Our People

Equipped for Mission: The New Evangelisation

Talk to Archdiocesan Youth Mission Team

By Most Rev. Julian Porteous
Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney
27 January 2004

At his ascension the Lord declared to the apostles (and hence the Church) “Go out to the whole world, proclaim the gospel to all creation (Mk 15, 15)

You are taking the great commission of the Lord to heart in serving on the Diocesan Youth Mission Team in 2004

As a bishop what I want to say to you today is that your action of engaging in the work of mission places you in the heart of the Church, and you become engaged in its essential work and purpose.

Pope Paul VI left us a great legacy in his milestone document, Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975), following the Synod of bishops which met in 1974 at the Pope’s behest to discuss the subject of evangelization.

In this encyclical the Pope declared in such clear and bold terms: “Evangelisation is in fact the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelise” (par 14). Thus your engagement in mission places you within the essential grace of the Church and you are participating in its deepest identity. You are the Church being what it is meant to be.

We could ask the question: what does the Pope understand by evangelization? Listen to how he goes on to describe the evangelization mission of the Church:

She exists in order to evangelize, that is to say, in order to preach and teach, to be the channel of the gift of grace, to reconcile sinners with God, and to perpetuate Christ's sacrifice in the Mass, which is the memorial of His death and glorious resurrection. (par 14)

Evangelising has its focus on the person of Jesus Christ – coming to faith in him, but it does not stop there. Here there is a difference between an evangelical protestant view and a Catholic view. A Catholic understanding of evangelization incorporates a catechetical dimension and a sacramental dimension.

I would like to offer some comments on both of these:

• Catechetical dimension – basic evangelization needs to be followed up by solid catechesis.
• Sacramental dimension – a person meeting Christ needs to come into a full life in Christ realized in the Sacraments – the sacraments of Christian initiation.

The great call given to the Church by Pope Paul VI was taken up by Pope John Paul II. At the beginning of his pontificate (1979) Pope John Paul took part in a General Conference of Latin American Bishops held at Puebla, Mexico. The theme was about evangelization in Latin America. The Pope spoke about the importance of evangelization not simply being reduced to a temporal project, but it is about the Lord transforming the human heart. This, of course, was against the whole background of liberation theology.

It was in 1983 that the Pope first spoke of something that was to become a constant in his teaching over the next 20 years: “New Evangelisation”. He first mentioned it at Haiti in relation to the 500^th anniversary of the first evangelization of Latin America with the arrival of the Europeans. The “new” evangelization implied that countries and societies that have been once evangelized and have lost the vigor of faith need to receive the message afresh in a way to win them to Christ in a fresh and vital way.

The Pope again and again spoke of the need to bring this revitalized message of salvation to civilizations that are formally Christian, but suffer under a loss of faith and a growing secularism.

His Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici (1988) bring many of the ideas expressed on various occasions and in various places together. Indeed, what is immediately noticeable is that the Pope recognizes that this task of the new evangelization belongs in a special way to the lay members of the Church. He knew that the breath of the Spirit was moving among the laity and raising up groups, movements and communities whose heart was directed to the task of proclaiming the gospel in the contemporary situation in ways that could communicate to contemporary man. You know this!

Listen to the Pope in a section entitle: The Hour Has Come for a Re-Evangelization (par 34)

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". This indifference to religion and the practice of religion devoid of true meaning in the face of life's very serious problems, are not less worrying and upsetting when compared with declared atheism. Sometimes the Christian faith as well, while maintaining some of the externals of its tradition and rituals, tends to be separated from those moments of human existence which have the most significance, such as, birth, suffering and death. In such cases, the questions and formidable enigmas posed by these situations, if remaining without responses, expose contemporary people to an inconsolable delusion or to the temptation of eliminating the truly humanizing dimension of life implicit in these problems.

In Redemptoris Missio (1990) the Pope spoke of the evangelizing mission of the Church and called on the Church to commit itself to the work of evangelization. He distinguished between the first evangelization to those who have never heard the Gospel and the need to proclaim the Gospel afresh in areas where secularism has drained the faith of large groups of people:

But what moves me even more strongly to proclaim the urgency of missionary evangelization is the fact that it is the primary service which the Church can render to every individual and to all humanity in the modern world, a world which has experienced marvelous achievements but which seems to have lost its sense of ultimate realities and of existence itself. "Christ the Redeemer," I wrote in my first encyclical, "fully reveals man to himself.... The person who wishes to understand himself thoroughly...must...draw near to Christ.... [The] Redemption that took place through the cross has definitively restored to man his dignity and given back meaning to his life in the world." (par 2)

In this “New Evangelisation” the content is the same as the “primary or first” evangelization. In Redemptoris Missio (par 44) the Pope spells out clearly that the name of Jesus Christ must be explicitely proclaimed. What distinguished the new evangelization is the ability to communicate with the people of our times.

Proclamation is the permanent priority of mission. The Church cannot elude Christ's explicit mandate, nor deprive men and women of the "Good News" about their being loved and saved by God. "Evangelization will always contain- as the foundation, center and at the same time the summit of its dynamism- a clear proclamation that, in Jesus Christ...salvation is offered to all people, as a gift of God's grace and mercy." All forms of missionary activity are directed to this proclamation, which reveals and gives access to the mystery hidden for ages and made known in Christ (cf. Eph 3:3-9; Col 1:25-29), the mystery which lies at the heart of the Church's mission and life, as the hinge on which all evangelization turns.

