PROLOGUE
1. On the basis of our two sessions thus far, and, as a result of some conversations with parishioners in Newton Centre and here in Wellesley Hills, I have the impression that many of us are really not at ease with the word “evangelization” and perhaps with the reality the word expresses. I suggest for a moment that we turn our clocks backward twenty-three years and listen to the opening words of an address given by theologian Avery Dulles, S.J. The title of his talk – John Paul II and the New Evangelization. Dulles writes – and remember the date is 1991 – “The majority of Catholics are not strongly inclined toward evangelization. The very term for them has a Protestant ring. The Catholic Church is highly dogmatic and sacramental and hierarchical in character. Its activities are primarily directed toward the instruction and pastoral care of its own members, whose needs and demands tax the institution to its limits. Absorbed in the inner problems of the Church, and occasionally in the issues of peace and justice, contemporary Catholics feel little responsibility for spreading the faith.”
Building on catechetical development at the time, the Second Vatican Council made use of the terminology “evangelization”: Lumen Gentium tells us – “Christ has sent the Church to preach the Gospel to every creature; because the Church is missionary by its very nature; it is the duty of every Christian to evangelize.” Pope Paul VI began to use the term frequently. (The name he chose – Paul – tells us of his interest to follow the example of St. Paul as missionary, as evangelizer. Pope Paul changed the name of The Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith to The Congregation for the Evangelization of all People.) Paul VI was the first pope to make apostolic journeys to all the other continents of the world, and he wrote his wonderful encyclical letter on the subject of evangelization. He said – “Evangelization is in fact the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. The Church exists 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.” Let us look at a few words:
2. Good etymology promotes good theology! So let us look at a few words:
a) angel – the Greek word for messenger or the message itself.
b) evangel – two Greek words for a messenger of good news or a message of good news.
c) evangelist – the name for the four writers of the gospels, that is, the good news and joyful tidings of our God of mercy, redeeming us, his creatures, and making us his children through his divine Son and the Holy Spirit.
d) to evangelize – to tell the good news, to tell people about Jesus the Christ.
e) Turning from Greek to Anglo-Saxon, we have the ancient word “godspell”. Godspell means literally “the story about God”.
3. The word “evangelization” is about 100 years old. It came into use through the work of the great Protestant theologian Karl Barth. The reality the word expresses is as old as the gospels themselves. The word expresses the gospel’s missionary command in Matthew 28:28 – “Go preach the good news of God’s gospel to all the world”.
4. To tell the “good news” is not unique to Christians. Roman emperors often sent good news to their people, usually about the emperor himself or his public projects or his new taxes. Only the emperor thought what he was telling the people was good news. Now that we are gearing up for the Boston Marathon, do we not remember the great battle the Athenians fought on the plains of Marathon 600 years before the coming of Jesus? The conquering general dispatched a runner who ran 26 miles, 385 yards to announce to the Athenians “I have good news and glad tidings. We have won the battle,” (at which moment he collapsed and died). We find John Paul II in 1979 at Puebla in Mexico at a conference entitled “Evangelization at Present and in the Future of Latin America”. While accepting Pope Paul’s identification of evangelization with the very mission of the Church, Puebla emphasized that through evangelization the Church intends to contribute to the construction of a new society that is more fraternal and just. John Paul II at that time was focused on two great milestones in Church history. He was preparing us to celebrate in 1992 the 500th Anniversary of the coming of Christianity to the Americas, and in the year 2000 to celebrate the coming of Christianity into the world. To distinguish a contemporary use of evangelization from the great missionary work of the 16th and 17th centuries, John Paul called his view the “new” evangelization. It’s also new in the sense that it did not concentrate on fields afar only as did the missionary work of previous centuries. So many in our own backyards today need missionary work as do those who live in fields afar and do not know the Lord Jesus.
No comments:
Post a Comment