1971—1997—2020

In the years above the Vatican published a catechetical directory. Today the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization published the long awaited, updated Directory for Catechesis. 

“The new Directory seeks to highlight the close link between evangelization and catechesis. It underlines that every baptized person is a missionary called to find new ways of communicating the faith… [and] proposes three major principles of action: Witnessing, Mercy and Dialogue.”

In addition to formation of catechists, the Directory includes family, the poor, migrating people, prisoners, parishes, Catholic schools, ecumenism.

The Vatican releases a new Directory for Catechesis, providing guidelines for the Church’s mission of proclaiming the Gospel through catechesis and evangelization.https://t.co/GOovfUNWui

— Vatican News (@VaticanNews) June 25, 2020

Keeping the LAMP Lit

In the 1970s two cardinals explored the charismatic phenomenon. Their book noted that Christians could “represent a more radical than any revolutionary group in existence” [the book cover]. The Holy Spirit prompts and empowers those who are open to it.

Pope Francis recalled the work of those cardinals. He challenged members of the Catholic Charismatic Movement to become that force for the good of the world.

The pope's message to the charismatic community tonight poses a sharp challenge to a movement known more for personal conversion and evangelization than practical mercy. https://t.co/lJt0eFI0mf

— America Magazine (@americamag) May 31, 2020

Frailty & Mission

Pope Francis released his message for World Mission Sunday. Daughters of St. Paul Sister Bernadette Mary Reis reported that “the call to mission emerges as an ‘invitation to step out of ourselves for love of God and neighbour’ through ‘service and intercessory prayer’,” the pope wrote.

#PopeFrancis releases his annual Message for #WorldMissionSunday, placing mission with the context of the current #coronavirus pandemic.https://t.co/FrYmIeCoud

— Vatican News (@VaticanNews) May 31, 2020

First World Day of the Poor

Earlier Pope Francis had announced he would dedicate a day to highlight the poor. The first one this Sunday, 19 November. Francis closed his message with his desire that:

this World Day of the Poor a tradition that concretely contributes to evangelization in today’s world. 

This new World Day, therefore, should become a powerful appeal to our consciences as believers, allowing us to grow in the conviction that sharing with the poor enables us to understand the deepest truth of the Gospel.  The poor are not a problem: they are a resource from which to draw as we strive to accept and practise in our lives the essence of the Gospel.

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Image Vatican website

Sunday word, 19 Oct 14

Who We Truly Are

29^th Sunday of the Year A [World Mission Sunday] (19 Oct 2014)

Is 45. 1, 4-6; Ps 96; 1Th 1. 1-5b; Mt 22. 15-21

Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.

Meaning: we want our lives to enjoy meaning. To say that expresses our desire to enjoy significant and substantial, valuable and valid living. That desire is not new, yet it is ever human. Our Catholic conviction is that Jesus offers us meaning. How do we receive it? When we allow ourselves to “encounter Jesus.” Letting Jesus meet us each moment offers us the meaning we desire and seek. Pope Francis expressed this in his concise way: The joy of the gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness.¹ Sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness not only imprison; they dissatisfy and disrupt everyone’s joyful, valuable, valid, significant living.

Pope Francis recalled his words in his message for this weekend’s World Mission Sunday.² He also recalled that at home and in distant places people allow sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness to dissatisfy them. How? When they let the world run them rather than run the world with the good of all at heart. Consumerism is the glaring, modern symptom of being run by the world. It used to be located in developed nations. Now that travel, trade and commerce are global few are unaffected by consumerism. Again the pope placed an earlier observation in his World Mission Sunday message: “The great danger in today’s world, pervaded as it is by consumerism, is the desolation and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience.”³ Pope Francis did not accuse; he named results of our glaring, modern symptom: smug, grasping hearts; chasing frivolous pleasures; blunted sense of good and harmful. These also disrupt joyful, valuable, valid, significant meaning.

Why did Pope Francis give the global symptom of consumerism and its results prominent place in his message on mission and missions? To remind that Jesus is the Missionary and the Evangelizer; he offers everyone joy, significance, substance, value and validity each day. Jesus said as much: I came that people may have life and have it abundantly.⁴ In a word Jesus is power: the power who makes abundant life grow in everyone; he is power who liberates from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness, transforms hearts, frees us to desire true pleasures and choose what helps not harms.

