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THE NEW EVANGELISATION
MONSIGNOR KEITH BARLTROP (Director
of CASE)
SAYS THE FOLLOWING ABOUT THE WEDNESDAY WORD:
"In recent
years the Church has challenged all Catholics to be part of
a “new evangelisation” of our world. Part of that
is to take the risk of trying new methods and means of expression
to get the essence of the Gospel across. “The Wednesday
Word” weekly Family Time custom is exactly the kind
of initiative the Church has in mind.
All parishes
are aware of the presence among them of many Catholics who,
for whatever reason, have stopped practising their faith actively,
but we are often uncertain as to how to make contact with
them, still less how to offer them a way back. “The
Wednesday Word” is the perfect means for this, an attractively
produced and thoroughly practical leaflet which parents can
use to pray and share with their children.
I am sure that
the Holy Spirit will use this well thought out and carefully
tested method to enable parents and children to evangelise
each other, which is how it should be, and I have no doubt
that we shall be hearing many stories in the future of how
this has been taking place. I look forward to hearing some
of those stories, and would encourage the widest possible
distribution of this excellent resource."
Mgr. Keith Baltrop (CASE)
ABOVE ALL
THE NEW EVANGELISATION IS BUILT ON PRAYER:
Pope Benedict XVI, writes
powerfully about the new evangelisation. Most of the quotations
in this section are from a talk he gave to Catechists in Rome
for the Jubilee Year, 2000.
“A few years ago,
I was reading the biography of a very good priest of our century,
Don Didimo, the parish priest of Bassano del Grappa. In his
notes, Don Didimo says, "Jesus preached by day, by night
he prayed." With these few words, he wished to say: Jesus
had to acquire the disciples from God.
The same is always true.
We ourselves cannot gather men. We must acquire them by God
for God. All methods are empty without the foundation of prayer.
The word of the announcement must always be drenched in an
intense life of prayer.”
Efficiency
and success are big temptations in the modern world:
“Yet another temptation
lies hidden beneath this - the temptation of impatience, the
temptation of immediately finding the great success, in finding
large numbers. But this is not God's way. New evangelisation
cannot mean: immediately attracting the large masses that
have distanced themselves from the Church by using new and
more refined methods. No - this is not what new evangelisation
promises.”
Jesus
himself has given us the image we need – the mustard
seed:
“For the Kingdom
of God as well as for evangelisation, the instrument and vehicle
of the Kingdom of God, the parable of the grain of mustard
seed is always valid (Mark 4:31-32). The Kingdom of God always
starts anew under this sign. New evangelisation means: to
dare, once again and with the humility of the small grain,
to leave up to God the when and how it will grow (Mark 4:26-29).
Large things always begin from the small seed, and the mass
movements are always ephemeral.”
So
there is something uncomfortable about new evangelisation:
“New evangelisation
must surrender to the mystery of the grain of mustard seed
and not be so pretentious as to believe it will immediately
produce a large tree. We either live too much in the security
of the already existing large tree or in the impatience of
wanting a greater, more vibrant tree - instead we must accept
the mystery that the Church is at the same time a large tree
and a very small grain. In the history of salvation it is
always Good Friday and Easter Sunday at the same time.”
In
fact, it is closely linked to weakness and suffering (in our
logo, the fire comes from the Cross):
“I would like to
recall the beginning of evangelisation in the life of St.
Paul. The success of his mission was not the fruit of great
rhetorical art or pastoral prudence; the fruitfulness was
tied to the suffering, to the communion in the passion with
Christ (1 Cor. 2:1-5, etc)… A mother cannot give life
to a child without suffering. Each birth requires suffering,
is suffering, and becoming a Christian is a birth. Let us
say this once again in the words of the Lord: The Kingdom
of heaven has suffered violence (Mt. 11:12), but the violence
of God is suffering, it is the cross. We cannot give life
to others without giving up our own lives.”
Our
Lady’s role in evangelisation is indispensable:
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| Mary,
Star of Evangelisation |
“A programme of pastoral
action with evangelisation as its basic feature… is
the desire that we rejoice to entrust to the hands and the
heart of the Immaculate Blessed Virgin Mary… On the
morning of Pentecost she watched over with her prayer the
beginning of evangelisation prompted by the Holy Spirit: may
she be the Star of the evangelisation ever renewed which the
Church, docile to her Lord’s command, must promote and
accomplish, especially in these times which are difficult
but full of hope!” (Paul VI: Evangelii Nuntiandi 81-82).
Taken from
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