“To All the World Is an Important Book That Explores How Preaching Is Essential to the New Evangelization
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“To All the World is an important book that explores how preaching is essential to the New Evangelization. The essays are practical, inviting the reader to consider how every aspect of one’s life should be a preaching of Jesus Christ to the world. The breadth of cultural and ministerial backgrounds is unique to this volume. The reader will be inspired to think anew about the ministry of preaching through the edited essays.” —Timothy P. O’Malley Director, Notre Dame Center for Liturgy “It is no accident that people are drawn to Pope Francis’ simple, appealing preaching of the good news of Jesus Christ. To All the World captures that same spirit. Chronicling the University of Notre Dame Conference, in which I happily participated, Fr. Connors presents the fine array of speakers who return to the same theme: Preach Jesus Christ to the world—with continuity and creativity—and let the grace of Christ attract the world to sit up, listen attentively, and follow in His steps.” —Most Reverend Joseph E. Kurtz, DD Archbishop of Louisville President, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops “Preaching is such a personal endeavor that it takes a wide range of writers to cover its multiple aspects. Connors has masterfully gathered a roomful of opinions and experiences to share insights about the mystery and power of preaching the gospel.” —Rev. Paul Turner Pastor, St. Anthony Catholic Church in Kansas City Missouri Contributor, To All the World To All the World Preaching and the New Evangelization edited by Michael E. Connors, CSC LITURGICAL PRESS Collegeville, Minnesota www.litpress.org Cover design by Stefan Killen Design. Photo courtesy of Lightstock. Interior illustrations courtesy of Thinkstock. Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, DC and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner. Excerpts from the English translation of The Roman Missal, Third Edition © 2010, Inter- national Commission on English in the Liturgy Corporation (ICEL); from the English translation of Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults © 1985, ICEL. All rights reserved. “Praying” from the volume Thirst by Mary Oliver, published by Beacon Press, Boston. Copyright © 2006 by Mary Oliver, used herewith by permission of the Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency, Inc. © 2016 by Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, microfilm, microfiche, mechanical recording, photocopying, translation, or by any other means, known or yet unknown, for any purpose except brief quotations in reviews, without the previ- ous written permission of Liturgical Press, Saint John’s Abbey, PO Box 7500, College- ville, Minnesota 56321-7500. Printed in the United States of America. 123456789 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Connors, Michael E., editor. Title: To all the world : preaching and the new evangelization / edited by Michael E. Connors. Description: Collegeville, Minnesota : Liturgical Press, 2016. Identifiers: LCCN 2015040838| ISBN 9780814647080 | ISBN 9780814647332 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Catholic preaching. | Evangelistic work—Catholic Church. Classification: LCC BX1795.P72 T6 2016 | DDC 251—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015040838 Contents Preface vii Michael E. Connors, CSC Chapter 1 Preaching: Conversation in Friendship 1 Timothy Radcliffe, OP Chapter 2 La Virgen de Guadalupe as Mother and Master Icon for the New Evangelization 12 Virgilio Elizondo Chapter 3 Forming Preachers for the New Evangelization 22 Honora Werner, OP Chapter 4 Preaching with Evangelical Dynamism 31 Jude Siciliano, OP Chapter 5 Preaching and the Rites of Initiation 38 Paul Turner Chapter 6 Made for Mission: Evangelizing Young Adults 52 Curtis Martin v vi To All the World Chapter 7 The Bilingual Preacher, Catholic Social Teaching, and the Hispanic Community 67 David H. Garcia Chapter 8 Preaching the Mystery of Faith and the New Evangelization 75 Donald Senior, CP Chapter 9 Evangelizing US Latinos in the Twenty-First Century: Realities and Possibilities 87 Hosffman Ospino Chapter 10 Ten Ways to Make It Stick: The Importance of Connection to Preaching and Teaching 102 Karla J. Bellinger Chapter 11 Preaching the Language of Yes 119 Susan McGurgan Chapter 12 Black Preaching and the Diaconate: Gifts and Challenges for the New Evangelization 129 Melvin R. Tardy Chapter 13 Preaching the Resurrection: Central Content of the New Evangelization 139 Jeremy Driscoll, OSB Chapter 14 Preaching, Teaching, and the New Evangelization 154 Cardinal Donald Wuerl Contributors 166 Preface The church, said Pope Paul VI, “exists in order to evangelize, that is to say, in order to preach and teach, to be the channel of the gift of grace, to reconcile sinners with God, and to perpetuate