Some questions and truths at the heart of the “New” Evangelization

Archdiocese of Washington ^ | 11/6/2013 | Msgr. Charles Pope

[markomalley]

I am gathered with over 200 brother priests from the Archdiocese for a convocation on the New Evangelization. And we are blessed to have Dr. Ralph Martin as our Keynote speaker.

Of course some wonder at the title “new” in the New Evangelization. On the one hand it is new in the sense that we are having now to reach back to once Christian cultures and people and repropose the gospel. The is a “new” (and unfortunate) development that is in a way harder than opening new “virginal” territory for the Kingdom. The ancient Western world was as a virgin awaiting her husband. But the modern West is more an angry divorcee. And this requires new approaches rooted in healing past hurts and overcoming a kind of spiritual boredom and sloth that has overtaken the modern West.

There are also many new modes of communication that make evangelization new in the sense that we must retool, and enter whole new realms of instant and global settings. But one of the most central aspects of evangelization that must be newly emphasized (as it was in the early Church) is to become a personal and firsthand witness of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is to be able to say how I met him, and what he’s doing in my life.

Doctrine and Scripture are essential and help us to verify whether our experiences of God, are in conformity with the truth of who God is as he has revealed himself. But one of the dangers is that we become content to quote the doctrine, to quote Scripture, but not really come to know the One, who reveals them. We run the risk of becoming content to know about the Lord, rather than  to know the Lord, personally and intimately.

And thus, there comes a time, and the moment for us to ask the critical questions, Do I know the Lord? Or do I just know about him. Have I met him? How? When? And what is my relationship with him doing in my life?

Sadly, we Catholics are collectively terrible at reflecting on and learning to give witness to the Lord in our life. Frankly, many of us were never taught to give personal testimony, and even worse many have never been taught even to expect a personal encounter with the Lord.

This needs to change, especially in a culture such as ours, where the argument from authority no longer holds much sway. If it was ever true that we could hand on the faith without personal testimony, it certainly is not true today. People rightfully and reasonably expect an authenticity wherein our proclaimed faith, matches with our life, both as publicly lived an experienced.

We may get to a moment with someone where we are able to announce that Jesus Christ can save them from sin and set them free from all bondage. And then comes the question from them, “That sounds like good news, but how do I know it’s true?” And here is where you have to be able to say, “Look at me.” and begin to describe how it is in fact true in your life, that since meeting the Lord, you are seeing sins put to death, and many graces come alive.

Yes, we have to be able to tell our story, to say, briefly, how we met the Lord, and what our  relationship with him is doing to change our life.

Critical though it is, all the apologetics in the world, may founder if we cannot authentically and authoritatively answer the question “How do I know it’s true?” by saying, authentically,

“Look at me. ” In other words to be able to say, “This word, this teaching, is true, because in the laboratory of my own life, I have tested it, and found it to be true, and here’s how. And Jesus is real, because I have met him and here’s when, and here is how. And here is how I’m experiencing him today in my life. Yes, when I pray, I am heard. The Lord speaks in the depths of my heart, sometimes in wordless contemplation, at other times vividly through his proclaimed word, and in my mind, and in the experiences and interactions of my day. I see him, I know him, and I experience his presence, and this is changing my life.”

• Can you authentically speak like this?
• Have you met the Lord,?
• How, when?
• Do you know him?
• And how is your relationship with him changing your life?
• What has your walk with him done?
• Have you encountered him in his word, and in the sacraments celebrated?
• How, when, and what has this liturgical experience of the Lord done for you?
• How is it changing you?

These are essential questions and truths to ponder to be able to answer briefly and articulately if we are going to personally evangelize others today.

Ask the Holy Spirit to anoint you to know the answers to these sorts of questions, and to be able to access the memories of how the Lord is living, working and relating with you in your life. Ask God the Holy Spirit to help you form a testimony, so as to become a first-hand witness to the power of the Lord in your life!

It is increasingly clear to me, that God’s people expect me as priest pastor, preacher, an evangelist not just to know the facts, but to know the Lord. Our  people, whether they know it or not, are desperate to hear from us that we who announce the truth, know in a very personal and deep way He who is the Truth. The people of God, need first-hand witnesses, witnesses who know the Lord, and know by experience the truth of his Word. Our preaching cannot simply be technical and a mechanistic it must be personal and proclaimed by someone who knows what and of Whom he speaks.

And if this is true of priest, it is also true parents who must become more comfortable with giving true witness to their children of the faith, of the personal relationship and walk with the Lord, and of the power of God’s Word and Sacraments to change their lives.

Both priests and parents need to learn what it means to preach and teach with authority. The Greek word for authority is “exousia” which means to literally to speak out of one’s own substance and experience.  This is is what made Jesus such an authoritative preacher: he Knew the Father and spoke out of his own substance and experience. And we too, empowered by him must experience   his power, love, life, joy and truth and speak  out that experience and relationship. Nothing less will be very effective today Dr. Ralph Martin, in his new book The Urgency of the New Evangelizationon, a book which I want to review more thoroughly next week, has the following insight

Now at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit at the beginning of every class I have one of the students give his testimony. …. I ask seminarians and priests not to tell how they discerning a calling to the priesthood, but how they came to discover the reality of God in their lives. This is a struggle for some, but eventually almost everyone reaches the point where they can briefly give an account of how God became real in their lives in such a way that unbelievers could relate to it.

