in evangelization. To "make disciples" is to teach – and it is to teach "all that I have commanded you." Therefore, yes we need to establish an atmosphere of evangelization and outreach in every parish, manifested in every parish function and activity – but before that we need to attend to making disciples of the Catholics already in the parish so that they can be evangelizers themselves. In other words:

We need to establish an atmosphere, an attitude, of continuing education and formation in the Catholic Faith for every Catholic adult and child in the parish. Life-long growth in the Faith, in understanding and in practice, toward to goals of true holiness in Christ and fruitfulness in His Gospel – these ought to be the normative personal goals in the hearts of Catholics. "We are all called to holiness, and to the perfection of charity." 1

Working from a solid foundation of Catholic parishioners growing and zealous in the Faith, we can begin to reach out from the parish to those scattered outside: first to the fallen-away or inactive Catholics, and second to all persons whom our Lord wants to gather into His house and household.

Is such a plan possible? Certainly it is possible, but difficult. It calls for a pervasive change in attitude, in the staff of the church and among the daily communicants, in the parish volunteers and the School teachers and staff, even reaching to the Christmas-Easter Catholics and everyone else as well. We have a mission. We are sent by Jesus Christ. We have work to do.

Every meeting, every activity, every parish function and committee, every fundraiser and every dinner and every youth group activity and meeting ought to exist and be necessary in order to advance the Gospel and the mission of the Church. At every gathering, we all ought to know why we are there, why this group exists and what we are directed toward: the Gospel and the mission to evangelize.

The Church is not a business. It is not a social club. It is not a social-service agency. It is not the auditorium for the weekly performance of a ceremony to help us feel religious. The Church has a mission that is explained by the Cross. Only there, under the Cross, can a Catholic find his or her part in His work – and until that vocation is heard and accepted, no one can enter the vineyard and begin the labors.

Thus, we need to find Jesus. We need to encounter Him, personally, interiorly, in His transforming way in the depths of our soul, to know that we must, each one of us, be His disciple of else our entire life is a waste and for nothing. Jesus is everything, or else we are left empty and barren. So again, what must we do:

We must find Jesus. We must meet Him, and really hear Him, and be made new in Him. We must find ourselves – our own personal vocation – in Jesus. We must, each one of us, be evangelized.

Then, as disciples of Jesus, we must become catechized in ways befitting our gifts and call from Him. We must be educated and formed in the Catholic Faith as all Catholic adults should be. Then, strengthened and empowered in His Truth and with His Spirit, we can begin to live the mission: we can evangelize. We can make disciples. We can be fruitful in His name.

Jn 15:1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.

Jn 15:2 Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

Jn 15:3 You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you.

Jn 15:4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.

Jn 15:5 I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

Jn 15:6 If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.

Jn 15:7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.

Jn 15:8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.

Let me close with some bulleted points from now-Cardinal Dolan of New York (address 2/20/12 on the vigil of the Consistory, Zenit)

* … the Church has a deep need for the interior conversion that is at the marrow of the call to evangelization. 

* …God does not satisfy the thirst of the human heart with a proposition, but with a Person, whose name is Jesus. The invitation implicit in the Missio ad gentes and the New Evangelization is not to a doctrine but to know, love, and serve — not a something, but a Someone. When you began your ministry as successor of St. Peter, Holy Father, you invited us to friendship with Jesus, which is the way you defined sanctity. There it is . . . love of a Person, a relationship at the root of out faith. 

* Yes, and here's my fourth point, but this Person, Jesus, tells us He is the truth. So, our mission has a substance, a content, and this twentieth anniversary of the Catechism, the approaching fiftieth anniversary of the Council, and the upcoming Year of Faith charge us to combat catechetical illiteracy.

* … the New Evangelization is urgent because secularism has often choked the seed of faith; but that choking was sadly made easy because so many believers really had no adequate knowledge or grasp of the wisdom, beauty, and coherence of the Truth.

* Cardinal George Pell has observed that "it's not so much that our people have lost their faith, but that they barely had it to begin with; and, if they did, it was so vapid that it was easily taken away." So did Cardinal Avery Dulles call for neo-apologetics, rooted not in dull polemics but in the Truth that has a name, Jesus.

*…. Thus, our mission, the New Evangelization, has essential catechetical and ecclesial dimensions. This impels us to think about Church in a fresh way: to think of the Church as a mission. As John Paul II taught in Redemptoris Missio, the Church does not "have a mission," as if "mission" were one of many things the Church does. No, the Church is a mission, and each of us who names Jesus as Lord and Savior should measure ourselves by our mission-effectiveness.