Evangelization & Formation – Page 2

Magnificat at 15

Thanks to Joan Frawley Desmond of the National Catholic Register we can read a recently published interview, “‘Magnificat’: Introducing the Liturgy to Christian Laity for 15 Years,” with Dominican Father Peter John Cameron, Editor-in-Chief of Magnificat.

Desmond’s interview gives good insight and stands on its own. The author draws out the current work and future hopes of the Dumont and Cameron in English. Desmond notes what I would call a treasure for all of us: Magnificat gives horizon and develops a culture of encounter, a meeting with the Holy Trinity and the Blessed Mother; Magnificat does not merely correct errors experienced with regard to catechesis, but it orders how we pray, what we believe and encourages us to live anew in Christ Jesus with the Church.

The fact of the matter is that Magnificat has in these previous 15 years (!) more a generous contribution to spreading the faith and thus opened an incredible number of doors unto the Divine Mystery. The sheer breadth of hagiography, spiritual reading and sacramentality does give pause because, in my mind, our Catholic patrimony is fully appreciated and a lived. The artwork alone is spectacular (save for a few specimens).

Key to the work of and reason for Magnificat is for the formation of the laity in applying the theology and disposition of the Church to make the sacred Liturgy known and prayed by the laity.

In an era of greater emphasis on the place and role evangelization and faith formation in the Catholic Church, Magnificat is a necessary tool. 250K other English speaking people think so, too. Thanks to Father Peter John and his staff of writers, customer service, technology experts, and consultants.

Needed: Mature Christians today

The New Testament is replete with references to believers being mature in their faith, in their manner of being a follower of Jesus Christ, of standing up and taking responsibility in the Church. Saint Paul speaks the people of Corinth in a direct way that helps us to see his view of being a mature Christian who takes adult faith formation seriously: “I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able,” (1 Cor. 3:2).

Through the decades the popes of have taught similarly. One example is Benedict XVI who exhorted priests to not be satisfied with “a childhood of faith”, meaning that many Catholics have yet to mature in their knowledge and practice of the faith. It seems as though we, in this most educated of centuries (at least in the first world) have yet to get past first level of discipleship. The pope observes that a lot of Christians “cannot — as adults, with competence and conviction — explain and elucidate the philosophy of the faith, its great wisdom and rationality” in order to illuminate the minds of others. To do this they need an “adult faith” and to see the bigger picture of a vigorous faith and a faith that works in mature ways that put what one believes into concrete action. It seems to me that we need a closer coherence between what we say we believe, how we worship and how we live. On many occasions Benedict has spoken thus to the Church through the bishops, priests and laity to be concerned with faith formation.

The current pope is echoing what his predecessors have said in spades, namely, Christians: grow up! You can see some of what the bishop of Rome is aiming at in his recent Apostolic Exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel (Evangelii Gaudium) numbers 160-175. Mature Christians is means that the Christian responds fully to the Lord’s call to discipleship.

What is needed is an educated heart and mind. Our work is nothing more and nothing less than being educated to Christian maturity. In a very real sense that is what the Church is about, this is what the ecclesial movements of Communion and Liberation, Opus Dei and Focolare are about. Personal holiness, a reasonable expression of faith, and a enlivened response to human need is what defines the real Christian person. But don’t fret. We are in-process of becoming, real Christian living means recognizes that we all are on a journey to wholeness and holiness. Here the lens of faith informs and shapes life whereby our happiness in this life and in the next is realized. Porta Fidei (the Apostolic Letter opening the Year of Faith by Benedict XVI) has this line that I think each of us needs to recall: “Through faith, this new life shapes the whole of human existence according to the radical new reality of the resurrection. … ‘Faith working through love’ becomes a new criterion of understanding and action that changes the whole of man’s life.” What the Pope is getting at is that we take adult faith formation with a degree of purpose. Hence, as Christians we have the modalities of a community of faith, the priest, and spiritual direction to help us walk the path given to us by the Lord. Each of these experiences will help us to recognize the contours of sin and grace: they keep reality alive.

The heart of the Gospel and the teachings of the Church is repentance and conversion. Conversion to what? Rather, it is not a what, but who. To convert means that we turn our lives over to Jesus Christ in a radical way: no reservations, no “ifs, ands or buts.” Our past is the past and it is redeemed, that is, our misdeeds and moral incompetencies are brought into the inner life of the Trinity (Father, Son & Holy Spirit) being made right. The Christian believes that it is the Trinity who renders judgement and mercy.

