New Evangelization - An App for You

The Diocese of Fort Wayne/South Bend in Indiana has developed an iPhone and Android app called "My Year of Faith" to help Catholics get involved in the New Evangelization. I checked it out today and it's definitely worth the 99 cents one must pay to download it.

Here's a brief video describing the app:

If you don't happen to have one of those fancy little smart phones, you can access everything on the app via a website. Click here to check it out at My Year of Faith. The site also includes links to the two smartphone apps.

Given what is happening in our country, I believe the best way to change things is not through the usual political paths, but through active evangelization, from one person to another. Perhaps this app will in some small way help a confused people regain its faith.

We Are All Missionaries

I'm always a bit dismayed by the attitude of many Catholics, both laypeople and clergy, when it comes to the call to evangelize. They hear Jesus' Great Commission proclaimed in the Gospel and somehow think it doesn't apply to them. Here it is again, the last words of our risen Jesus in Matthew's Gospel:

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age." (Mt 28:16-20)

It sure seems like a pretty straightforward command to me. First Jesus tells the apostles that He has complete authority over all of creation. Then He instructs them to go everywhere making disciples, and to do it through baptism and the teaching of His commands. And to give them hope, to ensure they don't hesitate because of fear, He assures them He will always be with them. As I say, pretty straightforward. And yet some Christians apparently don't accept it.

A few years ago Diane and I took a leisurely road trip out West. One Sunday we attended Mass in a fairly large parish church in northern California. I especially remember the fact that there were no kneelers anywhere in the Church, even in their side chapel where I was told they occasionally celebrated Benediction. And so I was prepared for an interesting homily and the pastor didn't disappoint me. In the course of his remarks he mentioned that he had been asked by someone whether Catholics should actively proselytize among the Muslim community in response to Jesus' call to "make disciples of all nations." His answer was a loud, resounding, "No!" In effect he told his parishioners that Muslims were just fine as they were, that there was no need to turn them into Catholics. The same was true, he said, when it came to Jews, or Seventh Day Adventists, or Buddhists, or Zoroastrians. Devout people, regardless of their religious beliefs, are all doing God's work in the world, and we should not try to change them. As for that so-called Great Commission, well, it really only applied to the apostles and the early Church. It was, in this pastor's words, Jesus' way of "jump-starting the Church" among all those pagans, but it certainly didn't apply to us sophisticated moderns.

Yes, it was quite a homily, filled with all sorts of little off-the-wall snippets, but also, thankfully, no overly long. I won't even discuss what the liturgy was like.

And then today, while searching for something else on the Vatican's website, I came across Pope Benedict's message delivered on the occasion of Word Mission Sunday (January 6). In his message the pope seemed to be speaking directly to folks like that pastor in California when he said:

"...an increasing number of people, although they have received the Gospel proclamation, have forgotten or abandoned it and no longer recognize that they belong to the Church; and in many contemporary contexts, even in traditionally Christian societies, people are averse to opening themselves to the word of faith. A cultural change nourished by globalization, by currents of thought and by the prevalent relativism, is taking place. This change is leading to a mindset and lifestyle that ignore the Gospel Message, as though God did not exist, and exalt the quest for well-being, easy earnings, a career and success as life’s purpose, even to the detriment of moral values."

The Holy Father then goes on to explain the universality of the call to evangelize:

"The universal mission involves all, all things and always. The Gospel is not an exclusive possession of whoever has received it but a gift to share, good news to communicate. And this gift-commitment is not only entrusted to a few but on the contrary to all the baptized, who are 'a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people' (1 Pt 2:9), so that they may declare his wonderful deeds...It is important that both individual baptized people and ecclesial communities be involved in the mission, not sporadically or occasionally but in a constant manner, as a form of Christian life."

Good words for an examination of conscience this Lent, as we ask ourselves how faithful we have been to Jesus' commands.

If you'd like to read Pope Benedict's entire message, click here: World Mission Sunday, 2011

"You are the light of the world..."

In the midst of all the chaos that plagues our world, it's easy to forget what we, as Christians, have been called to do. Certainly we are called to fulfill the Church's innermost mission, the adoration of the triune God. But Jesus, in His final instructions to His disciples, the nascent Church, clearly stated:

"All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age." [Mt 28:18-20]

In other words, we are also called to carry out the Church's external mission, the evangelization of all the world. These two missions, the adoration of God and the evangelization of peoples, mirror the two great commandments that Jesus affirmed when asked by a "scholar of the law", "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" Jesus' response...

"You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." [Mt 22:37-39]

What greater love can one show for one's neighbor than to share with him the Good News of Jesus Christ, the "words of eternal life." Evangelization, then, is one means, perhaps the most important means, to the fulfillment of second of the great commandments.

And so Jesus, reinforcing this mission of evangelization in the Gospel passage of today's liturgy, tells His disciples (and us):

"You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.” [Mt 5:13-16]

The light of the world...What a beautiful metaphor for today's Christians, that we can actually illuminate the world, drive away the darkness, and bring others to "the Way, the Truth and the Life." And we can do so through our deeds, our good deeds, that by these actions we will glorify God the Father and allow Him, the Source of all Light, to shine before others, drawing them to Him.

