New evangelization

POPE Benedict XVI has just established a new office tasked to undertake what is called as a new evangelization especially in some parts of the world that had deep Christian roots before, but are now terribly suffering under the plague of secularization.

This is the Pontifical Council for New Evangelization. In the Pope’s words, it is meant to tackle “a grave crisis in the sense of the Christian faith and the role of the Church,” and “to find the right means to repropose the perennial truth of the Gospel.”

He said that previously staunch Catholic countries in Europe and North America were facing “the eclipse of a sense of God.” In another occasion, he noted that many people now regard God at best as a mere theory or a hypothesis, not a living being.

I agree with this observation completely. All around us is the unmistakable sign that people consider God more as an alien than a Creator, Father and Lover, who shares his life, and everything in it like his knowledge and love, with us.

This, to me, is an interesting development to us, since this new evangelization, I believe, should not only be done in these Western developed countries that are now also facing a severe economic crisis, but also in our country.

Though vaunted, to a certain degree true, for its Catholicism, our country is actually suffering also from a certain crisis of faith, since much of the outward expressions of piety and religiosity do not really have a firm foundation on a living faith.

In short, much of it is mere noise and show without real religious substance. We may have a vibrant popular piety in many places, but it is something that needs to be purified, enriched and made to be grounded on the real McCoy, and not just forms.

Of course, we should be thankful that we still have these forms of religiosity. Our long history of Catholic life, in spite of some dark spots, has yielded lasting fruits of spiritual life.

But we should never be complacent and think that everything is all right. There’s a lot of superstition still attending many of our religious practices, and even outright doctrinal errors proliferating around.

Given the global interconnectivity we have at present, we should not fail to realize that some of the disturbing developments in the rich but decadent Western countries can now easily enter our shores. Just think of the current RH issue and the whole range of the contraceptive mentality.

We need to look closely into the training programs given in seminaries and other centers of learning. There are things that need to be changed drastically. Let’s see to it that a wholistic formation is truly given, covering the human, religious-doctrinal, spiritual and pastoral aspects.

A more fine-tuned evangelization should be given to the young and the different sectors of society. The youth are bombarded today with messages and images that undermine their spiritual life.

Thus, we can see a runaway trend toward delinquency and other youthful anomalies. The Facebook entries can give us a jolting reality check on this phenomenon. We have to find ways to cope with this worrying development.

Evangelization should aim at imparting nothing less than the real and living Christ to everyone. In one Church document, it is described as “not limited to instruction about God who lives in inaccessible light…

“In hearing the Word, the actual encounter with God himself calls to the heart of man and demands a decision which is not arrived at solely through intellectual knowledge but which requires conversion of heart…”

We have to understand that only when there is real conversion of heart can our recognition of Christ and our identification with him take place. Otherwise, we will just be playing games.

“The Gospel preached by the Church is not just a message but a divine and life-giving experience for those who believe, hear, receive and obey the message,” that same document affirms.

The clergy and the others directly involved in this task should understand that this it requires from them nothing less than true integrity where the message and the messenger, while distinct, become one in an existential, dynamic way.

It is not an exaggeration nor an act of presumption to say that they should have the mind of God, since in the first place that is actually meant for us.

It’s only then that the evangelization becomes credible and acceptable to the people. The preaching should be lived, the words always need to be given witness first by the preacher.