And here is the Good News: the offer of salvation made by God is crucial to the aim of belief and everything in the event of Christian proposal seeks to make this known. Good News “is the message capable of responding to the desire fro the infinite which abides in the human heart” (no. 165).

What I’ve quoted here before and what is renewed again: good catechesis needs good witnesses. How well does one “walk humbly with God.” Pope Paul VI said we need more witnesses than teachers of the faith. The “good witness” is the person who takes his or her faith seriously, who lives knowing that he or she is loved and redeemed by God. The saint, that is, the real Christian is not perfect perfect but the redeemed sinner.

How are far are you willing to change your mind and evangelize?

Catholics need to change direction: to move from the Counter-reformation approach, what is now too ghetto-like today, to one that is more evangelical. We are indeed moving in that direction but as far as I can see, we are moving too slowly. The work started by Pope Leo XIII and concluded by Pope Benedict XVI still is highly instructive. What is clear to historians, it was Leo who changed the Church’s approach to education, culture, politics, etc. that was evident in previous generations in the pontificates of Gregory XVI and Pius IX. Leo’s 25 years and Benedict’s 8 years are bookends. Leo dealt with all the points of human history; Benedict continued what John Paul started in completing the Second Vatican Council and bridging faith and reason. What Francis will give us is still too new to determine in a critical way.

All this is to encourage you to read and fully digest George Weigel’s Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st Century Church (Basic Books). I wrote about this book earlier here on Communio. What I said earlier remains the same now: Weigel is proposing to new evaluation, a new way for Catholics to engage the world. What we’ve been doing is simply not working anymore. Some Catholics are being eased into mediocre Christianity, others are walking away, others are searching for new ways to propose the truth of Jesus Christ and His sacrament, the beauty Catholic life. What Weigel suggests –and I am not going to give away the detail of his work here– is potentially going to anger some people and make others happy; he’s challenging every concept we have with regard to our ecclesial life: catechetics, preaching, liturgical music, the celebration of sacraments, matters of governance, education at all levels, how we use resources (economic and human), and so forth. Nothing is left unaffected by this public intellectual.

It is my considered opinion that dioceses and religious orders ought to take heed and at the very least allow Weigel’s ideas to ruminate in heart and mind. We can be uncritical of the ghetto mentality of Christian living and expect to be doing what Christ wants us to do. If it is, why are so many priests doing bad things, dioceses going bankrupt, Catholic hospitals merging with secularist institutions, religious order dying because they don’t, won’t, can’t live their charism with new vigor, parishes closing, etc.?

Making a General Examination of Conscience

From time-to-time I need to be reminded what it means to enter into a holy and general examination of conscience. Over time if I don’t review the method of examination proposed in the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, I forget. These days I have to admit I am a crusade to make the idea and practice of personal conversion a priority. From what I am sensing in the Church and in secular society we all need a lot less sin in our life, and a lot more happy, healthy and fruitful appreciation of where God’s grace is operative.

Where should you always start, in examining yourself? Loyola makes this proposal:

There are five points in this method

1. The first point is to give thanks to God our Lord for the favors received.

2. The second point is to ask for grace to know my sins and to rid myself of them.

3. The third point is to demand an account of my soul from the time of rising up to the present examination. I should go over one hour after another, one period after another. The thoughts should be examined first, then the words, and finally, the deeds in the same order as was explained under the Particular Examination of Conscience.

4. The fourth point will be to ask pardon of God our Lord for my faults.

5. The fifth point will be to resolve to amend with the grace of God.

Close with an Our Father.

The mystical tradition of the Catholic Church keeps before us the ideal of living in a state of grace because in doing so we walk the path of being in communio (here I will say this means friendship) with God. But other implications of living in a state of grace is that our relationships with others get better, and deeper knowledge of ourselves in action keeps us grounded and less self-righteous.

If you want to know one of the key points of discernment for Pope Francis lived –this is it, an examination of conscience. Plus, the new evangelization that is so much part of our church-existence today revolves around our willingness to examine our mind, heart and actions with a firm desire to amend life. Discernment is key to all things Catholic. An alive, a mature Christian faith is known only to the extent that we give ourselves over to Grace. A certain path to conversion is this method of Loyola.

