Franciscan at Home

What is urgently needed for the New Evangelisation, wrote Blessed John Paul II in Christifidelis laici, is a ‘mending of the Christian fabric of society’. And then: ‘for this to come about what is needed is to first remake the Christian fabric of the ecclesial community itself present in these countries and nations.’ Pope Benedict XVI echoes this call in Ubicumque et semper, the Apostolic Letter establishing the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelisation.

Catechesis in Poland

In each Catholic community the essential features of a Catholic approach to formation need to take root in the local soil, a soil that is specific to that environment. The challenges to the local church always revolve around how to engage fruitfully and creatively with this environment, so that Christians can come to maturity in an authentic way.

New catechetical movements are underway, especially movements to serve the new evangelization. There is a renewed effort being put forward in the area of catechetics from all over the world. A number of the “new movements” themselves have a strong commitment to catechesis. Another example of a “catechetical movement” is the Amicitia Catechistica, or ‘Catechetical Friendship’, of Franciscan University in the United States, Maryvale Institute in England, and Notre Dame du Vie in France. These three institutions have a special devotion to the work of catechesis. If we take a quick look at the recent history of catechesis in the Church, we can see this renewal has been gathering pace for a while.

The picture is a complex one, with solid tracks of renewal alongside wrong-turnings. Even before Vatican II, alongside many healthy currents of renewal, other fundamental shifts were taking place in the areas of philosophy, biblical interpretation, theology, and liturgy. Some of these trends encouraged an anthropocentric outlook. In the area of philosophy, for example, this can be traced back at least to the period of the Enlightenment. Once philosophy removed classical metaphysics from the equation, theology and liturgy also suffered. In his book The Mass and Modernity, Fr. Jonathan Robinson identifies what happened in the liturgy. “The liturgy is no longer primarily the worship of God, but a celebration of our needs and ‘our own life experience’.”[i] He quotes Cardinal Danneels, a progressive Belgian bishop who wrote, “It is the liturgy which must obey us and be adapted to our concerns, to the extent of becoming more like a political meeting or a ‘happening’. We are celebrating our own life experience!”[ii]

Msgr. Michael Wrenn, a special consultant for religious education to John Cardinal O’Connor, writes of this period,

“Basically what occurred in catechesis was a shift from God to man; from supernatural faith to more human concerns; from proclaiming the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ and everything that follows from that to espousing a purely human kind of effort featuring a struggling humanity trying to save itself by political means from oppression and injustice.”[iii]

As is well known, at the time of the Second Vatican Council the Church adopted a less critical attitude towards the world. Dialogue appeared to be replacing apologetics. Winning the argument gave way to a sharing of hearts and minds. Although the Council documents make some tough statements about the state of the world the overall impression is that of a Church addressing the world in positive tones. “Let us reason together,” seems to be the main form of address.

But in fact the Church does not teach that the importance of dialogue does away with the fundamental duty of preaching the gospel and seeking conversion. And the recent conclusions of the Synod on New Evangelisation contained clear reaffirmations of the need for a renewed apologetcs and a clear proclamation of the Gospel.

So is it perhaps time to look again at our attitude to the world? And why should it be so important? Well, first of all, few would deny that in the western world there is massive ignorance of Christian truth. Secondly a more upbeat, less self-apologising approach to evangelisation has been emerging in the Church for some time now.

Approximately 5 years ago, while teaching at a Conference on Catechetics, I was approached by an older gentleman who asked me a very simple question: “What is truth and what does it have to do with what we teach?” I responded, simply—“everything, because the ‘what’ you speak of is a ‘Who’—the Person of Jesus Christ’. To this day, I recall leaving that dialogue with a renewed interest in probing the question of truth, in particular, the importance of truth as it relates to catechesis. Five years later, I am still probing in light of the new evangelization, and my studies have me going back to the immensely popular figures of Blessed John Paul II and the Pope Benedict XVI.

Pope Benedict XVI, while reflecting into the meaning of Pilate’s inquiry: “what is truth?” helps bring into focus the essence and meaning of truth; what is at the heart of what we are contemplating. He states: “In Christ, God entered the world and set up the criterion of truth in the midst of history (Christ as the Truth). Truth is outwardly powerless in the world…Yet, in His very powerlessness, he is powerful: only thus, again and again, does truth become power”.[ii] For Pope Benedict XVI, the cross is the definitive sign of truth, because it is the definitive sign of God’s powerlessness, which ‘again and again’ produces power.

Interestingly, it was on his first Apostolic Pilgrimage to Poland that John Paul II used the phrase “new evangelization” for the first time during his pontificate. On that summer day in Mogila, Poland, John Paul II celebrated Mass at the Shrine of the Holy Cross. While reflecting upon the meaning of the cross in Polish history, in particular at the turn of the second millennium, he stated: “Where the cross is raised, there is the sign that evangelization has begun...With it we were given a sign that on the threshold of the new millennium, in these new times, these new conditions of life, the Gospel is again being proclaimed. A new evangelization has begun, as if it were a new proclamation, even if in reality it is the same as ever. The Cross stands high over the revolving world”.[iii] In these words, John Paul II has a challenge to all the Christian faithful setting out to respond to the Church’s call to proclaim the truth in the spirit of the new evangelization: embrace the cross as the epicenter to the new evangelization.

So we have this call ‘to commit to reflect upon the meaning of truth’ along with this obligation to see the cross as a principle constituent to the new evangelization and profound revelation of truth. What does all of this mean for us as Catholics and catechists? We must seek the proper attitude that is necessary for these interlocking towers of the cross and the truth to take root in our heart. So where are we to turn? The first beatitude.

