ABP Fisichella: Jesus at the heart of New Evangelisation
(Vatican Radio) Proclaim 2012 has drawn to an end in Sydney Australia with a call
from Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for New Evangelisation,
to "put Jesus at the heart" of all efforts in New Evangelisation. The three day conference
was organised by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.
In his closing
remarks, Archbishop Fisichella said: “From both Scripture and Tradition, we can see
that the path of the new evangelization has been marked out: we are called to renew
the proclamation of Jesus Christ, of the mystery of his death and resurrection to
stimulate people once more to have faith in him by means of conversion of life.” He
continued, “If the proclamation of the new evangelization does not find its power
in the element of mystery which surrounds life and which relates us to the infinite
mystery of the God of Jesus Christ, it will not be capable of the effectiveness required
to elicit the response of faith.”
Archbishop Fisichella said the Second Vatican
Council offered “a new anthropology for our age, within the primacy of the mystery,
new horizons are opened up for the pastoral action of the Church.” He said, “An initial
path is that of the constant search for the face of God and, it is precisely this
very quest that the Year of Faith seeks to inspire in the hearts and minds of all.”
The
Year of Faith, he said, “is a path, an opportunity, that the Christian community offers
to the many people who possess a longing for God and a profound desire to meet him
again in their lives. It is essential, therefore, that believers recognize the responsibility
to provide an authentic companionship of faith, to become a neighbor to those who
seek the reasons for and explanations of our Catholic beliefs. These opportunities,
provided by the Year of Faith to form authentic friendships in faith, bring to the
fore the very question of community. The new evangelization tends to make our sense
of personal identity grow in relation to our sense of belonging to the community.”
Read
the full text of Archbishop Rino Fisichella remarks at the close of Australia’s first
National Conference on the New Evangelisation:
JESUS AND THE
YEAR OF FAITH IMPELLING THE NEW EVANGELIZATION Presented by Archbishop
Rino Fisichella Sydney, August 11, 2012
In the very first line of his Motu
Proprio, Ubicumque et Semper, which officially established the Pontifical Council
for Promoting the New Evangelization, Pope Benedict XVI draws the attention of all
to the person of Jesus Christ. “It is the duty of the Church to proclaim always and
everywhere the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He, the first and supreme evangelizer, commanded
the Apostles on the day of his Ascension to the Father: ‘Go therefore and make disciples
of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you’” (Mt 28:19).
Such a beginning emphasizes both the necessity of placing Jesus Christ at the center
of the new evangelization and the importance of recognizing that the faith received
from the Apostles and that which is to be preached is namely the person of Jesus Christ.
The sacred author of the Letter to the Hebrews uses a concise and definitive expression,
for the intended purpose of leaving no room for doubt in the minds of his readers,
that Jesus Christ is the entire, unchanging, and definitive Revelation of God: “Jesus
Christ is the same yesterday, today and always” (Heb 13:8). Based upon these powerful
words, we must continually recognize that there is no room for any hesitation, apathy,
and much less for any form of neutrality in our lives of faith. In those three adverbs
is to be found the solid basis of the revelation of Jesus: he is the ‘corner stone’
(Mt 21:42), ‘the rock’ (Mt 7:24–25), the foundation upon which we should build our
personal lives. He was such ‘yesterday’, at the time, that is, when people came to
have faith in him; he is so ‘today’ when his word is proclaimed and the mystery of
his death and resurrection is celebrated; and he will be so ‘always’ until the end
of time. In a word, Christ is always the same. In addition, the sacred author adds
something quite important in the following verse: ‘Do not let yourselves be led astray
by all sorts of strange doctrines; it is better to rely on grace for inner strength’
(v.9). It is as if the sacred author had been able to see beyond his own time—no less
difficult—and had fixed his gaze upon the future of believers, when different philosophies
and ideologies would continue to attack the stability and the integrity of the faith.
There is nothing new in this perspective.
A glance at the letters of the New
Testament only confirms this preoccupation. Several times Paul invites his people
not to let themselves be cast about by the wind of different doctrines (Eph 4:4),
not to subject themselves to regulations and to merely ‘human doctrines’ (Col 2:22),
even putting us on the guard against ‘doctrines that come from the devils’ (1 Tim
4: 1) and those who preach ‘another gospel’, different from his own (Gal 1: 7–9).