Creation is evidence of God’s existence

Hear what to selections of Scripture say that echo Paul Walker’s statement,

“When I see the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast established; what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou dost care for him?” (Psalm 8)

For what can be known about God is perfectly plain to them, since God has made it plain to them: ever since the creation of the world, the invisible existence of God and his everlasting power have been clearly seen by the mind’s understanding of created things. (Romans 1: 19-20)

Pope Benedict said the following about the place of images (created things) in Christian faith:

But since God has now been seen in the flesh and lived among men, I represent that part of God which is visible. I do not venerate matter, but the Creator of matter, who became matter for my sake and deigned to live in matter and bring about my salvation through matter. I will not cease therefore to venerate that matter through which my salvation was achieved.

Blessed Giacomo Alberione

A fascinating priest and zealous missionary of the twentieth century is today’s blessed, Giacomo Alberione (1884-1971). His call to do something striking for the Lord came while he was adoring the eucharistic Lord during the night of the change of year 1900 to 1901. He may be most known in the USA for the foundation of the Daughters of St Paul in 1915 but there are several other congregations forming the Pauline Family. Alberione founded a family devoted to the great evangelizer, Saint Paul, that has active and contemplative sisters, priests and brothers, the laity, and various other institutes. All of the various Pauline congregations collaborate in some way, according to a divine gift given, to spread the message of the gospel and to assist in the devotional life of the Christian.

On 27 April 2003, Blessed John Paul beatified Father Giacomo Alberione We look forward to his definitive place at the altar.

In all ways, Blessed Alberione is a keen example of work of the new evangelization and the formation of Christians.

Blessed Giacomo Alberione, pray for us.

Evangelii Gaudium: Pope Francis gives his vision for the Church

What is Pope Francis encouraging us to do now? His “apostolic exhortation”–called Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel) is a new document (c. 48, 000 words) in which he outlines a bold, new vision of how to be disciples of the Lord, how to be living members of the Catholic Church. The joy here indicates the encounter (the meeting) with the living God, especially in the person of Jesus. Evangelii Gaudium is not an easy document to boil down to a few key points. Therefore, you will need to spend time reading, studying and praying with the document. This is principally true because what is proposed in this document is a new discernment in the truest way possible: according to the Gospel, tradition and the received wisdom of the saints. The papal invitation to each of us is to “recover the original freshness of the Gospel,” finding “new avenues” and “new paths of creativity,” without boxing God in “dull categories.” What is exactly true is that Francis gives us a work that is thought-provoking, surprising and challenging. Evangelii Gaudium is nothing if not very interesting. The status quo is not part of the pastoral plan of any Church guided by the Paraclete.

I go back to what I consider to be the three key ideas proposed by the newly elected Roman Pontiff when he preached at the Mass with the Cardinals: the Christian is to journey, to build and to confess the Body of Christ. His other homilies and addresses have had some form of this triad all aiming at truly living our new humanity given to us in baptism, confirmed in the Holy Spirit and nourished by the Eucharist.

Recently, Father Julián Carrón gave to the members of Communion and Liberation a mini retreat in which he spoke of the new knowledge, the wisdom of the Spirit given to us. For him, it is a new way of living and thinking as a friend of Jesus. But our friendship is not limited to exchanging pious platitudes, it is a true companionship, a way of seeing life, a communio. This way of living with the eyes of faith, it is a faith born of the gaze Jesus had for Andrew and James, Mary Magdalen or Zacchaeus, it is the very same gaze Jesus has for us and that we ought to have for others. Too often have forgotten what it is to live in the freshness of the Good News and hence we now need to first to work our problems of faith by addressing the problem what it means to be living this faith as a knowledge of who Jesus Christ is, and what it means to follow Him.

So, what does the Pope propose as his vision for the Church?

Francis wants a Church that is a joyful community of faith ready to face the world as it is, not through the lens of nihilism or fearfulness of what may or may not be. There is always a bit of trepidation of the unknown or one’s meeting head-on of one’s opponents, and therefore, Evangelii Gaudium may be too challenging for some people. Remember the exhortation of Blessed John Paul and Pope Benedict at the very start of their pontificates: be not afraid! For the Pope blows open a perspective that looks the other way: “Pastoral ministry in a missionary key seeks to abandon the complacent attitude that says: ‘We have always done it this way.’” Traditionalism is killing Christian life. Just because we have done thus-and-such for 1000 years does not mean that it is good and healthy thing to do today.