I think sometimes we believe that we have to do great things in the world to make a difference, that because most of us live our lives far from the spotlight of global events, we have little or no influence on what happens in the world. And yet Jesus is telling us just the opposite.

Keep the faith in humility, He tells us, and just like salt, that humblest of all seasonings, you will transform all that you come into contact with. The salt of the earth, the light of the world, this is what we are, this is what we are all called to be: lovers of God, lovers of our neighbor. We need not worry about the results, for God will take care of that. We need only follow the advice of His Blessed Mother, who at Cana, said, "Do whatever He tells you."

Pray for peace and the conversion of the entire world.

Pope Announces Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization

As I mentioned in my previous post today, Pope Benedict XVI recently announced the creation of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization. It was announced on June 28, the the eve of the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, while the pope celebrated Mass at one of my favorite churches, the Roman Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls. Pray for the success of this effort.

Here's a video describing the announcement:

Reclaiming Our Christian Culture?

When Alexander Solzhenitsyn won the Templeton Prize in 1983 he gave a stirring address that began with the words:

"More than half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened." (Click here to read his entire address.)

Reading these words one cannot help but apply them to our floundering Western Civilization and wonder what kind of future to expect. A few weeks ago I posted some thoughts on this subject -- Bye-bye Western Civilization -- thoughts precipitated by Whittaker Chambers' comment: “The enemy — he is ourselves. That is why it is idle to talk about preventing the wreck of Western Civilization. It is already a wreck from within.” Anyway, I've continued to toss these thoughts around in my aging brain and decided to share a few of them here before the gray cells in which the reside float off into some inaccessible void.

Solzhenitsyn and Chambers would agree -- along with others such as Christopher Dawson, Eric Voegelin, and Russell Kirk -- that a culture grows from and rests on the foundation of the cult, its sense of the holy, the sacred. The cult, then, is the binding force from which all elements of the culture derive. It's no accident that the word "religion" has its roots in the Latin, religare, meaning to bind fast.

Once the culture's binding force begins to decay and lose its meaning, the culture itself can do nothing but decay as well. Some cultures have tried to substitute something else for religion, but nothing else generates the kind of bonds found only in religion. Anything else -- the state, the race, a personality cult -- does not bind the culture as religion does, and such attempts are invariably short-lived.

 In our Western Civilization the bonds of religion began unraveling some time ago, even before the Reformation and the so-called Enlightenment. Richard Weaver, in his wonderful book, Ideas Have Consequences, traces it back to the 14th century English friar, William of Ockham, "who propounded the fateful doctrine of nominalism, which denies that universals have a real existence." And so it's not as if our religious foundation just began to crumble yesterday. It's been a long time coming, but advances in technology have only made the process speedier so that we can more easily recognize the decay from generation to generation.

The only solution, of course, is to restore the religious bonds that have kept our culture and civilization intact over the centuries...a tall order. When I talk about this with others, some invariably say, "What you're suggesting is impossible. You can't reclaim the past. We have to put our trust in progress." They're wrong, of course, for any number of reasons. But the primary reason is their unwillingness to accept the very concept of truth. If, unlike old William of Ockham, one believes in such as thing as objective truth, then he will also believe that truth does not change over time. Today's relativist, though, ignores truth and believes instead that time and matter rule, that "truth" is different for different times and for different people. We Christians, however, believe that truth is timeless. And because truth is unaffected by time, the ideals and values that stem from it, can certainly be reclaimed.

This doesn't mean that we are trying to "turn back the clock" and revert to some pre-technological society. True Christians are not Luddites. We view the products of technological advancement as tools that can be used for good or for evil. One can use a box-cutter to open boxes in a supermarket, as I did when I worked at the Grand Union as a teenager; or one can use it to murder crew members of an airplane, as the 9-11 hijackers chose to do. The same applies to nuclear energy or the Internet. The application of technology is a moral choice no different from any other.

There's really no reason that Christian values and ideals cannot be reclaimed by our culture. I admit, I haven't always been very optimisitc in this regard, but that could change. And after listening to Pope Benedict in recent weeks, I find myself more hopeful. His "new evangelization" -- a favorite term of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II -- is focused on renewing the Faith in (formerly) Christian countries and seems to be a key priority of his pontificate. This is reinforced by the Vatican's recent official announcement of the establishment of a Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization. According to Vatcian Radio:

"Pope Benedict said he received this legacy upon his own election to the Chair of Peter, and noted the challenges of the present time are mostly spiritual. He said he wanted to give the new Pontifical Council the task of promoting a renewed evangelization in countries with deep Christian roots which are now experiencing a sense of the 'eclipse of God', and becoming increasingly secularized.

"He said this situation presents a challenge in finding the appropriate means in which to revive the perennial truth of the Gospel of Christ."