At the recent Synod in Rome on New Evangelisation and the Transmission of the Christian Faith, the Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity made this Intervention, which illustrates how the work of love united to an exposure to the Christian faith is the first step of evangelization.

Your Holiness, Dear Synod Fathers, my dear fathers, brothers and sisters,

Our Mother Teresa is known for the work done for the poor. Not all are immediately aware of the aim of our work that is ‘to bring souls to God and God to souls’. When asked by the Minister of Social Work about the difference between his work and her work, she responded: ‘You do it for something, we do it for Someone’.

‘To evangelize or to be evangelized, that is the question.’ Pope Benedict XVI communicates to us in his Apostolic Letter on the Year of Faith that ‘people are able to evangelize only when they have been evangelized.’ Further we hear from Blessed John Paul II in Christifideles Laici (CL), his Apostolic Exhortation on the Laity, that the lay faithful are ‘personally called by the Lord from whom they receive a mission on behalf of the Church and the world.’ As lay faithful during this Year of Faith, each one of us is given a mission. It is the mission of the Church: to evangelize. Before we can evangelize, however, we first must be evangelized ourselves.

At our reception of the Sacrament of Confirmation, the Bishop in attendance laid his hands on us and said, ‘Let us pray to our Father that he will pour out the Holy Spirit to strengthen his sons and daughters with his gifts and anoint them to be more like Christ the Son of God.’ We were given specific gifts that are to be used on our mission. We are not merely laborers who work in the vineyard but we ourselves are a part of the vineyard (CL, 8). A vineyard is comprised of nothing more than a vine with its branches. If Jesus is the vine and we the branches, then who we specifically are as people is the vineyard. We must take a look at the vineyard this Year of Faith to see how much fruit is being born within it.

And Preparing for the Baptism of the Child

Archbishop Kurtz explains how "The Blessing of the Child in the Womb,” approved on 8 December 2011 by the Congregation for Divine Worship for use in the United States of America, can be a pastoral moment of first evangelization of the child and of new evangelization of the family.

"The Blessing of the Child in the Womb” was approved on 8 December 2011 by the Congregation for Divine Worship for use in the United States of America. This blessing is a pastoral moment of first evangelization of the child and new evangelization of the family. Warmly extending the love of Christ to families as they prepare for the birth of their child, this sacred gesture is both a positive and hope-filled way to announce to society the great gift of human life as well as a gracious invitation for the parents to begin steps for the baptism of their child, once born.

In this address given to the recent Synod for the New Evangelization and the Transmission of the Christian Faith, Pedro Ossandón, Auxiliary Bishop of Chile, calls us to a new awakening of our awareness of the Holy Spirit working in our own lives and in the Church for the handing on of the Faith. This, he says, is the key to the new evangelisation.

Our beloved Blessed John Paul II wrote appreciatively of the gift of the Second Vatican Council, fruit of the action of the Spirit, of our indebtedness to this Council, and of the necessary examination of conscience we must undertake concerning its reception. He also left us a vision: “To make the Church the home and the school of communion: this is the great challenge facing us in the millennium which is now beginning, if we wish to be faithful to God’s plan and respond to the world’s deepest yearnings.”[i] The Pope here was inviting us to a new spirituality. This, I believe, is the challenge of the present moment: to rebuild and to reignite our communities throughout the world in the life of the Holy Spirit in a way that lays solid foundations for the New Evangelisation.

In baptism the Holy Spirit calls us to sanctity[ii]. He makes His dwelling in our hearts, not as a mere place of passive residence, but as the best place from which to move us to love God and love our neighbour as ourselves. So we are to recognise the Spirit as the Teacher of the interior life and the Teacher of evangelisation who helps us discover and walk the journey of faith, both personally and as the Church of God.[iii] From within ourselves, therefore, through the indwelling of the holy Spirit, should spring that mystical life that every Christian ought to cultivate in order to give, in the very heart of society, an eloquent testimony of his faith, shining like a light in the midst of the world.

In this article, Léonie and Stratford Caldecott share their convictions about evangelization, drawn from many years of experience in Catholic cultural and faith renewal.

In Italy and other places there is a Slow Food movement, and there are designated “Slow Cities”. You can read on Wikipedia about Slow Fashion, Slow Money, Slow Parenting, and even a World Institute of Slowness. The Slow Movement believes that quality of life and thus real wealth comes from slowness, care, and contemplation, rather than non-stop activity and frenetic speed. We believe in Slow Evangelization.

Newman’s Spring

2012 was the 160th anniversary of John Henry Newman’s prophetic sermon, “The Second Spring”, marking a turning point in the history of Christianity in these islands – the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and the beginnings of a Catholic revival that went on to produce Christopher Dawson, G.K. Chesterton, and a whole host of poets, novelists, and apologists, many of them published by Frank Sheed and Maisie Ward.

It is worth recalling that when Newman gave the Second Spring sermon at St Mary’s College in Birmingham, he was still only 51 years old, and a relatively recent Catholic. It was only two weeks after the ending of the humiliating Achilli trial, which had brought to the surface much anti-Catholic feeling around the country. The newly reconstituted Synod of Bishops was meeting for the first time, in a neo-Gothic seminary designed by Augustus Welby Pugin. Newman used his platform at the geographical centre of England and at the dawn of a new historical epoch to prophesy a resurgence of Catholic culture – one that would affect not just intellectuals but the whole population, through the building of churches and schools and the re-entry of Roman Catholics into the political, economic, and social life of the nation. “O Mary, my hope, O Mother undefiled, fulfill to us the promise of this Spring.”