Posted on 09/19/2013 2:18:47 PM PDT by NYer
Earlier this week, noted Scripture scholar and author Dr. Scott Hahn delivered the inaugural lecture in Christendom College’s Major Speaker Program, entitled, “The Bible, the Eucharist, and the New Evangelization.” The press release from Christendom College provides some highlights from Hahn's address:
“We face the task of re-evangelizing the de-Christianized,” Hahn said. “The cause of de-Christianization has been this oppressive secularization, which doesn’t just cause us to forget the faith, but it causes us to become more and more distant from those structures that make it real.”
Hahn explained that just as human love and relationships lead to a sacrament—Matrimony—so too does our love and relationship with God lead to a sacrament—the Eucharist. He noted that it was Blessed Pope John Paul who first called for the new evangelization to be based on the Eucharist and, citing and a paper by Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, he said, “all evangelizers proclaim Christ, but Catholic evangelizers proclaim a Eucharistic Christ.”
“But there is something else that is new about the new evangelization,” Hahn said. “It isn’t just for clergy. It isn’t just for missionaries. It isn’t just for those who go out to the foreign lands. It’s for each and every single one of us. Not only to go out and share the faith, but also to allow ourselves to be evangelized and converted.”
Hahn debunked the myth that St. Francis said, “preach the Gospel at all times and use words when necessary,” saying that there is no proof or historical record of the saint saying those words to his friars.
“I would want to say this to those who use that as an excuse,” he continued. “Just look in the mirror some evening and ask yourself, ‘Am I so upright, so virtuous, so compelling that all people really need to do is just keep their eyes on me and my life and that should be sufficient to give them the grace of conversion?’ Before you answer that question yourself, ask your spouse or your roommate. You may be in for a surprise.”
Hahn said that Catholics must not only recognize their need to evangelize, but also their need to be evangelized themselves in their family life and marriages.
“Conversion is life long,” he said. “It is ongoing. It is ever deepening. It is daily. And it is also difficult.”
Concluding, Hahn said that all Catholics are involved in the new evangelization, but very few Catholics are going to be equipped like Christendom students.
“Very few Catholics are ever going to be launched like Christendom grads,” he said. “Let me just ask you those old questions: if you don’t, who will? And if you wait, when will it happen? And if you say ‘yes,’ I got to tell you, stand back and watch, because God wants to do more through us than we want Him to do.”
He encouraged the students to study and pray hard and to take all that they have gained from the college out into the world.
“What you are learning here is what the world is dying for,” he said. “I hope that none of you ever get to the point where you take it for granted. This is one of the largest slices of heaven on earth.”
The entire lecture can be downloaded at Christendom on iTunes U, christendom.edu/itunesu. This past April, America magazine published an article by Hahn, "Mass Evangelization", which covers much of the same material. In that piece, Hahn wrote,
The theme of evangelization is indeed relatively new in Catholic circles. “Evangelizing” is something we had long associated with Protestant groups that send their members door to door. When we Catholics worried about the growth of the church, we thought in terms of missions, which meant, in practical terms, sending a donation to clergy who traveled overseas. The notion of evangelization was foreign to Catholics. Though the term and its near relatives are common in the church’s documents from the second half of the 20th century, one has to strain to find it before then. In the documents of Vatican I (1869-70), the word evangelium (Latin for “Gospel”) appears only once, and only then in reference to the four written Gospels.
If one skips ahead to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), however, one will find the root evangel and its cognates—evangelize, evangelizing, evangelization—more than 200 times. These words are used to speak of the act of spreading the Good News, sharing the message and life of Jesus Christ. Something had changed between the councils. The popes noticed.
After noting the work of Paul VI regarding evangelization—notably his underappreciated apostolic exhortation “Evangelii Nuntiandi”—Hahn points out that John Paul II was the first to use the term "new evangelization":
What Paul VI identified as a matter of primary importance, John Paul II made a matter of urgency. It was he who gave it a name, “the new evangelization,” and made it programmatic and pervasive.
His first use of the phrase came near the beginning of his reign. During his first return to Poland in 1979, John Paul addressed a people whose religious practice had been repressed by Communist overlords, and yet he had the audacity to preach: “A new evangelization has begun, as if it were a new proclamation, even if in reality it is the same as ever.”
The phrase seemed electric. And yet it did not come up again in his work until 1983. Then, however, it emerged as something focused, intentional and programmatic. It defined a vision. That year, speaking to the bishops of Latin America, John Paul announced that the new evangelization was to be officially launched in 1992, the 500th anniversary of the first evangelization of the Americas.
Hahn then looks at the essence of the new evangelization:
What, then, is the key to the new evangelization? I remember wondering that myself, back in 1992. As if on cue, I opened L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s newspaper, and saw the headline: “Base New Evangelization on Eucharist.”
It caught my eye not only because it seemed to answer my question, but also because it made no sense to me whatsoever. Its proposal was counterintuitive. The Eucharist, after all, is for the already initiated, the folks who are showing up for Mass. Evangelization is supposed to reach outward. Yet the headline sat atop a homily by Blessed John Paul in which he referred to the Eucharist as the “beginning” (not the end!) of our outreach, “the source” and “the basis of the New Evangelization.”
Soon others picked up on this theme. Cardinal Francis George of Chicago gave an address on Catholicity and the new evangelization, and he drew the same conclusion: “All evangelizers proclaim who Christ is; Catholic evangelizers proclaim a Eucharistic Christ.”
