Recently in Evangelization & Formation Category

In the years since Blessed John Paul introduced his desire to have new work on knowing, living, and sharing the truth of the Catholic Faith, there's been a lot of good energy for the new evangelization. You can think of the Tear of Faith, the encyclicals of the recent popes, and most crucial has been Benedict XVI's establishment of a Vatican office to spearhead evangelization efforts. 

Getting to the heart of what the new evangelization means, how it's supposed to "look" and why it needs our attention is slowing being revealed. I have to say that too many use the word evangelization without precision and without real content and experience. Nevertheless, since John Paul and Benedict, now with Pope Francis we have a new awareness of evangelization's aim: and affection for Christ and to offer a reasonable proposal for faith in a comprehensive way.

I happen to think the Holy Spirit is working diligently and effectively in having us slowly develop the needed resources with regard to persons and materials. Rushing into such work would not be reasonable since it does take time to do the hard work in truly knowing the need in a time of limited resources. The immediate past Pontiff set the Church's face on this renewed manner of living focusing us on the personal relationship with the Lord,, bridging the gap between faith and reason, and by asking us to intimately know Scripture, the Liturgy and the Magisterium (I don't want to call the new evangelization a 'project' because it is about our heart and mind). 

A Cambridge, Massachusetts group of faithful Catholics have responded to Church's call for a "New Apologetics," a new way of proposing Jesus Christ as the Way, the Truth and the Life.

"New Apologetics" is a contemporary way of engaging the questions which need to be addressed; those tough issues are often inadequately answered, or worse, dismissed as unimportant. This is a serious, beautiful adventure.

The New Apologetics is group qualified persons working to share the beauty of the truth of the Church today, in the language of today. 

The New Apologetics website is www.NewApologetics.com

May Saint Thérèse of Lisieux guide this new work.

Jesus is oriented toward the Father. His face is set on God. As Saint Luke says, "Jesus steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem." Today's Angelus text given by Pope Francis is a marvelous for study and prayer. "If a Christian does not know how to talk with God, does not know how to listen to God, in his own conscience, then he is not free - he is not free."

AND

"So we also must learn to listen more to our conscience. Be careful, however: this does not mean we ought to follow our ego, do whatever interests us, whatever suits us, whatever pleases us. That is not conscience. Conscience is the interior space in which we can listen to and hear the truth, the good, the voice of God. It is the inner place of our relationship with Him, who speaks to our heart and helps us to discern, to understand the path we ought to take, and once the decision is made, to move forward, to remain faithful."

Pope Francis presents Pope Benedict XVI as an example of this discernment. I recommend that you consider reading the Pope's Angelus text here.

It is usual with a new Roman Pontiff that a meeting happens with the Jesuits who publish the journal La Civiltà Cattolica; Pope Francis met on June 14, 2013 with the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Father Adolfo Nicolás and the editor, Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro, and their respective staff members. The bi-weekly journal is a highly regarded publication that has a unique relationship with the Holy See since 6 April 1850 in Naples.

La Civiltà Cattolica is Italy's oldest journal; the articles communicate the Holy See's point of view and is reviewed by the Vatican Secretary of State before they are published. The editorial policy works to confront significant problems of humanity, society and the Church, to publish articles on human, theological, philosophical, moral, social, cultural, political and literary formation, and they try to offer a chart important events related to Church life plus events concerning Italy and other nations.

Three controlling ideas that will direct La Civilta Cattolica: dialogue, discernment, and frontier.

The Pope's address:

I am happy to meet with you, writers, your whole community, the Sisters and the staff of the administration of the House. Since 1850, the Jesuits of the Civiltà Cattolica have been engaged in a work that has a particular link with the Pope and the Apostolic See. My predecessors, meeting with you in audience, acknowledged many times how this link is an essential feature of your review. Today I would like to suggest three words to you that might help you in your endeavor.

The are several great things we have to attend to with the Pope's address today in Rome. Two quick ones: "losing the attitude of wonder, contemplation, listening to creation; thus we are no longer able to read what Benedict XVI calls "the rhythm of the love story of God and man." WOW! Bingo!

We live in an era where disposability and waste is routine: shoes, cars, pencils, clothes, human life, etc. Don't like it, not the "right color", it is not right for me: all these sentiments are clear indications that you and I are careful on how and why we use our material and human resources. The Pope in his weekly Wednesday audience today drew our attention to the reality of waste. During the pontificate of John Paul II we Catholics were introduced to the concept of solidarity. But we were also introduced dramatically to the concept of encounter with the Lord, and with one another. The examination of conscience we will do today ought elicit some painful realizations that I hope will encourage meaningful and concrete change in how we relate to God, the other person, and to creation. Call what Francis did many things: naming the culture of death, pointing to a mentality of waste, singling a need to change our behavior so that the poor may eat. Francis' teaching is not new --it re-proposes the beauty of our Catholic teaching. Pope Francis exposes a deep wound in our relationships that needs healing.

