And This Joy Endures

Christian joy…springs from this certainty: God is close, he is with me, he is with us, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, as a friend and faithful spouse. And this joy endures, even in trials, in suffering itself. It does not remain only on the surface; it dwells in the depths of the person who entrusts himself to God and trusts in him.

Pope Benedict XVI spoke these words during Advent a few years ago, at a time when the Church was preparing to celebrate the birth of Christ. The reality of the Incarnation brings nothing but joy to a Christian—a blinding and beautiful joy. And the love and mercy which God made Man poured out during his life here on earth and which He pours down from Heaven everyday, makes this joy everlasting.

Why is it, then, that the Mystical Body of Christ is getting smaller in different parts of the world? Take for example, the Church in Latin America. According to a report in July, Catholics made up almost 92 percent of Brazil’s population. Those numbers went down to 74 percent in 2000, and then 64.6 percent in 2010. Countries all over the Latin American continent are seeing a similar decline, and scholars predict that this trend will continue.

Numbers aren’t everything, and they certainly don’t give the Catholic community any reason to lose hope. This decline in the number of faithful Catholics is disconcerting, though. Why is this contagious Christian joy, this joy that endures, losing ground?

 Pope Benedict believes that the crisis of faith in Latin America is happening because Catholics aren’t experiencing fervor and joy in their parishes. In an address to Columbian bishops this summer, he said:

Often sincere people who leave our Church do not do so as a result of what non-Catholic groups believe, but fundamentally as a result of their own lived experience; for reasons not of doctrine but of life; not for strictly dogmatic, but for pastoral reasons; not due to theological problems, but to methodological problems of our Church.

In order to bring our brothers and sisters back, Catholic parish communities must be more welcoming, Pope Benedict said. The faith should be revitalized with better catechesis, well-prepared homilies, and promotion of Catholic doctrine in schools. Catholics must live the New Evangelization.

Blessed John Paul II actually coined the term “New Evangelization” in Latin America, when he made his 1983 address to the Catholic bishops of Latin America in Haiti. It is quite appropriate, then, that these bishops have recently launched the Observatory of the New Evangelization for Latin America. The bishops hope that what they find in their research will give them constructive ideas of how to move forward in revitalizing the parts their Church that are lacking in joy.

Let us ask God to bless their efforts, and let us ask Mary, Star of the New Evangelization, to intercede for the Church in Latin America.