Thus, what is new about the new Evangelization is essentially very old, very apostolic. It is to give personal witness and testimony to the revealed faith based on what we have seen, heard and are experiencing. St. Paul couldn’t look it up and quote it, he had to experience it and write it. And while we are not evangelists like the apostles, we  are called to speak to the truth of the faith they revealed out of our own substance, life and experience.

More on this tomorrow wherein I would like to share more directly how and when I met the Lord and what he is doing in my life.

[dsc]

“Catholic Caucus on FR is one, so you cannot say you have not heard of any.”

How is it a lay apostolate, and who are the members?

[annalex]

It is, of course informal, but it is a lay apostolate: lay (mostly) Catholics defend and explain their faith, mostly, to non-Catholics. Most are at some kind of peace with Vatican II even though the opinions vary.

[dsc]

“Most are at some kind of peace with Vatican II...”

That’s really scary.

[annalex]

And most, like myself, generally agree that the abuses of the liturgy that you and I enumerated are intolerable. That is even scarier, isn’t it?

That is, I think, — looping back to my original statements, — because Vatican II was a reaction against modernism rather than itself a conduit of modernism. It just wasn’t successful at that. The consensus is, it seems, that Vatican II needs to be itself reformed and re-studied, but not overturned altogether.

[dsc]

“And most, like myself, generally agree that the abuses of the liturgy that you and I enumerated are intolerable. That is even scarier, isn’t it?”

Not to me. It’s more a reality check that came back good.

“because Vatican II was a reaction against modernism rather than itself a conduit of modernism.”

What sort of reaction? An attempt at compromise? I don’t see where it fought against modernism, so if you know, please pass on the info.

“The consensus is, it seems, that Vatican II needs to be itself reformed and re-studied, but not overturned altogether.”

More than the documents of VatII themselves, I think the problem was that it created a chink in the Church’s armor through which the forces of evil drove main battle tanks.

The abuses have had effects that completely overwhelm the effects of VatII, in terms of the changes they wrought.

The singularity wrt VatII, if I may be permitted to force that word into an unfamiliar usage, is the fact that it occurred. Compared to that single fact, the documents it turned out are almost meaningless.

[dsc]

How in the world do you find the time and energy to compile all these lists of links?

I can’t even click all of them.

[annalex]

What sort of reaction? An attempt at compromise?

How about this:

1. Our world no longer can be presumed to consist of the Catholic civilization, Protestant error, and non-Christian savages. Instead, we see respectable civilizations in Asia, Jews that formed a part of the Western culture, and suffered persecution to the point of genocide for their assimilationist tendencies, and we have the Muslim world with its own quite elaborate religious views, not unrelated to Christianity. The Church needs to be seen in relation to these non-Christian civilizations, yet there is virtually nothing in the magisterial teaching on the Church in the non-Christian world.
2. Latin is no longer a universal language of the literate class; and at the same time the literate class is today nearly everyone. The role of Latin needs to be re-examined in this changed context.
3. A typical layman in the 20 century is literate and with the rise of the intellectual class (professorate, science, engineering, etc.) capable of understanding theological concepts even without taking systematic theology like the priests do. It seems good to energize this intellectual potential in the educated classes to the greater glory of the Church.
4. Progress of historical science allows us a better insight in the likely esthetic of the First Church's liturgy. In it not likely to be baroque. Perhaps the liturgy should be brought closer to its late antiquity and early medieval roots.

You can see, no doubt, the relationship between these questions and the efforts of Vatican II. Yet neither item of my sampler promotes modernism in any way; it simply acknowledges modern realities such as they are. For example, from the fact that other religions exist and have apparent fruits of their own it does not follow that we now should have our popes praying in synagogues or kissing Korans; it simply follows that "exra ecclesiam nulla salus" requires a commentary in this light.

To answer these questions simply means to take our own religion seriously. It is not a compromise to acknowledge the modernist challenge. I maintain that a compromise no doubt happened, but it was not intended by Vatican II as a body; perhaps by some modernists among the bishops, but not by their consensus.

[annalex]

(*) "there is virtually nothing" -- prior to the Vatican II documents, that is.
(**) "In it not likely to be baroque" -- It is not likely to be baroque

[dfwgator]

It is not likely to be baroque

If it's not baroque, don't fix it.

[annalex]

There are problems with Baroque esthetic from the theological stand point. It continued the Renaissance tendency toward illusory art, in itself not wholesome for sacred art which is supposed to show the life of the spirit. To the Renaissance illusionism Baroque added agitated emotionalism, thus driving prayerful reflection out.

Observe:

Madonna and Child
Segna di Buonaventure
c. 1325-30

This is a medieval Madonna. No attempt is made to make her pretty, or make Christ an adorable baby. It is truly Mother of God and her Divine Child, looking at you from eternity. This is sacred art at its theological pinnacle.

Next:

The Sistine Madonna
Raffaello
1513 - 1514

This is a masterpiece, but the sacred element is nearly gone. The baby is cute, the girl is pretty. The curtain suggests an illusion of seeing people walking on clouds in a circus-like display. I am shown, possibly, a miracle, but a magician's illusion describes it just as well.

Madonna Enthroned with St Matthew
Carracci
1588

This is baroque. Things have gotten considerably worse. Now everyone is in some nervous agitation; none is sitting still; reflection, let alone adoration is impossible. Christ in Raffaello's painting was at least calm; now we have a frightened child about to fall from His mother's arms. Everyone wants to go someplace they are not. Tertiary personages, like the angel with great legs at the bottom, demand too much attention. This is an impressive painting that completely fails as an object of veneration.