Note: At our November, 2009 General Assembly in Rome, an entire day was dedicated to forming a simple working articulation of the Miles Jesu charism. After much thought, discussion, and prayer, a short document outlining the Miles Jesu charism was unanimously accepted by the Assembly. In coming months, we will present various points from that document.

We participate in the Church’s mission principally through the new evangelization: led by the spirit of the Gospel for the sanctification of the world from within as leaven (cf. LG 4).”

The idea “new evangelization,” and its companion “re-evangelization” were signature themes of Pope John Paul II. As he himself noted, however, the concept originated with Pope Paul VI in the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, published in 1975. First as Cardinal Ratzinger and now as Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI continues to develop these ideas in the new millennium.

“Evangelization”, a term coming to us from Greek, via Latin, concerns bringing a message of good news; it is used almost always in relation to proclaiming the Christian faith. What is “new” in “evangelization” is not of course the message itself. As the Church proclaims every year in the Easter Vigil, Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The realities of God’s love, of the incarnation and redemption, never change. But we change. As history progresses there is a continual need for reminding ourselves and each other, collectively and individually, in ever more effective ways, of these essential truths.

When addressing an international meeting of religion teachers in Rome in the year 2000, the then-Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith spoke about the method and content of “the new evangelization.” Three important elements of the message of the gospel, he noted, are conversion; the “Kingdom of God,” which includes the awareness that what we do now has effects in eternity; and the following of the person Jesus, including to the cross.

“As for the content of new evangelization,” the future pontiff said, “first of all we must keep in mind the inseparability of the Old and the New Testaments. The fundamental content of the Old Testament is summarized in the message by John the Baptist: ‘Convert!’ There is no access to Jesus without the Baptist. […] The Greek word for converting means to rethink – to question one’s own and the common way of living; to allow God to enter into the criteria of one’s life; to not merely judge according to current opinions. Thereby, to convert means not to live as everyone else lives, not do what all do, not to feel justified in dubious, ambiguous, evil actions just because others do the same; to begin to see one’s life through the eyes of God; thereby looking for the good, even if it is uncomfortable; not aiming at the judgment of the majority, of men, but on the justice of God – in other words: to look for a new style of life, a new life.” (all quotations of Pope Benedict in this article are taken from an address entitled “The New Evangelization” given December 10, 2000, in his capacity as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.)

We are created to perseveringly align our own lives ever closer to God; weak and sinful as we are, it is God’s plan that we convert continually. This is the first step in “evangelization,” and it shows how even in our own lives there is always a need for “re-evangelization.” While we are to remain mindful of our own need for continual conversion, we are called also to reach out to others with the good news which will in turn help them “re-think” their own lives. As Pope Paul VI wrote, “For the Church, evangelizing means bringing the Good News into all the strata of humanity, and through its influence transforming humanity from within and making it new. But there is no new humanity if there are not first of all new persons renewed by Baptism and by lives lived according to the Gospel. The purpose of evangelization is therefore precisely this interior change, and if it had to be expressed in one sentence the best way of stating it would be to say that the Church evangelizes when she seeks to convert, solely through the divine power of the message she proclaims, both the personal and collective consciences of people, the activities in which they engage, and the lives and concrete milieu which are theirs.” (Evangelii Nuntiandi, nr. 18)

The twin ideals of striving for personal holiness and of bringing the gospel into all “strata of humanity” are fundamental to the Miles Jesu charism. And, aware of Jesus’ own use of the symbols of leaven, salt, and the mustard seed, there is no need to feel overwhelmed at the task, or at the constant effort it demands.

In words both reassuring and challenging, Cardinal Ratzinger reminds us, “Yet another temptation lies hidden – the temptation of impatience, the temptation of immediately finding the great success, in finding large numbers. But this is not God’s way. For the Kingdom of God as well as for evangelization, the instrument and vehicle of the Kingdom of God, the parable of the grain of mustard seed is always valid. The Kingdom of God always starts anew under this sign. New evangelization cannot 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 new evangelization promises. New evangelization means never being satisfied with the fact that from the grain of mustard seed, the great tree of the Universal Church grew; never thinking that the fact that different birds may find 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. Large things always begin from the small seed and the mass movements are always ephemeral.”

Going on to speak of the gospel message itself, he states: “In the appeal to conversion the proclamation of the Living God is implicit as its fundamental condition. Theocentrism is fundamental in the message of Jesus and must also be at the heart of new evangelization. The keyword of the proclamation of Jesus is: the Kingdom of God. But the Kingdom of God is not a thing, a social or political structure, a utopia. The Kingdom of God is God. Kingdom of God means: God exists. God is alive. God is present and acts in the world, in our, in my, life. God is not a faraway “ultimate cause,” God is not the “great architect” of deism, who created the machine of the world and is no longer part of it – on the contrary: God is the most present and decisive reality in each and every act of my life, in each and every moment of history.

[…]

“Within the limits of this conference, I cannot go into the contents of the proclamation of the Savior. I would only like to briefly mention two important aspects. The first one is the sequela [following] of Christ – Christ offers Himself as the path of my life.Sequela of Christ does not mean imitating the man Jesus. This type of attempt would necessarily fail – it would be an anachronism. The sequela of Christ has a much higher goal: to be assimilated into Christ, that is to attain union with God. Such a word might sound strange to the ears of modern man. But, in truth, we all thirst for the infinite: for an infinite freedom, for happiness without limits. The entire history of the revolutions of the last two centuries can only be explained this way. Drugs can only be explained this way. Man is not satisfied with solutions beneath the level of divinization. But all the roads offered by the ‘serpent,’ that is to say by worldly knowledge, fail. The only path is communion with Christ, achieved in sacramental life. The sequela of Christ is not a question of morality, but a ‘mysteric’ theme – an ensemble of divine action and our response.