What is our response? What response can we find with the help of the Benedictines, the Dominicans, the Franciscans? What can the laity do with the clergy to be more attentive to these rhythms of God's love story???

Pope Francis....

Today I want to focus on the issue of the environment, which I have already spoken of on several occasions. Today we also mark World Environment Day, sponsored by the United Nations, which sends a strong reminder of the need to eliminate the waste and disposal of food.

When we talk about the environment, about creation, my thoughts turn to the first pages of the Bible, the Book of Genesis, which states that God placed man and woman on earth to cultivate and care for it (cf. 2:15). And the question comes to my mind: What does cultivating and caring for the earth mean? Are we truly cultivating and caring for creation? Or are we exploiting and neglecting it? The verb "to cultivate" reminds me of the care that the farmer has for his land so that it bear fruit, and it is shared: how much attention, passion and dedication! Cultivating and caring for creation is God's indication given to each one of us not only at the beginning of history; it is part of His project; it means nurturing the world with responsibility and transforming it into a garden, a habitable place for everyone. Benedict XVI recalled several times that this task entrusted to us by God the Creator requires us to grasp the rhythm and logic of creation. But we are often driven by pride of domination, of possessions, manipulation, of exploitation; we do not "care" for it, we do not respect it, we do not consider it as a free gift that we must care for. We are losing the attitude of wonder, contemplation, listening to creation; thus we are no longer able to read what Benedict XVI calls "the rhythm of the love story of God and man." Why does this happen? Why do we think and live in a horizontal manner, we have moved away from God, we no longer read His signs.

One of the authors that I believe we have to look to for insight when it comes to sacramentality is the great southern woman, Flannery O'Connor. The great feast of Corpus Christi is this weekend. 

Here is a reflection for us on the Vigil of Corpus et Sanguis Christi:

"I was once, five or six years ago, taken by some friends to have dinner with Mary McCarthy and her husband, Mr. Broadwater. (She just wrote that book, A Charmed Life). She departed the Church at the age of 15 and is a Big Intellectual. 

We went at eight and at one, I hadn't opened my mouth once, there being nothing for me in such company to say. The people who took me were Robert Lowell and his now wife, Elizabeth Hardwick. Having me there was like having a dog present who had been trained to say a few words but overcome with inadequacy had forgotten them. 

Well, toward morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I, being the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. Mrs. Broadwater said when she was a child and received the Host, she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, He being the 'most portable' person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one. 

I then said, in a very shaky voice, 'Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it.' That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable."

In meditative prayer, one thinks and speaks not only with his mind and lips, but in a certain sense with his whole being. Prayer is then not just a formula of words, or a series of desires springing up in the heart - it is the orientation of our whole body, mind, and spirit to God in silence, attention, and adoration. All good meditative prayer is a conversion of our entire self to God.

One cannot then enter into mediation, in this sense, without a kind of inner upheaval. By upheaval I do not mean a disturbance, but a breaking out of routine, a liberation of the heart from the cares and preoccupations of one's daily business.

Thomas Merton

Thoughts in Solitude

Post Pentecost some of our study and prayer ought to work on what it means to live by the Holy Spirit and how does the Church relate to the Spirit. We need to be serious about the Holy Spirit and not leave such questions to the dust bin or the happy-clappy Christians who claim to be slain in the Spirit alone. Sometimes I get the sense that we Catholics go to extremes when it comes to Holy Spirit: either we pay no attention to the Spirit or we ascribe to much to the Spirit. We even forget that the Spirit is the Third Person of the Trinity: the Bible reveals the Holy Spirit to be God.

There is nothing to fear in coming to understand the what and who the Holy Spirit is for the Catholic.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (797) teaches:

What the soul is to the human body, the Holy Spirit is to the Body of Christ, which is the Church. To this Spirit of Christ, as an invisible principle, is to be ascribed the fact that all the parts of the body are joined one with the other and with their exalted head; for the whole Spirit of Christ is in the head, the whole Spirit is in the body, and the whole Spirit is in each of the members. The Holy Spirit makes the Church the temple of the living God:

Indeed, it is to the Church herself that the "Gift of God" has been entrusted. In it is in her that communion with Christ has been deposited, that is to say: the Holy Spirit, the pledge of incorruptibility, the strengthening of our faith and the ladder of our ascent go God. For where the Church is, there also is God's Spirit; where God's Spirit is, there is the Church and every grace. (Saint Irenaeus)

One of the things I like about Pope Francis is the common imagery used in his homilies. No long ago he warned of becoming a babysitter church. Today's Mass at the Domus Sanctae Marthae with members of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches the Holy Father used the biblical --and common-- metaphor of salt to speak about faith, hope and charity. Mark's gospel for Mass today provides a good amount of grist for the mill. Salt helps to savor the faith as much as it opens taste buds to share this faith with others.

