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Teaching the Art of Living The NEW EVANGELISATION
In the face of a growing indifference to God, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, calls on the Church to engage in a new evangelisation which will bring people to know Jesus Christ personally
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If the art of living remains unknown, nothing else works Before speaking about the fundamental content of the new evangelisation, I would like to say a few words about its structure and correct method. The Church always evangelises and has always evangelised. She celebrates the Eucharistic mystery every day, administers the sacraments, proclaims the Word of life – the Word of God, and commits herself to the causes of justice and charity. And this evangelisation bears fruit; it brings light and joy, it shows the path of life to many people; many others live, often unknowingly from the light and warmth that radiate from this permanent evangelisation. However, we can see a progressive process of de-Christianization and a loss of the essential human values, which is worrying. A large part of today’s humanity does not find the Gospel in the permanent evangelisation of the Church: that is to say the convincing response to the question of how to live? This is why we are searching for, along with the Church’s continuing and ongoing permanent evangelisation, a new evangelisation, capable of being heard by that world that does not find access to “classic” evangelisation. Everyone needs the Gospel: the Gospel is destined for all and not only to a specific circle and this is why we are obliged to look for new ways of bringing the Gospel to all. The new evangelisation will not mean immediately attracting large masses But another temptation lies beneath this for us – the temptation of impatience, the temptation of immediately demanding great success, in attracting large numbers. But this is not God’s way. For the Kingdom of God as well as in the area of evangelisation, the parable of the grain of mustard seed as the instrument and vehicle is always valid. (cf Mk 4.31-32) The Kingdom of God always starts anew from this sign. New evangelisation will not 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 the new evangelisation promises. The “New evangelisation” means; never being satisfied with the fact that the great tree of the Universal Church grew from the grain of the mustard seed; never thinking that the fact that different birds may find a place among its branches can suffice – rather it 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 (Mk 4: 26-29).
Success is not one of the names of God An old proverb says; “Success is not one of the names of God”. The new evangelisation must surrender to the mystery of the grain of mustard seed and not be so pretentious as to believe it can immediately produce a large tree. We either live too much in the security of the already existing large tree or in the impatience of having a greater, more vital 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. Evangelising is not merely a way of speaking but a form of living The correct method derives from this structure of the new evangelisation. Of course we must use modern methods of making ourselves heard in a reasonable way – or better yet – of making the voice of the Lord accessible and comprehensible. We are not looking for listeners for ourselves – we do not want to increase the power and the spreading of our institutions, but we wish to serve the good of the people and humanity by giving room to He who is Life. This expropriation of one’s person, offering it to Christ for the salvation of men, is the fundamental condition of the true commitment for the Gospel, “I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive.” Says the Lord (Jn 5.43) The mark of the Antichrist is the fact that he speaks in his own name. The sign of the Son is His communion with the Father. The Son introduces us into the Trinitarian communion, into the circle of eternal love, whose persons are “pure relations”, the pure act of giving oneself and of welcome. The Trinitarian plan – visible in the Son, who does not speak in His name – shows the form of life of the true evangeliser – rather evangelising is not merely a way of speaking, but a form of living: living in the listening and giving voice to the Father. “He will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak” says the Lord about the Holy Spirit (Jn 16.13). This Christological and pneumatological form of evangelisation is also, at the same time, an ecclesiological form: the Lord and the Spirit build the Church, communicate through the Church. The proclamation of Christ, the proclamation of the Kingdom of God presupposes listening to His voice in the voice of the Church. “Not speak on his own authority” means: to speak in the mission of the Church. All methods are empty without the foundation of prayer Many practical consequences come from this law of expropriation. All reasonable and morally acceptable methods should be studied – to use these possibilities of communication is a duty. But words and the whole art of communication cannot reach the human person to such depths as the Gospel must reach. 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, golden words can be found, the fruit of a life of prayer and of meditation. About us, Don Didimo says, for example: “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. The passion gives power to His words We must add another step. Jesus preached by day, by night He prayed
– this is not all. His entire life was – as demonstrated
in a beautiful way by the Gospel according to Saint Luke – a
path towards the cross, ascension towards Jerusalem. Jesus did not
redeem the world with beautiful words but with His suffering and death.
His passion is the inexhaustible source of life for the world; the
passion gives power to His words. Saint Augustine says the same thing in a much more beautiful way,
interpreting John 21, where the prophesy of Peter’s martyrdom
and the mandate to tend, (that is to say the institution of his primacy)
are intimately connected. Saint Augustine comments on the text in
John 21:16 in the following way: “Tend my sheep”, this means
suffer for my sheep (Sermo Geulf 32 PLS, 2. 640). 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; Lk 16:16), but the violence of God is suffering,
it is the cross. We cannot give life to others without giving up our
own lives. The process of expropriation indicated above is the concrete
form (expressed in many different ways) of giving one’s life.
And let us think about the words of the Saviour…. “whoever
loses his life for my sake and the Gospel’s will save it…”
(Mk 8:35)
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How
does one learn the art of living? Which is the path to happiness?
To evangelise means to show this path – to teach the art of living.
At the beginning of His public life Jesus says: “I have come
to evangelise the poor” (Lk 4.18); this means: I have the answer
to your fundamental question. I will show you the path of life, the
path towards happiness – for I am the path. The deepest poverty
is the inability to have joy, the tediousness of a life considered
absurd and contradictory. This poverty is widespread today, in very
different forms in the materially rich as well as the poor countries.
The inability to have joy presupposes and produces the inability to
love, and causes jealousy, avarice – all the defects that devastate
the life of individuals and of the world. This is why we are in need
of a new evangelisation because if the art of living remains unknown,
nothing else works. But this art is not the object of a science –
this art can only be communicated by one who has life He who is the
Gospel personified.
Large
things always begin from the small seed and mass movements are always
ephemeral. In his vision of the evolutionary process, Teilhard de
Chardin mentions the “white of the orgins” (le blanc des
origines): the beginning of a new species is invisible and cannot
be found by scientific research. The sources are hidden – they
are too small. In other words large realities begin in humility. Let
us put to one side whether Teilhard is right in his evolutionary theories;
the law on invisible origins reveals a truth present in the very actions
of God in history; “The Lord did not set His affection on you
and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples,
for you were the smallest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord
loved you…,” God says to the People of Israel in the Old
Testament and thus expresses the fundamental paradox of the history
of salvation: God does not count in large numbers: exterior power
is not the sign of His presence. Most of Jesus’ parables indicate
this structure of divine intervention and thus answer the disciples’
worries, who were expecting other kinds of success and signs from
the Messiah – successes of the kind offered by Satan to the Lord:
All these – the kingdoms of the world – I will give you….
(Mt 4:9) Of course, at the end of his life Paul believed that he had
proclaimed the Gospel to the very ends of the earth, but the Christians
were small communities dispersed throughout the world, insignificant
according to secular criteria. In reality they were the leaven that
penetrates the meal from within and they carried within themselves
the future of the world (cf Mt 12.33).