April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
BISHOP'S COLUMN
The difference is you!
Evangelization that is "new" suggests that something we already did is inadequate - not enough for now, for our times. We have to do something new.
Evangelization - or "Gospel-ing" - is certainly an action word. Not a few, however, find it distasteful or even annoying, no doubt because it feels like being told what to believe, something no one - particularly an American - wants to hear.
Can it evoke images of an Elmer Gantry, a Bible-thumping, in-your-face kind of proselytizing; of beating people over the head with Scripture-laced shoulds and shouldn'ts? You bet! That's a real turn-off for some - like a formerly Baptist priest friend of mine from the Bible belt who claims he would flee Sunday morning services with a sour stomach after a dose of "pulpit rage," feeling more dispirited than uplifted; or like a family I know who struggle to drag their eight- and nine-year-olds to Sunday Mass because, say their protesting offspring, "We know that already." Same old, same old.
That brings us back to the word "new." What's "new" about the new evangelization? The difference is you! What is new about the new evangelization is not the Gospel, but how - by whom - it is told.
God is always new, as the crowds who followed Jesus all over the map knew. They were attracted by His words and actions because they wanted to hear and learn more about His Father and be fed by the life-giving stories He was telling. They witnessed firsthand the powerful changes He was making in people's lives, even the most recalcitrant sinners and repulsive outcasts; the healings, restorations and heart-warmings He left in His tracks.
The Gospel is really not a thing but a person, the Incarnate Word: Jesus Himself! He Himself is the Good News and so, also, by virtue of our discipleship, we ourselves are.
We disciples of Jesus are commissioned to be not people of the book, but people of the living Word whose lives "in-carnate" or bring into the flesh the reality of divine presence on earth, here and now.
Church life that is either depressing or boring is never Good News. Ritual repetition of words and actions that do nothing to change hearts and minds for the better are as good as those browned, drooping lilies left to wilt in neglected church spaces, even at the foot of the altar. Dead flowers do not give glory to God, let alone cheer a single human heart!
Now, to bring the message home: Imagine you have staked out your place at the end of a pew next Sunday. The next person to attempt entry has been away from the Church for years. You cannot know this, for there is nothing to tip you off, except that the face is not familiar.
You can't know right away why the person drifted. Perhaps it was something someone did or didn't say. Will the newly-returned person have to crawl over you? We have all witnessed this. Am I good news or bad news for this person?
It could be that someone just missed Mass one week, then another and, by inertia, just settled into a pattern of absence. No one ever missed them. No one called. No one knew their name.
Could it have been different if this person had met you at the end of the pew? Could this time be different? This time, the returning brother or sister might be greeted with a welcoming smile, offered a hymnal open to the right page, asked for a name or even a nickname, thanked for their presence - or simply noticed with an attitude of gratitude for just being alive and present.
The song "Go Make a Difference," which drives some of us crazy in the way it is executed, really has a valid point to make. You may be the only Christ some person may ever know!
The new way of "doing the Gospel" - the new evangelization - is really all about accepting and living our discipleship as a personal invitation, a commission from Jesus Himself, to be His presence in the world - not only in Church-world, of course, but certainly indispensable there.
If someone has taken the time and the energy to get themselves out of bed on Sunday morning and to risk once more an encounter that may have turned them away the last time, it is worth being the difference that might change a life - the difference that is you![[In-content Ad]]
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