One description of what it means to live anew…

Evangelization with joy becomes beauty in the liturgy, as part of our daily concern to spread goodness. The Church evangelizes and is herself evangelized through the beauty of the liturgy, which is both a celebration of the task of evangelization and the source of her renewed self-giving.

What Evangelii Gaudium conveys is that Catholics ought to be unafraid of new ways of proclaiming (the kerygma) the Gospel and new ways of thinking about the work of the Church in a way that is a total gift of self. Francis is not changing Church teaching but asking us to explore new forms of pastoral practice based on traditional teaching. We can cite as one example Francis affirming the Church’s inability to ordain women as Catholic priests, but he invites the Church to think about the place of women in the Church in new ways: “the possible role of women in decision-making in different areas of the Church’s life.” Ecclesial renewal and reform at any level is not going to be easy. Yet we have to strive to be renewed and reformed. The bishops with the priests, deacons and religious, for example, will have to ask the hard question of their personal conversion and their manner of living. Perhaps the episcopate in the USA will have to reassess the manner in which the bishops live. I think we are at the point that says, if the Jesuits and Dominicans do not start living their charism with mind of the Church and bishops and secular priests do not stop living like little princes, the laity will start voicing their opposition to the contraception of the vocation before the Church will be even more dismissed as irrelevant. We need for today a NEW St Charles Borromeo, a NEW Sts Benedict and Scholastica, a NEW Sts Ignatius and Sophie Barat, a NEW Sts Dominic and Catherine of Siena and a NEW Sts Francis and Clare.

We have already heard throughout the centuries of the deadly sins of preaching, catechesis, pastoral care, and liturgical praxis: “complacency,” “excessive clericalism,” and Catholics who act like “sourpusses”: it is described by the Pope as Christians whose lives are like “Lent without Easter.” (“Sourpusses” is in the official English-language translation.) All of these attitudes are considered roadblocks. Moreover, the Pontiff has little patience for people who “tempted to find excuses and complain.”

Clearly, there will be no alteration of the Catechism, dogmatic and liturgical and moral theology. Rather, Francis wants a new way of proposing the faith in Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life. Orthodoxy is not the big NO as some one want to say; it is about the beauty of living in a completely new way so as be saints on earth and in heaven. As such I am thinking of the groundbreaking work of Jospeh Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity.

I have to ask myself, Do I have a fundamental and tender joy of living a life centered in Jesus Christ and focused on the hope of the resurrection? My experience tells me that in different periods of personal history I have lost a great deal of hope and joy in the resurrection, and the centrality of Jesus Christ in all of creation (cf. the papal homily closing the Year of Faith on 24 Nov.). But I have choice to live differently where the measure of life and faith is not me but the Lord.

Evangelii Gaudium is a discussion on joy as a requirement for evangelization and a treatise on the value and necessity of “personal dialogue,” a personal meeting of the other, and encounter with the Lord,; the personal approach is needed in extending an invitation to live differently; the faith is a way of knowing, a way of seeing, a way of loving God, others and ourselves.

The Pope restores to our human awareness the plight of those on the margins: the poor, the children, the elderly, the sick and otherwise neglected. Being formed by the Jesuits I heard about the Church’s “preferential option for the poor.” I was rightly taught that a Christian looks at another person as God sees them: “God’s heart has a special place for the poor.” We are not exhorted to open soup kitchens and social concern centers. We are asked to awaken our hearts and minds. Hence, we are not to give lip service saying that God loves the poor in a special way, and let someone else take care of the “problem.” People, whatever, their social-economic-religious status may be, each person has a God-given dignity. Here solidarity is the lens: how do I care and advocate for the poor, the elderly, the sick, etc.? Who has responsibility for the other person? The Pope tells us: “None of us can think we are exempt from concern for the poor and for social justice.” No bishop, priest, deacon, lay person, rich or poor, educated or uneducated can neglect the needs of another; for in the beggar we see ourselves begging before Christ as Dives did.

The Apostolic Exhortation offers critique of the “idolatry of money” and an “economy of exclusion” as tyranny. For Francis, therefore it ought to be the same for all us, we need to live in an economy of communion (see the work of the Focolare Movement for more on this idea). Francis writes, “The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but he is obliged in the name of Christ to remind all that the rich must help, respect and promote the poor. I exhort you to generous solidarity and a return of economics and finance to an ethical approach which favors human beings. What’s clear to me, caring for the marginalized means addressing the structures that keep people at arm’ length: “The need to resolve the structural causes of poverty cannot be delayed.” This is a call to arms now. The Church is for and of the poor. Period.