Too many of us, however, consider this a task for the pope and his bishops, forgetting that we are all called to evangelize. And since the vast majority of us are not missionaries doing God's work in other cultures, but people living right in the midst of our own decaying culture, this new evangelization is made to order for us. And in the event you don't believe evangelization is for you, just read what the fathers of Vatican II proclaimed about the true vocation of the laity. They were pretty explicit:

"They exercise the apostolate in fact by their activity directed to the evangelization and sanctification of men and to the penetrating and perfecting of the temporal order through  the spirit of the Gospel...Since the laity, in accordance with their state of life, live in the midst of the word and its concerns, they are called by God to exercise their apostolate in the world like leaven, with the ardor of the spirit of Christ." [Apostolicam Actuositatem, 2]

If you believe that religion should be kept private, then, quite simply, you are not a Christian. The People of God are called to be an evangelistic people; there's no escaping the fact. Just read Matthew 28:19-20 and meditate on this great commission Jesus gave to those who would be his disciples.

We don't know what God has in store for us as individuals, or for our society as a whole. But the one thing we do know with certainty is that the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church will remain under the guidance of the Holy Spirit until the end of time. We know this because Christ promised it.

Praise God!

Homily: Paul In Athens

I've included my brief homily from today's Mass, Year 2, Wednesday of the 6th Week of Easter. I preached on the first reading: Acts 17:15,22-18:1
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Growing up I was taught by Dominican sisters in grade school. And then later on, actually about 40 years later on, I spent some time working at Providence College, a well-known Dominican-run school in Providence, Rhode Island. And so I got to know more than a few Dominican sisters and friars. As many of you know, the formal title of the Dominican friars, the O.P. that’s found after their names, means Order of Preachers. Among the priority ministries for the worldwide Order of Preachers is "Catechesis in a De-Christianized World."

This is a phrase that came to mind when I read the passage describing St. Paul's visit to Athens and his speech in the areopagus – the public debating forum. Of course, one might argue that the world had not been Christianized at that time and so the operable word for Paul would not have been de-Christianized, but un-Christianized. And I suppose one might also make a case that even today’s world has really not yet been Christianized. But that’s a debate for another venue.

What actually strikes me is the content of Paul's preaching on this occasion, this visit to Athens, the home of philosophy. He assumes, probably correctly, that his Greek audience lacks any sort of Jewish theological background and so he cleverly uses the Greeks' own cultural experience to get their attention. To do so he appeals to the Greek poets and to their “altar to an unknown God” -- an interesting title that shows the Athenians hedging their bets religiously, a fact not lost on Paul. All of this depicts a Paul who is not only well informed, but also creative and psychologically astute.

Paul was, after all, well educated. Brought up in Tarsus (“no mean city”), he was a Roman citizen who had certainly been exposed to the philosophical thought of the stoics and epicureans who taught in his hometown. And the breadth of his knowledge is apparent during this sermon which Luke no doubt abridged.

Paul also sets a wonderful example for us, a kind of object lesson that the Dominicans have apparently taken to heart by including it among their priorities. You see, brothers and sisters, by virtue of our baptism we are all called to be "preachers in the marketplace." We are the Christianized who are called to represent our faith in Jesus Christ to an increasingly secularized culture – a de-Christianized culture. It’s a culture more and more in love with today’s versions of those images Paul referred to, images “fashioned from gold, silver, or stone by human art and imagination.” And so, in our de-Christianized culture, the God of the Trinity, has become increasingly unknown.

As Christians we are called to join together with Paul, claiming openly that God “gives to everyone life and breath and everything”, that “In him we live and move and have our being,” It takes courage to say such things to hearers who, as Luke tells us, may “scoff.” But the text also says that others responded, “We should like to hear you on this some other time.”

Yes, Paul encountered a, challenging audience in Athens; but, even then, he didn’t fare too badly. Among the few converts to Christianity that day, was Dionysius, a man that tradition tells us become the first bishop of Athens. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never helped bring anyone to the Faith who later became a bishop.

And so where do we begin, it we want to imitate Paul and be preachers in the marketplace? First of all, while there’s nothing wrong with going out into today’s marketplace, the real need is even closer to home.

Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI both preached the need for a new evangelization. Were you aware though, that they’re not speaking about pagan or secular societies, but rather of the Catholic Church itself? That’s right! These two holy fathers are telling us that many in the Church itself have been de-Christianized.

I know that I often find myself speaking with Catholics who have little knowledge or understanding of their Catholic faith and heritage. Indeed, for many their total involvement in the Church rarely goes beyond attending Mass on Sunday, so long as it’s convenient. Even our Catholic faith can be twisted into the worship of particular things that are of human creation – whether physical or intellectual.

And so, brothers and sisters, catechesis in our de-Christianized world has to begin right here in the pews, in the parking lot, and in the meeting rooms of St. Vincent de Paul Parish…Oh yes, and in the homes of its parishioners. We all have a role to play.