In a country like Australia, secularism is the ethos of the society and the efforts of evangelization address the inadequacies of an empty secular existence. Such evangelisation needs great creativity and the development of new and effective ways of communicating the gospel message to people. As Pope Paul VI says in Evangelii Nuntiandi:

The obvious importance of the content of evangelization must not overshadow the importance of the ways and means. This question of "how to evangelize" is permanently relevant, because the methods of evangelizing vary according to the different circumstances of time, place and culture, and because they thereby present a certain challenge to our capacity for discovery and adaptation. On us particularly, the pastors of the Church, rests the responsibility for reshaping with boldness and wisdom, but in complete fidelity to the content of evangelization, the means that are most suitable and effective for communicating the Gospel message to the men and women of our times. (par 40)

However, the principal agent of evangelization is the Holy Spirit, as Pope Paul VI so eloquently spoke of in Evangelii Nuntiandi.

Evangelization will never be possible without the action of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit descends on Jesus of Nazareth at the moment of His baptism when the voice of the Father- "This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased"[107]- manifests in an external way the election of Jesus and His mission. Jesus is "led by the Spirit" to experience in the desert the decisive combat and the supreme test before beginning this mission.[108] It is "in the power of the Spirit"[109] that He returns to Galilee and begins His preaching at Nazareth, applying to Himself the passage of Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me." And He proclaims: "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled."[110] To the disciples whom He was about to send forth He says, breathing on them, "Receive the Holy Spirit."[111]

In fact, it is only after the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost that the apostles depart to all the ends of the earth in order to begin the great work of the Church's evangelization. Peter explains this event as the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel: "I will pour out my spirit."[112] Peter is filled with the Holy Spirit so that he can speak to the people about Jesus, the Son of God.[113] Paul too is filled with the Holy Spirit[114] before dedicating himself to his apostolic ministry, as is Stephen when he is chosen for the ministry of service and later on for the witness of blood.[115] The Spirit, who causes Peter, Paul and the Twelve to speak, and who inspires the words that they are to utter, also comes down "on those who heard the word."[116]

It is in the "consolation of the Holy Spirit" that the Church increases.[117] The Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church. It is He who explains to the faithful the deep meaning of the teaching of Jesus and of His mystery. It is the Holy Spirit who, today just as at the beginning of the Church, acts in every evangelizer who allows himself to be possessed and led by Him. The Holy Spirit places on his lips the words which he could not find by himself, and at the same time the Holy Spirit predisposes the soul of the hearer to be open and receptive to the Good News and to the kingdom being proclaimed.

Techniques of evangelization are good, but even the most advanced ones could not replace the gentle action of the Spirit. The most perfect preparation of the evangelizer has no effect without the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit the most convincing dialectic has no power over the heart of man. Without Him the most highly developed schemas resting on a sociological or psychological basis are quickly seen to be quite valueless.

We live in the Church at a privileged moment of the Spirit. Everywhere people are trying to know Him better, as the Scripture reveals Him. They are happy to place themselves under His inspiration. They are gathering about Him; they want to let themselves be led by Him. Now if the Spirit of God has a preeminent place in the whole life of the Church, it is in her evangelizing mission that He is most active. It is not by chance that the great inauguration of evangelization took place on the morning of Pentecost, under the inspiration of the Spirit.

It must be said that the Holy Spirit is the principal agent of evangelization: it is He who impels each individual to proclaim the Gospel, and it is He who in the depths of consciences causes the word of salvation to be accepted and understood.[118] But it can equally be said that He is the goal of evangelization: He alone stirs up the new creation, the new humanity of which evangelization is to be the result, with that unity in variety which evangelization wishes to achieve within the Christian community. Through the Holy Spirit the Gospel penetrates to the heart of the world, for it is He who causes people to discern the signs of the times- signs willed by God- which evangelization reveals and puts to use within history. (par 75)

Evangelisation is, in the end, a work of grace. Pope John Paul echoes the same theme in Redemptoris Missio:

Our own time, with humanity on the move and in continual search, demands a resurgence of the Church's missionary activity. The horizons and possibilities for mission are growing ever wider, and we Christians are called to an apostolic courage based upon trust in the Spirit. He is the principal agent of mission! The history of humanity has known many major turning points which have encouraged missionary outreach, and the Church, guided by the Spirit, has always responded to them with generosity and farsightedness. Results have not been lacking. (par 30)

Let me end with the words of Pope Paul VI:

It would be useful if every Christian and every evangelizer were to pray about the following thought: men can gain salvation also in other ways, by God's mercy, even though we do not preach the Gospel to them; but as for us, can we gain salvation if through negligence or fear or shame- what St. Paul called "blushing for the Gospel"[134] - or as a result of false ideas we fail to preach it? For that would be to betray the call of God, who wishes the seed to bear fruit through the voice of the ministers of the Gospel; and it will depend on us whether this grows into trees and produces its full fruit.

Let us therefore preserve our fervor of spirit. Let us preserve the delightful and comforting joy of evangelizing, even when it is in tears that we must sow. May it mean for us- as it did for John the Baptist, for Peter and Paul, for the other apostles and for a multitude of splendid evangelizers all through the Church's history- an interior enthusiasm that nobody and nothing can quench. May it be the great joy of our consecrated lives. And may the world of our time, which is searching, sometimes with anguish, sometimes with hope, be enabled to receive the Good News not from evangelizers who are dejected, discouraged, impatient or anxious, but from ministers of the Gospel whose lives glow with fervor, who have first received the joy of Christ, and who are willing to risk their lives so that the kingdom may be proclaimed and the Church established in the midst of the world. (par 80)

So….go out to all the world and proclaim the Good News, but not without the Holy Spirit!