I think one of the reasons the Holy Father latched onto the use of the image of salt is basic encouragement of Eastern Christians to resist becoming "Museum-piece Christians." So often the Eastern Christians are treated pretty poorly by Western Christians that it is too shameful to speak about; however, Eastern Christians also love the ghetto mentality. Isolation is a value for them, it seems. Frequently, you hear them complain and criticize the Roman Church for negligence when in reality they seem to prefer being someone's door mat. If you read between the lines the Pope is giving a personal witness to Eastern Christians in living differently. Later in his homily, the Pope talks about Christianity's originality. For me, I think the pope is criticizing those who want a uniform theological and liturgical tradition, which is not what it means to be Catholic. Francis, said,

"Salt makes sense when you [use] it in order to make things more tasty. I also consider that salt stored in the bottle, with moisture, loses strength and is rendered useless. The salt that we have received is to be given out, to be given away, [in order] to spice things up: otherwise, it becomes bland and useless. We must ask the Lord not to [let us] become Christians with flavor-less salt, with salt that stays closed in the bottle. Salt also has another special feature: when salt is used well, one does not notice the taste of salt. The savor of salt - it cannot be perceived! What one tastes is the flavor of the food: salt helps improve the flavor of the meal."

This weekend we are celebrating the Pentecost. The gift of the Holy Spirit was promised by Jesus; the Spirit is what creates and sustains us. In 2006 Pope Benedict met with members of the ecclesial movements. What follows the points he made on the Holy Spirit that I thought would be good to meditate on today. Our study and prayer to and in the Spirit is not well known in the Church so I think this material appropriate for formation and evangelization. As part of the Year of Faith observances the ecclesial movements are meeting with Pope Francis today and tomorrow. Come, Holy Spirit!

The Holy Spirit, in giving life and freedom, also gives unity. These are three gifts that are inseparable from one another. I have already gone on too long; but let me say a brief word about unity.

To understand it, we might find a sentence useful which at first seems rather to distance us from it. Jesus said to Nicodemus, who came to him with his questions by night:  "The wind blows where it wills" (Jn 3: 8). But the Spirit's will is not arbitrary. It is the will of truth and goodness. 

Therefore, he does not blow from anywhere, now from one place and then from another; his breath is not wasted but brings us together because the truth unites and love unites.

The Pontifical Mission Societies in the USA are expanding their work of proposing the Good News of Jesus Christ with the help of technology. 

This new initiative of the new evangelization come with the help of the boss himself, Pope Francis. He unlocked the new App. Oblate Father Andrew Small assisted. The MISSIO App may be downloaded free wherever Apps are available.

Missionary work need not only be in foreign countries. Missionary work in the United States of America is a real need even today. There are people in the USA, in Connecticut, that have yet to hear and live  "Good News" of Jesus Christ and experience the Lord's great love through the work and witness of the Catholic Church. Can each of us be motivated by the command of Jesus to "go, make disciples of all nations"?

While the Catholic Church in the USA is no longer considered as 'mission territory' by the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, that is, we no longer depend on financial support and manpower from other nations, the fact is that we need to continue to propose to one and all that Jesus is The Way, The Truth, and The Life. A possible resource for us in Connecticut is the Propagation of the Faith, "One Family in Mission" (a new web site).

The Church in the USA has four groups help the "least among us" that are known as The Pontifical Mission Societies:

• The Society for the Propagation of the Faith
• The Society of St Peter Apostle
• Missionary Childhood Association
• Missionary Union of Priests and Religious

2013 is the 151st anniversary of the death of the founder of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, Pauline Marie Jaricot. With the Venerable Servant of God Pauline Jaricot let us contribute to the work of the New Evangelization, be that match that lit the fire of love and service of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

In a recent article for the Our Sunday Visitor newspaper, Father Robert takes up the concept of the religious sense that Father Giussani taught, and that Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio --now Pope Francis spoke about. Shortly after the papal election I posted the chapter that Father Barron references in his article noted below, from A Generative Thought: An Introduction to the Works of Luigi Giussani (2003), where Bergoglio writes about our need to educate our religious sense and how Giussani influenced him in his method of dealing with ultimate questions.