“Thus, in the theme on the sequela we find the presence of the other center of Christology, which I wished to mention: the Paschal Mystery – the Cross and the Resurrection. […] The cross belongs to the divine mystery – it is the expression of His love to the end. The sequela of Christ is participation in the cross, uniting oneself to His love, to the transformation of our life, which becomes the birth of the new man, created according to God. Whoever omits the cross, omits the essence of Christianity.”

One thing that is “new” about evangelization is the great need for it not just in far-off “mission lands” but in the developed, ostensibly Christian world. What practicing Catholic today does not have friends, co-workers, neighbors, even family members, who see no value in the gospel message? Pope Paul VI addresses this sad reality in his exhortation:

“Also significant is the preoccupation of the last Synod in regard to two spheres which are very different from one another but which at the same time are very close by reason of the challenge which they make to evangelization, each in its own way.

“The first sphere is the one which can be called the increase of unbelief in the modern world. […]

From the spiritual point of view, the modern world seems to be forever immersed in what a modern author has termed ‘the drama of atheistic humanism.’

“On the one hand, one is forced to note in the very heart of this contemporary world the phenomenon which is becoming almost its most striking characteristic: secularism. We are not speaking of secularization, which is the effort, in itself just and legitimate and in no way incompatible with faith or religion, to discover in creation, in each thing or each happening in the universe, the laws which regulate them with a certain autonomy, but with the inner conviction that the Creator has placed these laws there. Here we are thinking of a true secularism: a concept of the world according to which the latter is self-explanatory, without any need for recourse to God, who thus becomes superfluous and an encumbrance. This sort of secularism, in order to recognize the power of man, therefore ends up by doing without God and even by denying Him.

“New forms of atheism seem to flow from it: a man-centered atheism, no longer abstract and metaphysical but pragmatic, systematic and militant. Hand in hand with this atheistic secularism, we are daily faced, under the most diverse forms, with a consumer society, the pursuit of pleasure set up as the supreme value, a desire for power and domination, and discrimination of every kind: the inhuman tendencies of this ‘humanism.’

“In this same modern world, on the other hand, and this is a paradox, one cannot deny the existence of real stepping stones to Christianity, and of evangelical values at least in the form of a sense of emptiness or nostalgia. It would not be an exaggeration to say that there exists a powerful and tragic appeal to be evangelized.

“The second sphere is that of those who do not practice. Today there is a very large number of baptized people who for the most part have not formally renounced their Baptism but who are entirely indifferent to it and not living in accordance with it.

[…]

“Thus we have atheists and unbelievers on the one side and those who do not practice on the other, and both groups put up a considerable resistance to evangelization. The resistance of the former takes the form of a certain refusal and an inability to grasp the new order [brought about the Incarnation] of things, the new meaning of the world, of life and of history; such is not possible if one does not start from a divine absolute. The resistance of the second group takes the form of inertia and the slightly hostile attitude of the person who feels that he is one of the family, who claims to know it all and to have tried it all, and who no longer believes it.
“Atheistic secularism and the absence of religious practice are found among adults and among the young, among the leaders of society and among the ordinary people, at all levels of education. The Church’s evangelizing action cannot ignore these two worlds, nor must it come to a standstill when faced with them; it must constantly seek the proper means and language for presenting, or representing, to them God’s revelation and faith in Jesus Christ.

“But who then has the mission of evangelizing?

“The Second Vatican Council gave a clear reply to this question: it is upon the Church that ‘there rests, by divine mandate, the duty of going out into the whole world and preaching the gospel to every creature.’ And in another text: ‘…the whole Church is missionary, and the work of evangelization is a basic duty of the People of God.’

“The whole Church therefore is called upon to evangelize, and yet within her we have different evangelizing tasks to accomplish. This diversity of services in the unity of the same mission makes up the richness and beauty of evangelization.” (EN, selections from nos. 55-66)
Every last person on earth needs to be evangelized. Starting with ourselves, and then our nearest and dearest, and slowly spreading out “to the ends of the earth.” Our earthly realities, the pleasant ones as well as the challenging ones, will continue. But only through the gospel will they achieve real meaning. The future Pope Benedict concludes his talk with thoughts that demand much and encourage greatly in our call to evangelize:

“God Himself, in the passion of the Son, becomes the advocate for us sinners, and thus making penance possible, the hope for the repentant sinner, hope expressed in a marvelous way by the words of Saint John: ‘Before God, we will reassure our heart, whatever He reproves us for. For God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything.’ (1 Jn 3:19 ).

God’s goodness is infinite, but we should not diminish this goodness to mawkish affectation without truth. Only by believing in the just judgment of God, only by hungering and thirsting for justice, will we open up our hearts, our life, to divine mercy. This can be seen: it isn’t true that faith in eternal life makes earthly life insignificant. On the contrary: only if the measure of our life is eternity, then also this life of ours on earth is great and its value immense. God is not the competitor in our life, but the guarantor of our greatness. This way we return to the starting point: God. If we take the Christian message into well-thought- out consideration, we are not speaking about a whole lot of things. In reality, the Christian message is very simple: we speak about God, and man, and thus we say everything.”

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