No less does Peter speak of ‘false prophets’ (2 Pet 2:1), while John adds to these
‘many deceivers’ (2 Jn 7). Perhaps the latter is the form which today we should be
particularly vigilant of, the seduction of preachers who, lacking the necessary intellectual
preparation, play insistently upon the chords of sentiment, putting forward utopias
which, while promising every form of happiness, leave people in even greater loneliness.
The echoes of the sirens is not the mythology of former times; unfortunately, it is
the alluring flattery of our own days. Putting wax into our ears might make things
easier and might leave everything in a padded world of illusion. To have the strength
of Ulysses and keep ourselves attached to the main mast is not for most people; and
yet it is the winning strategy to avoid falling between Scylla and Charybdis.
In
order to avoid falling prey to the allure of the many ‘human doctrines’ purported
to be better than the doctrines of faith, it is imperative that we be cognizant of
the reality that we find ourselves in at the end of an age that, for good or ill,
has marked our history for almost six centuries and that we must take seriously the
new one which lies on the horizon. We do not know yet with certainty what this new
period involves. What can be established with certainty at present are only a few
pointers which orientate us towards a new epoch. As yet, it is difficult to be able
to say who will be the protagonists of this period. What I consider important, in
a period of transition like this one, is that the Church recognize her responsibility
to take upon herself the task of transmitting a living patrimony of culture and of
values which cannot be allowed to fall into oblivion. If that were to happen, the
consequences would be damaging for the very civilization which people wish to build
up. It would be born blind and lame. It would be incapable of looking to the future
and would be equally incapable of constructing it. Only a living tradition, able to
sustain and to consolidate the patrimony constructed across the centuries, is able
to guarantee a future which is genuine. This would not be the first time that the
Church has undertaken this task. Our history provides evidence of the role which she
has been able to fulfill at times of cultural crisis and of momentous change.
From
both Scripture and Tradition, we can see that the path of the new evangelization has
been marked out: we are called to renew the proclamation of Jesus Christ, of the mystery
of his death and resurrection to stimulate people once more to have faith in him by
means of conversion of life. If our eyes were still capable of seeing into the depths
of the events which mark the lives of our contemporaries, it would be easy to show
how much this message still holds a place of special importance. Therefore, we need
to direct our reflection towards the meaning of life and death, and of life beyond
death; to face such questions, those affecting people’s existence and determining
their personal identity, Jesus Christ cannot be an outsider. If the proclamation of
the new evangelization does not find its power in the element of mystery which surrounds
life and which relates us to the infinite mystery of the God of Jesus Christ, it will
not be capable of the effectiveness required to elicit the response of faith. From
this point of view, Gaudium etspes indicates a path which deserves
to be pursued: “In fact, only in the mystery of the Word incarnate can the mystery
of man find true light … Christ, who is the new Adam, revealing the mystery of the
Father and of his love, reveals man fully to himself and manifests to him his most
exalted vocation… Through the Incarnation, the Son of God united himself in a certain
sense to every human being. He worked with human hands, thought with human intelligence,
acted with a human will and loved with a human heart. Being born of the Virgin Mary,
he made himself truly one of us, like us in all things but sin. The innocent lamb,
freely shedding his blood, he earned for us eternal life; in him God has reconciled
us to himself and with one another and he has torn us away from slavery to the devil
and to sin, such that each one of us can say, along with the apostle: the Son of God
‘has loved me and sacrificed himself for me’ (Gal 2:20). By suffering for us, he has
not only given us an example that we might follow in his steps, but he has also opened
up for us the way we are to go; if we follow it, life and death will be sanctified
and will be given new meaning” (GS, no. 22). In the light of this text
which, in some respects delineates a new anthropology for our age, within the primacy
of the mystery, new horizons are opened up for the pastoral action of the Church.
An initial path is that of the constant search for the face of God and, it is precisely
this very quest that the Year of Faith seeks to inspire in the hearts and minds of
all.