In 2000 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger told a group of catechists that the church has always begun its evangelistic efforts at the altar. “The Church always evangelizes and has never interrupted the path of evangelization. She celebrates the Eucharistic mystery every day, administers the sacraments, proclaims the word of life—the Word of God, and commits herself to the causes of justice and charity. And this evangelization bears fruit.”
The Mass reminds us that evangelization is a gift before it is a task. It is receiving before it is doing. And we cannot share what we do not first possess. Read the entire article. Also, Hahn's personal website has a very helpful listing of texts and articles about the new evangelization.
Wrong! Conversion is not life long. Conversion is a one time event. Sanctification is a life long event.
Of course this statement intrigued me as most Catholic doctrine does these days. I looked up conversion on New Advent and found this statement:
It is amazing that Catholics believe that the first step in conversion is to investigate the credentials of the Church, much like studying a recipe. So Hahn is right from a Catholic perspective but wrong from a scriptural view where we are born again into Christ. I don't recall Paul sitting down to study whether Christianity was true or not.
Egad. It amazes me how Catholics can take something so simple and make it so complex. Then again-perhaps I'm not surprised.
Your non-snarky response up thread struck a chord with me. I didn’t know that was happening. Probably I didn’t notice thread titles attacking protestants.
I try never to do that, unless it’s a blatant anti-Catholic thread, and even then I most always scroll right on by, because I’ve heard it all forever as a Catholic. Boring for me.
I think you have a point though. I wouldn’t like it either if there are really that many thread titles bashing protestants.
We are not suppose to use the scriptures to inflame others, any more than we are suppose to cast our pearls before swine. That goes for all us believers together.
I think these religion threads should all be caucus only. Without caucus, these threads are an open invitation for incitement, for starting a food fight, in which I am not participating.
I use FR for politics, where we are mostly in lock step. Some of these folks you never see anywhere else on the forum, but live for smack down and smack back over something on which they are clueless anyway. Some on both sides do this.
Anyway it’s disgusting for civilized adults to entertain this stuff at all, on God and faith of all things, and give dissension a platform. Not a class act to even participate.
Thx for bringing this to my attention. I think to caucus is the answer. We have to be gracious and inquiring there, and people appreciate that.
Outta here. Back to politics. :)
Are you going back to the Old Testament and “an eye for an eye” mentality?
I certainly hope not.
Look at us, we are THE church unlike you unsaved heathen protestants
is the take from a lot of these thread headline on the religion forum
I try to ignore them but sometimes I can’t
wait a sec
I had a non-snarky response?
That must have been an oversight on my part. :p
You are of course referring to the KJV, NKJV, Youngs literal, and NIV. The prot translations.
Yes, that is the part where he calls himself a “young man.”
Mark 14:51-52
&;D.
You completely misunderstand my statement, and “in danger every day of losing my salvation” is unscriptural as well.
Thank you, Salvation. Is that not one of the most beautiful renderings ever, among Catholic sacred art. Very wonderful. Thx.
You also misunderstand: sanctification is precisely the lifelong learning and depending of my faith. I have decided to follow Jesus, accepting the salvation He bought for me. If I have to crucify Him repeatedly, I make a mockery of His sacrifice “once for all”
Depending= deepening. We are arguing the same side, my brother.
So according to my count, you only got one out of four correct
Seriously many scholars believe that much of both Mathew and Luke was taken from the Gospel of Mark which is believed by most to have been wrote by the attendant of Peter, so i don,t think it would be too far off to think Mark may have also been a fisherman.
So if much of Mathew and Luke were copied from Mark as many say, then i assume that the Gospel came from the ones called the ignorant fishermen.
It has already been proven by both Catholics and many protestants that assumptions become fact in the minds of many and they teach it to be so.
No, this is not an attack, this is just a disagreement on a particular doctrine.
Yep, trust the local Priests to read the Bible for you, they would never lead you awry. Those English translations are a sin!
I do not understand your sentence: “If I have to crucify Him repeatedly, I make a mockery of His sacrifice “once for all.”” How do ‘we crucify Him repeatedly?’
Every time we say that somehow we have to re-earn our salvation, as by thinking we could lose it by failing to do something, we set him back on the cross. Once for all means that when we accept him as Lord, we accept that He has paid the penalty and doesn’t ever have to do it again. When we ask repeatedly for salvation, we say His sacrifice wasn’t good enough for our sin.
Matthew wrote for the Jews. It may look like he followed Mark’s outline, but really Mark has more detail.
If you read Matthew, you will see how many times he quotes the Old Testament.....totally differeent style of writing.
Luke traveled with St. Paul for awhile, and he wrote for the Gentiles. He also has many stories/parables/preachings of Christ that none of the other Gospels have. Remember, he promised to give Theopholius “an orderly account.”
If any Gospel writer may have been influence by St. Peter, it would have been Mark in my estimation. A lot of details, even though his Gospel is the shortest.
...my ongoing conversion, combined with sanctification is indeed a process, im always making progress, with His grace, but it is so frustrating sometimes....Yes! I agree; frustrating to be sure. When someone converts, I can almost hear Jesus say, "Good job; now prove it."
If any Gospel writer may have been influence by St. Peter, it would have been Mark in my estimation. A lot of details, even though his Gospel is the shortest.
Does any one know for a fact?
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