Do not be fooled: the hard work of personal conversion is absolutely necessary before we set out on changing things that are perceived to be broken. We cannot point the fingers at others without doing the hard work of spiritual conversion ourselves. Change for the sake of change is not a Catholic thing to do. You can change the right structures for the wrong reasons. The matter is: “Nobody can go off to battle unless he is fully convinced of victory beforehand.” Is Christ the center of our life? We are looking for a revolution of tenderness.

Evangelii Gaudium will be received by some as boilerplate clap-trap that one would expect in a document on the “New Evangelization,” but that would be too reductionistic, even too pessimistic an evaluation; Pope Francis identifies areas of challenge, a hardening of the arteries, and he desires a healing, he wants to see real, visible change in me, and in structures of the Church and civil society. But how is this possible? Francis tells us that evangelization and the life of the Christian is “constantly renewed experience of savoring Christ’s friendship and his message.”

Follow what the Pope says with this in mind: “embark upon a new chapter of evangelization marked by this joy, while pointing out new paths for the Church’s journey in years to come”: these new paths can only be walked if we meet the Lord. These paths are fruitful if live in communion with others. The companionship of the Church is the place of our true freedom.

May Mary, Mother of the Living Gospel, “Star of the new evangelization, help us to bear radiant witness to communion, service, ardent and generous faith, justice and love of the poor, that the joy of the Gospel may reach to the ends of the earth, illuminating even the fringes of our world” help us on our journey.

Catechesis and Preaching is trinitarian

In catechesis too, we have rediscovered the fundamental role of the first announcement or kerygma, which needs to be the centre of all evangelizing activity and all efforts at Church renewal. The kerygma is trinitarian. The fire of the Spirit is given in the form of tongues and leads us to believe in Jesus Christ who, by his death and resurrection, reveals and communicates to us the Father’s infinite mercy. On the lips of the catechist the first proclamation must ring out over and over: ‘Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you.’ This first proclamation is called ‘first’ not because it exists at the beginning and can then be forgotten or replaced by other more important things. It is first in a qualitative sense because it is the principal proclamation, the one which we must hear again and again in different ways, the one which we must announce one way or another throughout the process of catechesis, at every level and moment.

Pope Francis
Evangelili Gaudium (2013)

Evangelii Gaudium

Today, the Holy See officially released Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium. This is first work that comes from the papal office. The first paragraph of the Exhortation reads,

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. With Christ joy is constantly born anew. In this Exhortation I wish to encourage the Christian faithful to embark upon a new chapter of evangelization marked by this joy, while pointing out new paths for the Church’s journey in years to come.

The entire text of Evangelii Gaudium may be read here.

Oratorians of Brooklyn

Saint Philip Neri and his ability to connect with the common person is seen in the ministry of his sons at the Oratory of Saint Boniface in Brooklyn, NY. Saint Philip’s charism is alive and bringing Jesus the people and people to Jesus.

The Oratorians took a dead parish community and by cooperating with Grace revitalized the parish making it a place of prayer now called the The Oratory Church of Saint Boniface. They’ve renovated their church, provide an excellent sacred music ministry, an intellectual outreach as well as a myriad of ways of responding to the needs of those in need.

In a real way these urban and contemporary religious men are making being Catholic interesting, and dare I say, captivating, by making what the 16th century layman-turn-priest and saint said and did. very concrete. The Oratorian priests and brothers are a different type of religious congregation say from the Benedictines, Jesuits and Dominicans. The men live permanently in one place, take no religious vows yet they promise to live in charity with each other serving in whatever need is identified: parish work, spiritual ministries, work with the poor and marginalized, teaching catechism and the like. The Provost is the religious superior of the local group –the point of unity– and the diocesan bishop gives the priestly faculties. Mutual obedience, concern for one another and joy are hallmarks of the Oratorian life. Each Oratorian is respected for his relationship with the Lord and the gift of self to the Church. Neri was an evangelizer, and so are his sons.

NET TV –a media ministry of the Brooklyn Diocese– interviewed the Fathers and Brothers of the Oratory recently giving an insight into their life and work among the people of God.

Visit The Brooklyn Oratory.