Yet, before proceeding to a further discussion on the Year of Faith, it
is necessary to examine, from a unique perspective, the present crisis in which society
finds itself; that with respect to its connection to the question of God. The new
evangelization cannot think that this question lies beyond its field. In contrast
to the past, today we do not encounter great systems of atheism, if they were ever
great; hence, the question of God needs to be addressed in a different way. Today
God is not denied, but is unknown. In some respects, it could be said that, paradoxically,
interest in God and in religion has grown. Nevertheless, what I note is the strong
emotive connotation and declining religion in the plural; there is no interest in
a religion and much less for the theme of the ‘true religion’; what seems to count
are, rather, religious experiences. People are looking for different modalities
of religion, selected by everyone taking up that which they find pleasing in the sense
of ensuring for them that religious experience which they find more satisfying on
the basis of their interests or needs at the moment. To this must be added that, especially
for the younger generations, their horizon of understanding is characterized by a
mentality strongly influenced by scientific research and by technology. These achievements,
unfortunately, already hold the upper hand, even with respect to the basic elements
of grammar and to culture in general. Thus, the new evangelization requires the capacity
to know how to give an explanation of our own faith, showing Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, the sole savior of humanity. To the extent that we are capable of this, we
will be able to offer our contemporaries the response they are awaiting. The new evangelization
begins once more from this point, from the conviction that grace acts upon us and
transforms us to the point of bringing about a conversion of heart, and of the credibility
of our witness. Looking to the future with the certainty of hope is what enables us
to remain rooted neither in a sort of romanticism which only looks to the past nor
to give way to a utopia because we are bemused by hypotheses which cannot find any
confirmation. Faith calls for commitment today while we live; for this reason not
to accept it would be a matter of ignorance or fear. However, for us Christians such
a reaction is not permitted. Hiding away in our churches might bring us some consolation,
but it would render Pentecost vain. It is time to throw open wide the doors and to
return to announcing the resurrection of Christ, whose witnesses we are. As the holy
bishop Ignatius wrote, “It is not enough to be called Christians; we must be Christians
in fact.” If someone today wants to recognize Christians, he must be able to do so
not on the basis of their intentions, but on the basis of their commitment in the
faith.
It is precisely this commitment in the faith, about which St. Ignatius
of Antioch spoke so eloquently at the end of the first century, that the Year of Faith
seeks to inspire in the hearts of those who do not know God and seeks to increase
in the hearts of those who already believe. The Holy Father, in his Apostolic Letter
Porta Fidei announcing the Year of Faith, beautifully expresses the Year’s aim,
its grounding in Christ, and its relationship to the new evangelization. The Year
of Faith, which commemorates both the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second
Vatican Council and the twentieth anniversary of the promulgation of the Catechism
of the Catholic Church, he notes: “Is a summons to an authentic and renewed conversion
to the Lord, the one Savior of the world. In the mystery of his death and resurrection,
God has revealed in its fullness the Love that saves and calls us to conversion of
life through the forgiveness of sins (cf. Acts 5:31). For Saint Paul, this
Love ushers us into a new life…. Through faith, this new life shapes the whole of
human existence according to the radical new reality of the resurrection…. ‘Faith
working through love’ (Gal 5:6) becomes a new criterion of understanding and
action that changes the whole of man’s life. [It] is the love of Christ that fills
our hearts and impels us to evangelize. Today as in the past, he sends us through
the highways of the world to proclaim his Gospel to all the peoples of the earth.
Through his love, Jesus Christ attracts to himself the people of every generation:
in every age he convokes the Church, entrusting her with the proclamation of the Gospel
by a mandate that is ever new. Today too, there is a need for stronger ecclesial commitment
to new evangelization in order to rediscover the joy of believing and the enthusiasm
for communicating the faith. In rediscovering his love day by day, the missionary
commitment of believers attains force and vigour that can never fade away (Porta
Fidei, no. 6).”
Thus, the Year of Faith is a path, an opportunity, that
the Christian community offers to the many people who possess a longing for God and
a profound desire to meet him again in their lives. It is essential, therefore, that
believers recognize the responsibility to provide an authentic companionship of faith,
to become a neighbor to those who seek the reasons for and explanations of our Catholic
beliefs. These opportunities, provided by the Year of Faith to form authentic friendships
in faith, bring to the fore the very question of community. The new evangelization
tends to make our sense of personal identity grow in relation to our sense of belonging
to the community. A sociological tendency of our time presses us to distinguish between
‘identity’ and; ‘belonging’, as if it were a question of two contradictory realities.