Power is what the first Christians experienced from risen Jesus, his Spirit and the gospel that announced him. The first experience of the power of risen Jesus vibrated with surprise and fear; with the gift of his Spirit resurrection power registered as healings, ecstatic gifts, freedom to speak, to be joyful even in hardship and salvation from ruthless human rule and elemental⁶ and demonic spirits. We heard St. Paul recall the experience of the power of risen Jesus in his earliest letter to the first church he established: Our gospel did not come to you in word alone, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much conviction.

Power has come to us, too. The personal encounter with Jesus Pope Francis encourages helps us reconnect and stay connected to risen Jesus and his power for us. Personal encounter with Jesus helps us identify and name his power working in us, for us and through us. Personal encounter with Jesus injects vitality in our public worship, a privileged way we repay to…God what belongs to God. Personal encounter with Jesus deepens our conviction that Jesus offers meaning to all.

That is why each of us in each one’s vocation announces the gospel. Mission in each present moment means we take our turn. The experience of power in risen Jesus and his Spirit were handed on to us. Those who handed on Jesus to us did so with the gospel: hearing it preached and preaching it in return. Not only did the gospel give birth to the church, “the church is missionary by her very nature.”⁵ Because the church is people each baptized person is a missionary. Christian mission is multilayered. Supporting by prayer and alms efforts to make Jesus known is the layer we quickly connect with evangelizing. Mission also deepens the personal and communal connection with risen Jesus. St. Paul did it by his letters and visits to Christian churches. As we grow in our conviction Jesus lives in us, becoming who we truly are is inevitable: Christian missionaries—Christian in name and in fact; missionaries in deed and word.

In your daily 15 minutes with Jesus this week

• Pause in the company of our triune God creating you each moment.
• Ask St. Paul and the other Apostles to present you to Jesus.
• Chat with him: thank him for inviting you to join his mission; tell him how it attracts you and how it challenges you.
• Ask Jesus for grace to stay connected with him and grace to make him known by your living.
• Close saying slowly the Lord’s Prayer. His words, thy kingdom come, are less about the future and more about the present: as Jesus announced, the kingdom of God is at hand for you.⁷ Jesus commissioned numerous disciples to echo his words as they prepared his way. He speaks them to us to remind us we are his missionaries everywhere we find ourselves.

Link to this homily’s Spiritual Exercise

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1. Pope Francis recalled his words in The Joy of the Gospel.
2. Message for World Mission Sunday, section 3.
3. Message for World Mission Sunday, section 4.
4. John 10.10.
5. Message for World Mission Sunday, Introduction.
6. Colossians 2.20.
7. Luke 10.9.

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Wiki-images of disciples baptizing and render to Caesar  PD-US

Saint for the Frontiers

From its beginnings the Society of Jesus knew itself as going out to help. The 16th century Jesuit Jerónimo Nadal captured in five words its apostolic, international, mobile and mission-orientation: “The world is our house.”

At its 2008 35th General Congregation Pope Benedict reminded the Society that “the Church needs you, counts on you, and continues to turn to you with confidence, particularly to reach geographical and spiritual places others do not reach or find it difficult to reach.” In the Congregation’s documents the word “frontiers” embraced those places.

On 03 April Jesuit Blessed José de Anchieta was canonized. The fragile man had been known as the Apostle of Brazil and still is. The Society has another patron to intercede for its ongoing ministry to find and to serve new frontiers.

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Wiki-mage by Gabrielt4e of statue of José de Anchieta CC BY-SA 3.0

From Sayings to Story

The evangelist Mark was the first to arrange the circulating sayings by Jesus and about him into a narrative, a gospel. On his feast Jesuit Peter Edmonds considered Mark, his story, characters within it and “suggests what encouragement it might have given to early Christians.”

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Wiki-image of icon of St. Mark {PD-old-100}.

Jesuit General Superior on Evangelization

Fr. Adolfo Nicolás, the General Superior of the Society of Jesus, was present during the Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization. He began his intervention at the synod:

Coming from a Missionary Order, I feel the obligation to reflect on our past history. We can hardly think of a New Evangelization, unless we are sure we have learnt something from the First Evangelization, from the things we did well and from the mistakes we committed as well as the insufficiencies we suffered in our desire to communicate the Gospel.

A summary article is at the National Jesuit News with link to his intervention text.  

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Wiki-image by Jessie Eastland aka Robert DeMeo of moon art sunrise used by CC BY-SA 3.0.

Crucial

Jesuit Dominic Robinson believes

Crucial to our understanding of what we are invited to do in this year [of Faith] is what the last two popes have called the ‘new evangelisation’.

