The concept of the “New Evangelization” has become central to our conversation as Catholics, this need in our modern world for a Christian renewal at every level of society, and the rebirth of Christian faith in many places that are historically Christian. This includes our own community. Current data shows that Saint Henry Parish has 1,540 families, totaling nearly 5,300 individual members. Compared to the average Sunday Mass attendance, it’s clear the situation in our community is one in which evangelization is a dire need. This is not a crisis resulting from Mass times or locations, musical preference, or hospitality. This is a crisis of belief, especially when we consider that most of the Catholics we do not see on Sunday are attending non-Catholic services, or – in the majority of instances – they are not engaged in religious practice whatsoever. We all have a neighbor or relative in this group, and our hearts ought to ache for them.
The fact is that evangelization is not one task among many that the Church performs – it is central to her mission, to her identity: to evangelize is to spread the Gospel, the entire Good News of Jesus Christ, for the salvation of the world and the sanctification of souls. During her first 1000 years, the Church grew rapidly; during the next 500 there was significant deepening of her roots, but then the Protestant Revolution occurred and entire nations separated themselves from the Church, splitting along denominational lines. In the face of this tragedy, which continues today, the Church redoubled her missionary effort, renewing her mission to evangelize many peoples who had never encountered the Gospel. Even amid losses in ancient lands, Christianity blossomed elsewhere. Then came the so-called Enlightenment, opening the door to radical and often violent secularization, and modernity’s assertion that Faith should be a merely “personal matter”, with no place in the public square. Like the enemy sowing weeds in the night, these trends have slowly and quite subtly chipped away at the foundations of Christian society, and we find ourselves today in a place very different from the one we knew even 100 years ago, even in our own community. This brief survey of history necessarily glosses over many other factors contributing to this reality, but it is enough to indicate why a “New Evangelization” is so critical, and not just in the world “out there”, but right here, in Saint Henry Parish, in our own communities, our own homes, and our own hearts.
Pope Saint Paul VI “noted that the task of evangelization…proves equally necessary for innumerable people who have been baptized but who live quite outside Christian life, for simple people who have a certain faith but an imperfect knowledge of the foundations of that faith, for intellectuals who feel the need to know Jesus Christ in a light different from the instruction they received as children, and for many others.” In other words, we all need to be evangelized anew. Pope St. John Paul II echoed this while urging greater involvement of the laity in the mission of the Church. He acknowledged that:
Whole countries and nations where religion and the Christian life were formerly flourishing and capable of fostering a viable and working community of faith, are now put to a hard test, and in some cases, are even undergoing a radical transformation, as a result of a constant spreading of an indifference to religion, of secularism and atheism. This particularly concerns countries and nations of the so-called First World, in which economic well-being and consumerism, even if coexistent with a tragic situation of poverty and misery, inspires and sustains a life lived ‘as if God did not exist’”
We live in a culture that promotes a kind of “practical atheism” in which we profess belief in God’s existence, but then live our day-to-day lives in a manner that strongly suggests the opposite. Departures from the Catholic Faith are rooted, at least in part, in this kind of practical atheism, whereby the spiritual departure took place some time ago, even while certain external, religious customs were maintained; then at some point, when this religious disintegration was no longer sustainable, the body followed where the soul had already gone. We are all susceptible to this cultural trend, and so we need to be vigilant, seeking and proclaiming the Lord with renewed vigor. In this, “we cannot forget that the first task will always be to make ourselves docile to the freely given action of the Spirit of the Risen One who accompanies all who are heralds of the Gospel and opens the hearts of those who listen. To proclaim fruitfully the Word of the Gospel one is first asked to have a profound experience of God” (Pope Benedict XVI). As the late German pope famously taught, “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction”, something Pope Francis certainly had in mind when he began his pontificate:
I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day. No one should think that this invitation is not meant for him or her, since no one is excluded from the joy brought by the Lord…How good it feels to come back to him whenever we are lost! Let me say this once more: God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy…With a tenderness which never disappoints, but is always capable of restoring our joy, he makes it possible for us to lift up our heads and to start anew. Let us not flee from the resurrection of Jesus, let us never give up, come what will. May nothing inspire more than his life, which impels us onwards!
This is all necessary for us to bear in mind as we make efforts to bring lost sheep back to the fold. Our concern for evangelization must start in our own souls. “Love your own soul first,” as St. Bernard taught. Apart from this inner conversion and radical conformity to the Lord, all efforts to evangelize are in vain. Once we have come to know the Lord in our souls, from there this knowledge and love spreads through our homes, from our homes into the community, and from the community into the world. We want our parish to grow, but unless this increase is rising on the tide of an ever-deepening holiness in our members, it will ultimately collapse. But where there is holiness, the rest will follow. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well” (Matthew 6:33).
Affectionately Yours In Christ,
Fr. Hess