There is nothing more dangerous, in my opinion, than this contra-position. A belonging
which was without identity could not be defined as belonging; it would remain always
bound to a form of living together in society which modified its own coordinates according
to the changing of the seasons, without any possibility of impressing upon them a
real sense of common feeling and of active participation. From the reciprocal relationship
which exists between identity and belonging there arises the possibility of verifying
how the new evangelization can be effective and fruitful. Without a strong Catholic
identity, by means of which our awareness of our own responsibilities in the world
may grow, it will not be possible to understand even the requirement of belonging
to the Christian community; on the other hand, without a deep sense of belonging to
the Church, it will not be possible to have an identity which is aware of the mission
it discharges. Identity and belonging determine our understanding of the permanent
formation which applies to Christians in view of an ever more adequate knowledge of
the faith, one which corresponds to each one’s own state of life. A knowledge of the
contents of the faith which remains linked to the adolescent stage could never allow
someone to grow in their identity as a believer, no matter what roles they might occupy
in civil society. In the same way, the lack of these contents often impedes people’s
own social, political and cultural action in harmony with their belonging to the Church.
A fissure between identity and belonging is likely one of the causes which have contributed
to the current crisis.
The Year of Faith will attempt to fuse this very rupture
between identity and belonging, thus, increasing the faith of believers, who in the
face of the daily pressures and challenges of life do not cease to entrust courageously
and with conviction their lives to the Lord Jesus. In addition, the events for the
Year of Faith, on both the universal and local levels, are aimed at addressing the
broader cultural crises which often work contrary to the faith and, thus, seek to
draw as many of our contemporaries as possible out of their spiritual poverty. The
events of a universal character, which will be celebrated in Rome in the presence
of the Holy Father, are numerous. To note only a few; there will be the Canonization
of certain martyrs and confessors of faith, a celebration for youth, a celebration
for those having been confirmed during the Year of Faith, a celebration of Evangelium
Vitae promoting and defending the dignity of the human person from the moment
of conception until natural death, a celebration for vocations, a celebration for
catechists, a celebration of both old and new movements within the Church and, of
course, a celebration of Mary, the “Star of the new evangelization”. In order to communicate
most effectively the events taking place in the local churches, whether through the
particular Episcopal conference, the local diocese, the parish, organization, or movement,
we have set up a website for the Year of Faith which offers people the opportunity
to post what it is that they have organized for the Year of Faith. On this website,
you will also see and be able to acquire the beautiful logo that has been designed
to represent the Year of Faith.
Central to the Year of Faith will be a focus
upon the Profession of Faith. This will serve to return the Profession of Faith to
its prominent place as the daily prayer of every Christian. To facilitate this, we
have produced an edition of the Nicene Creed, which is the most familiar symbol to
Christians due to its frequent usage within the context of Sunday Mass. The prayer
is printed on the back of the well-known image of Christ the Pantocrator from the
Cathedral-Basilica of Cefalù in Sicily. This image is intended to be the icon of the
Year of Faith. It is my profound desire that the Creed, once again, becomes
the daily prayer for Christians, as a synthesis of faith known and lived.
Having
reflected upon Christ at the center of the new evangelization, impelling us to proclaim
the Good News with ever great ardor, and having discussed the importance of the Year
of Faith for the amplification of the new evangelization, I will now make some concluding
remarks. In our time too, as had been done in times past, we need to face honestly
and courageously the challenges which confront us. As in the past, when such difficulties
gave rise to an intense activity of evangelization, so also today the Church needs
to become aware of the great commitment which the new evangelization demands. These
and other questions bring to the forefront the responsibility and the need to formulate
a new apology of faith. Apologetics is not extraneous to faith; on the contrary, it
belongs with full right to the act by which we enter into the logic of faith. In the
first place, what is required is that the act of faith be a truly free act, the fruit
of that abandoning of ourselves completely to God by which each one entrusts themselves
to him with their intellect and with their will. Giving an explanation of one’s faith
does not seem to have enthralled many believers, at least in recent decades. Perhaps
also for this reason, the conviction of faith has declined because the choice was
not orientated in that direction. Having recourse to the traditions of old or to all
sorts of experiences, but deprived of the power of reason, these have not had the
capacity to lead and to sustain, especially when faced with a dominant culture, relying
more and more upon the certainties of science. In some respects the situation has
become more bogged down, partly because some people have considered that a weary repetition
of past forms could constitute a insurmountable bastion of defense, without recognizing
that those forms were becoming, instead, shifting sands. To think that the new evangelization
can be brought about through a mere renewal of past forms is an illusion not to be
cultivated. To be sure, neither is the solution the propensity for inventing novelty
just to satisfy contemporaries always on the move and ready for any new experience,
without even having the trace of a critical approach. The road to be followed is by
no means easy. It requires that we remain faithful to the fundamentals and, precisely
for this reason, are capable of constructing something coherent with those foundations,
which at the same time are able to be received and understood by people who are different
from those of the past. The trials will be numerous. Yet, the challenges which are
placed on our path need to be confronted, analyzed and studied in such a way that
projects may be created which may correspond to real progress for all. One specific
task, however, which is asked of us is to avoid travelling alone. In any event, we
cannot do this; we are incapable of it; by nature we are Catholics, that is
open to all and wishing to be alongside each person to offer them the company of the
faith. In order for this to happen, it is necessary to emerge from the form of neutrality
into which many countries have encapsulated themselves in order not to take up a position
in favor of their own history.