Fr. Robinson touches on several things in his post at ThinkingFaith: the term, new evangelization; its use by Popes Benedict and John Paul; how the term developed from the Second Vatican Council.

Writing from the British Catholic experience, his insights may hold true for all developed countries and for others. “The concept of the new evangelisation is rich, encompassing a variety of themes, but the key to them all is surely dialogue.” Dialogue is important across borders, classes and socioeconomic groupings.

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Wiki-image of Coventry cross was released into the public domain.

“On the Wings of Martyrs and the Mentally Handicapped”

Thinking he “was taking a break from the Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization,” Mr. John L. Allen Jr. visited Lviv, Ukraine. He returned to Rome “believing instead that I had seen the New Evangelization in action.” Find out what he discovered and his “remember you heard it here first” portent.

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Wiki-image by Jost2211 of ambo in Dominican Church, Lviv, used by CC BY-SA 3.0.

As Paul VI Envisioned

The Synod of Bishops—still continuing in Rome—named a delegation which will visit Syria next week. Mr. John L. Allen Jr. lists four reasons why the visit by the delegation is “actually important.” 

In his review of synod activity this week, Mr. Allen noted a brief comment about Islam in the secretary’s official summary “doesn’t come close to capturing the flavor of what’s been said.” Find and read Mr. Allen’s synod review here.

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Wiki-image by Lienhard Schulz at the German language Wikipedia of light entering a church window used by CC BY-SA 3.0.

“A Splendid Day”

Pope Benedict used that phrase in the opening sentence of his preface to a collection of his earlier writings. The day was 50 years ago today, when the Second Vatican Council opened in Rome. Read his preface at the Vatican Radio site.

Jesuit Damian Howard wrote for ThinkingFaith about the Year of Faith. It commences on this golden anniversary of the Council. He recalls that the year is “dedicated to a renewal of the Church’s joy and enthusiasm for the encounter with her Lord.”

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Wiki-image of the Council opening is in the public domain.

Ironic Timing

In the United States 1 in 5 people have no belief, according to this Pew Forum study. The study calls them “nones,” and that moniker is already a Twitter hashtag: #nones. The study indicated “one in three U.S. adults under 30 are now considered nones.”

     The study’s timing is ironic in light of the current General Synod of Bishops with its theme of the new evangelization. “Fraternal delegates” (non-Catholics) are making interventions along with the bishops. Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas blogged what one fraternal delegate said yesterday:

One fraternal delegate from the Lutheran church indicated that the synod is crucial to all Christian churches. All are eager to recover the joy of believing. He expressed concern that so many were not bringing their children to be baptized  He rejoiced that we no longer have to condemn one another but we have learned to respect one another and strive together for deep internal renewal. We need an ongoing renewal for all Christians.

Evangelizers will need renewal to make the good news good enough for “nones” and others to consider seriously.
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P.S. For readers wondering what a synod is, what it can accomplish and what is the new evangelization: here’s a Q&A by Mr. John L. Allen Jr. for the NCR.

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User:Yellowblood released into the public domain Wiki-image Atheist.

Down to Business

In Rome on Monday morning the 260-plus delegates of this year’s General Synod of Bishops began to address the business for which they prepared. Vatican Radio website described their goal as “re-energizing a hackneyed faithful and reaching out to those who have yet to believe in Jesus Christ.” Among the most tested faithful currently are the Christians in the Middle East.

Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai and his Patriarchal Vicar General, Archbishop Paul Sayah, are attending the Synod. Ahead of the Synod Tracey McClure asked Archbishop Sayah what the Patriarch will be bringing to the synod. After an extract of the interview on the Vatican Radio site a link to listen follows.

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Wiki-image by Faris knight of Gospel book in Arabic used by CC BY-SA 3.0.

“Aims and Hopes”

This General Synod of Bishops is number thirteen. Its topic is the New Evangeliza-tion. Croatian Archbishop Nikola Eterovic, secretary general of the Synod, presented the aims and hopes of this 13^th ordinary general assembly last Friday. Later, Philippa Hitchen spoke to him to learn more. Listeners may enjoy the interview at Vatican Radio.

Readers may follow the council through the blog posts of one of the U.S. delegates to the Synod, Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas of Tucson, Arizona. Catholic News Service made available yesterday his first post. It covers many things, including the opening mass.

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Wiki-image of Evangelium is in the public domain in the U.S.