On April 25
our Chaplain here at the Blessed John Paul II Shrine, Fr. Gregory Gresko, gave
a retreat reflection for a gathering of Church leaders involved in the pro-life
and pro-family movements. His words capture the heart of what it means to be a
Christian in the age of the New Evangelization,
so we thought we would share parts of his reflection here on OpenWide the Doors.
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To be the most effective agents of the New
Evangelization, Christians are called to
become what they are! As we have
heard many times already and rightly from our American bishops, the New
Evangelization is not a project, but instead a living of the Christian life
genuinely, in authenticity, to be bearers of Jesus Christ in our own particular
witness, day in and day out. We need not
become stressed or lose our peace over having to accomplish something big, even
of surmounting what seems to be insurmountable darkness. Rather, we are to submit ourselves humbly,
daily before the Lord in prayer and in living the sacramental life of the
Church in its fullness, bearing Christ Jesus in our daily witness of the Faith
wherever we are called to testify to the Faith at any given moment.
The New Evangelization is the genuine
presentation of Christ’s Light incarnated in you and me -- and in our fellow
Christians -- placed as His Light within a world darkened by sin and evil. The light doesn’t worry about offending the
darkness … It simply, humbly enters the room and greets the darkness with its
brightness, its peace, its joy, its faith, its hope, and its love. Christians are to live their earthly
pilgrimage through the world of darkness toward heaven, to which they belong
already as citizens through a baptismal consecration authentically lived,
espousing the same humble attitude of being loving, peaceful, joy-filled
Christians who shine the Light of Christ wherever they go. And in doing so, God Himself demonstrates
through our Christian testimony that Jesus Christ already has conquered sin and
death through the power of His Cross and Resurrection. We are to bring the Light of Christ to the
world peacefully, without any compromise of His Truth, confident that it is the
full, integrated Truth that is the Way to real freedom and not libertinism … to
real selfless, self-offering, self-giving love instead of a disordered,
self-centered lust or egoism, which tries to impose itself in totalitarian
fashion upon the world as being some kind of “new truth” but which, in reality,
is an ancient lie from the father of lies.
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The challenges we face in testifying to the
Light of Christ’s Resurrection in a world so eager at times to try to snuff it
out are very real. The fundamental
truths articulated by the Church in this day and age are not always popular,
modern, or postmodern in scope. Secular
forces accuse the Church regularly of being out of touch and in need of
“getting with the times”. Such
accusations have been lodged for over 2,000 years now! Our answer must be one of humility, to allow
our authentic personal witness to the truth of the Gospel to invite others into
dialogue, loving them with a genuine charity that recognizes the image and
likeness of God in other human beings as Blessed John Paul II so beautifully
testified in his powerful, saintly example.
As Christians, we co-labor with God in love
-- first treating each other through real action as Christian family – rooted
in prayer and the sacramental life of the Body of Christ, the Church. Then, united in love we co-labor with one
another in Christ to fish for men, to endeavor as humble workers in the
vineyard of the Lord seeking to reap souls for His Kingdom, recognizing others
as our brothers and sisters in a real human family. Such testimony is what Blessed John Paul II
gave us as living testimony in our own age …
He really did see other people
as his brothers and sisters through the eyes of an intimate, selfless
love. And although he may not have met
as many people individually during his lifetime, nonetheless one out of every
two people on the entire globe watched his funeral live in 2005! Somehow he was able to touch people deeply by
loving them authentically, and they knew his love to be real … Through Christ,
such miracles are possible through each one of us, if we allow God to work with
us – as we heard in today’s concluding sentence from the Gospel according to
Saint Mark: The Lord worked with them, and confirmed the word through accompanying
signs (Mk 16.20). We continue striving forward in the work of
the Lord in this world, knowing that God Himself is laboring with us and will
confirm His Word through accompanying signs, even now! And if we look closely enough each day, we
will find plenty of such signs given as encouragement from Heaven to persevere
in Him.
In our daily work within the vineyard of our
Lord, may we remember towards where we are headed in this earthly pilgrimage,
preparing to encounter Christ face to face, and invite others through our
genuine witness of faith to do the same, loving the world as Jesus does and
remaining ever open to it in joyful hope.
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Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, in the concluding
weeks of his pontificate, reminded all of us in the Church that it is not any
one pope who guides the Barque of Peter, but rather Jesus Christ Himself
through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Although we may encounter heavy seas and high waves in our particular
areas of ministry, we simply need to hold faithfully to our hope-filled trust
in Jesus Christ, that the Gospel will never perish in us when we remain in Him,
when we stay in the boat with Him, so to speak, and allow Him to navigate us
through sometimes difficult channels and passages. We rest firmly on the Rock of Christ, with
and upon Peter as the Rock, promised by God never to be prevailed over as
Christ Himself protects His Bride, the Church. The Church has gone through many stormy
waters before, and God has guided her through just fine without her
capsizing. He continues to do so and
will be faithful to us to the end … After all, God only knows how to love, how
to be faithful, how to be true. And we
can trust Him to love us, to be ever faithful to us, to be true to us and to
reward His people for their faith in Him in difficult times. We pray in vigilance here in front of our
Eucharistic Lord with such an unwavering, steadfast faith and hope in our
fervent love for God and in our striving to serve Him always in love.
In his treatise Against Heresies, Saint Irenaeus
proclaims:
The Church, spread throughout the whole world, received [the Credal preaching and faith of the Apostles] and now preserves it carefully, dwelling as it were in one house. Having one soul and one heart, the Church holds this faith, preaches and teaches it consistently as though by a single voice. For though there are different languages, there is but one tradition … Just as God’s creature, the sun, is one and the same the world over, so also does the Church’s preaching shine everywhere to enlighten all men who want to come to a knowledge of the truth.
The Eucharistic Lord who shares His heavenly
presence with us here in this time of our adoration calls us to be one in
Christian faith, in Christian hope, and in Christian charity – that is, in a
faith, hope, and charity that beam forth from Christ Jesus Himself in a
perfect, complete way. As we remain ever-focused
on our Lord in this His Way, He unites us into one soul and one heart and
strengthens us with His Wisdom to preach the Gospel “as though by a single
voice” through our diverse yet united testimony to the truth of our Faith, in
the daily, genuine witness of our lives.
The New Evangelization is not something for us to do, per se, but rather to be who we are in spirit and in truth. Living as genuine Christians both in our
public and in our private lives -- in purity of heart, refusing any and every
temptation to live in duplicity of heart – we work with Christ to shine His
light “everywhere to enlighten all men who want to come to a knowledge of the
truth” even today. Amen.
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