Who is responsible for devising plans, in
particular for a new anthropology, capable of giving form to a new model of society?
Certainly not one group on its own. This, then, is the time for a synergy able to
provide a synthesis of the patrimony of the past, to pose questions to it in the light
of the achievements which have characterized our period of history, in such a way
as to transmit them to the generations which will come after us. The words of St Augustine
may come to our support, when he writes:
Who are those who work to build up
the Church? All those who in the Church preach the word of God, the ministers of God’s
sacraments. We are all in the race, we are all making the effort, now we are all involved
in the building. And, prior to us, others have been involved in the race, others have
struggled, others have built. But, ‘if the Lord does not build the house, those who
build labour in vain’… Thus, we speak from the outside; Christ builds from within.
We may be able to see what attention you give, but what you are thinking only he who
sees your thoughts knows. It is he who builds, who warns, who instills fear, who opens
up the mind, who directs your mind to the faith And yet, we too labor as his workers”
(Augustine, Commentary on the Psalms, Ps. 126:2).
Yet, we must never
forget that the new evangelization needs to entrust itself to God, who shows us the
paths to follow, and to the support of the Holy Spirit, who precedes, guides and sustains
the new evangelizers.
A few days before being elected as Pope, Benedict XVI
had delivered a lecture at Subiaco on the condition of Europe. In his lucid analysis
of the present time, he expressed himself, amongst other things, in these far-sighted
words, which constitute a program for the new evangelizers: “What we need at this
time of history are people, who, through a faith which is enlightened and lived out
in practice, make God credible in this world … We need people who keep their gaze
fixed upon God, learning from there what true humanity is. We need people whose intellect
is enlightened by the light of God and whose hearts God may open up in such a way
that their intellect may speak to the intellect of others and that their hearts may
open the hearts of others. Only through people who are touched by God can God return
to humanity.” Hence, the new evangelization starts from here: from the credibility
of our living as believers and from the conviction that grace acts and transforms
to the point of converting the heart. It is a journey which still finds Christians
committed to it after two thousand years of history.
Within this context,
it is worth recalling a story from the Middle Ages. A poet passed by some work being
conducted and saw three workers busy at their work; they were stone cutters. He turned
to the first and said: ‘What are you doing, my friend?’ This man, quite indifferently,
replied: ‘I am cutting a stone’. He went a little further, saw the second and posed
to him the same question, and this man replied, surprised: ‘I am involved in the building
of a column’. A bit further ahead, the pilgrim saw the third and to this man also
he put the same question; the response, full of enthusiasm, was: ‘I am building a
cathedral’. The old meaning is not changed by the new work we are called to construct.
There are various workers called into the vineyard of the Lord to bring about the
new evangelization; all of them will have some reason to offer to explain their commitment.
What I wish for and what I would like to hear is that, in response to the question:
‘What are you doing, my friend?’, each one would be able to reply: ‘I am building
a cathedral’. Every believer who, faithful to his baptism, commits himself or herself
with effort and with enthusiasm every day to give witness to their own faith offers
their original and unique contribution to the construction of their great cathedral
in the world of today. It is the Church of our Lord, Jesus, his body and his spouse,
the people constantly on the way without ever becoming weary, which proclaims to all
that Jesus is risen, has come back to life, and that all who believe in him will share
in his own mystery of love, the dawn of a day which is always new and which will never
fade.