The Church Discerns Together

The New Evangelization is exactly what it says it is—a new form of evangelization. 

It answers the call that Jesus gave his disciples before He ascended into heaven: “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 28:19-20).

But it doesn’t necessarily involve the ongoing missio ad gentes of the Church, or preaching the Good News to people who are not familiar with the Gospel. The New Evangelization is instead addressed to those people who know the Church, but have fallen away.

In recent decades more people like this have drifted from the Faith. So this mission of the New Evangelization is urgent for the salvation of these lost souls, and really, for the life of the Church on Earth. Therefore, it is our duty to bring this New Evangelization to fruition.

Blessed John Paul II made the New Evangelization a major focus of his pontificate. And Pope Benedict XVI has taken things a step further, by calling the XIII Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops from October 7-28 to discuss: The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith. 

 According to the Lineamenta document prepared for the Synod, the aim is “to examine the present situation in the particular Churches and to trace…the new methods and means for transmitting the Good News to people in our world today with a renewed enthusiasm…”

So our Bishops will come together next month to discern what’s next for the Church in this rapidly changing world. Through prayer, through listening, and through sharing their experiences, it is hoped that the “Church will rediscover her vocation as Ecclesia mater, who begets children for the Lord by transmitting the faith to them and teaching them the love which generates and nourishes her children.”

When we open our hearts to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, it is amazing to see how He puts us in the right place, at the right time, with the right people. And He always gives us the right words to say. At the coming Synod, the Church will open her whole heart so that the Holy Spirit can move her as a whole into the right place, at the right time, with the right people and methods. How beautiful is this universal, Catholic understanding of discernment!?

The changing world requires an entirely new way of proclaiming and transmitting the Faith. The Lineamenta mentioned before asks the Bishops to address a list of questions about their dioceses, “aimed at generating discussion at every level of the Church.” The Bishops have sent in responses, and these are incorporated into an Instrumentum Laboris, or a working document for the Synod. We will go through that document here on Open Wide the Doors, so check back in the coming weeks for more on that and more on the content of the Lineamenta itself.

 Mary, Star of the New Evangelization, Pray for Us!