Christ’s sacrifice in the Mass, which is the memorial of His death and glorious resurrection.”1 “The task of evangelizing all people constitutes the essential mission of the Church.”2 Evangelii Nuntiandi single-handedly breathed new life into Catholic missiology and homiletics. The text repays careful attention even today, forty years later. More than thirty years ago now, Pope John Paul II famously sum- moned the church to “a New Evangelization, new in its ardor, methods and expression.”3 John Paul devoted much of his long papacy to infusing this project with clarity and energy. He emphasized that the message, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is not new, but the same life-giving announce- ment that has moved hearts, lit minds, and fired wills for twenty centu- ries. But devotion flags and needs to be renewed. Technologies and social patterns change, opening up new vehicles for the proclamation of God’s goodness. New cultural contexts are reached, and old ones change, de- manding fresh ways of presenting the invitation to discipleship. Pope Benedict XVI continued to speak about the urgency of a New Evangelization, especially in contexts formerly regarded as Christian, where the corrosive influences of contemporary culture are strong. “At the dawn of the third millennium,” he noted, “not only are there still many peoples who have not come to know the Good News, but also a great many Christians who need to have the word of God once more persua- sively proclaimed to them, so that they can concretely experience the power of the Gospel. Many of our brothers and sisters are ‘baptized, but insufficiently evangelized.’ ” The New Evangelization must be brought to vii viii To All the World bear “especially in those nations where the Gospel has been forgotten or meets with indifference as a result of widespread secularism.”4 The first pope from the “global South,” Pope Francis has infused a special kind of vigor into the New Evangelization through his own preaching, both in the Vatican and in his far-flung travels. He has re- minded us that the Gospel is a message of joy, and the task of proclama- tion a privilege. “Instead of seeming to impose new obligations,” Francis wrote, “[Christians] should appear as people who wish to share their joy, who point to a horizon of beauty and who invite others to a delicious banquet.”5 Francis has also reemphasized a theme of the Second Vatican Council, namely, that all Christians share in the project of evangelization: “In virtue of their baptism, all the members of the People of God have become missionary disciples (cf. Mt 28:19). All the baptized, whatever their position in the Church or their level of instruction in the faith, are agents of evangelization. The new evangelization calls for personal involvement on the part of each of the baptized. Every Christian is chal- lenged, here and now, to be actively engaged in evangelization” (Evan- gelii Gaudium 120).6 The present volume grew out of a conference of the same name at the University of Notre Dame in June 2014. Speakers, preachers, bishops, evangelizers, lay and ordained, men and women—there was a palpable sense of devotion to the church’s evangelical mission as we gathered. One after another the speakers thoughtfully put flesh on the bone of “new ardor, new methods, and new expressions.” Fidelity to tradition and creative willingness to risk new strategies, love for the Word and love for God’s people, zeal for the universality of the message and deep respect for the plurality of cultures and religious faiths—these were but some of the tensions into which we stepped, gaining confidence that each may yet yield the precious Gospel fruit of hope for our battered, divided world. “The Church, sure of her Lord’s fidelity, never tires of proclaiming the good news of the Gospel and invites all Christians to discover anew the attraction of following Christ.”7 Michael E. Connors, CSC John S. Marten Program in Homiletics and Liturgics, University of Notre Dame Easter season, 2015 Preface ix Endnotes 1. Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi (Washington, DC: USCCB, 1975) 14. 2. Ibid. Paul VI is quoting the 1974 Synod of Bishops; see “Declaration of the Synod Fathers,” 4, L’Osservatore Romano (27 October 1974): 6. 3. Address to CELAM (Opening Address of the Nineteenth General Assembly of CELAM, 9 March 1983, Port-au-Prince, Haiti), L’Osservatore Romano, English Edition 16/780 (18 April 1983): 9. 4. Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini (The Word of the Lord) (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2010) 96, 122. The interior quote is from the previous year’s synod of bishops on the Word of God, Propositio 38. 5. Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel) (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013) 15, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost _exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii -gaudium.html.