You may read that chapter here that's noted in a previous post on Communio.

Here is a paragraph of Barron's OSV article. The full text is accessed here.

Part of Msgr. Giussani's genius, Cardinal Bergoglio argued, was that he did not often commence his discourse with explicitly dogmatic or doctrinal language, but rather with an awakening of the often implicit religious sensibility that every person possesses. This sensibility expresses itself in terms of the most fundamental questions: What is my ultimate origin? What is my final destiny? Is there a meaning or logic that runs through the universe? Why, precisely, is there something rather than nothing? These interrogations lead ineluctably to God, for God alone can answer them.

Father Robert Barron

OSV Newsweekly, 5 May 2013

In the Pauline Chapel in Apostolic Palace, Pope Francis offered Mass with some of the cardinals on the feast of Saint George, the name day of the Pope, Saint George. There are several stellar points made the Pope noted below with my emphasis. In these days when one's identity as a Christian is questioned, or even rejected for superficial reasons, I think that if you consider what the Church teaches, especially through the eyes of Pope Benedict and now through Pope Francis, you will notice the truth, not ideology, joy, not grumpiness. The Pope uses another previous pope to help him and us to understand the work of the Church --her mission-- under the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so the Church was a Mother, the Mother of more children, of many children. It became more and more of a Mother. A Mother who gives us the faith, a Mother who gives us an identity. But the Christian identity is not an identity card: Christian identity is belonging to the Church, because all of these belonged to the Church, the Mother Church. Because it is not possible to find Jesus outside the Church. The great Paul VI said: "Wanting to live with Jesus without the Church, following Jesus outside of the Church, loving Jesus without the Church is an absurd dichotomy." And the Mother Church that gives us Jesus gives us our identity that is not only a seal, it is a belonging. Identity means belonging. This belonging to the Church is beautiful.

The homily of Pope Francis at St Paul outside the Walls.

It is a joy for me to celebrate Mass with you in this Basilica. I greet the Archpriest, Cardinal James Harvey, and I thank him for the words that he has addressed to me. Along with him, I greet and thank the various institutions that form part of this Basilica, and all of you. We are at the tomb of Saint Paul, a great yet humble Apostle of the Lord, who proclaimed him by word, bore witness to him by martyrdom and worshipped him with all his heart. These are the three key ideas on which I would like to reflect in the light of the word of God that we have heard: proclamation, witness, worship.

In the First Reading, what strikes us is the strength of Peter and the other Apostles. In response to the order to be silent, no longer to teach in the name of Jesus, no longer to proclaim his message, they respond clearly: "We must obey God, rather than men". And they remain undeterred even when flogged, ill-treated and imprisoned. Peter and the Apostles proclaim courageously, fearlessly, what they have received: the Gospel of Jesus. And we? Are we capable of bringing the word of God into the environment in which we live? Do we know how to speak of Christ, of what he represents for us, in our families, among the people who form part of our daily lives? Faith is born from listening, and is strengthened by proclamation.

I was reading one of my favorite blogs this afternoon, Fr. Z's Blog (olim: What Does The Prayer Really Say?) and read his post St Peter's Church in Omaha, NE. As I am curious about many things, especially in the ways the Incarnation is made manifest in parishes, I was stunned with the clarity of the pastor's clarity, charity, and competence in leading souls. In fact, I watched the video on St Peter's Church more than once because I had to get it clear in my mind and heart what Father Damian Cook and his collaborators are doing, and in the ways the Holy Spirit has allowed His gifts to be extroverted. There is a distinctive focus on the cultures of prayer, community, study and service which is a wonderful gift. St Peter's is a place that the proposal of the gospel and the Church come alive.

It is not an exaggeration to say that Father Cook is orchestrating so many good things for Christ and His Church, both universal and in the local Church of Omaha. But let's be clear: it is not Cook but Christ; it is not the community that's center, but the Communio of the Trinity. I don't want to canonize Father Cook but I do want to draw attention to the good being done.

As the Prophet Ezekiel showed us, and more importantly what the Lord did for us in His Resurrection: that it is possible for old bones to be constituted again (and in the Lord's case, in a glorified body). Father Cook is illustrating how a decaying church community in urban Omaha can become a thriving religious and cultural treasure.

This is a clear and contemporary example of Saint Benedict rebuilding culture, or Saint Francis rebuilding the Church, or Blessed Teresa of Calcutta caring for all people. And the examples are plentiful...