SILVER LAKE COLLEGE OF THE HOLY FAMILY What’s New About the New Evangelization? Learning from our heritage Sister Marie Kolbe Zamora, S.T.L. Contents What’s New About the New Evangelization? Learning from our heritage. .................................................. 3 Introduction: ................................................................................................................................................. 3 Purpose of this Presentation ........................................................................................................................ 3 Outline of this Presentation .......................................................................................................................... 4 What IS the New Evangelization? ................................................................................................................. 4 Overcoming Obstacles .............................................................................................................................. 5 Defining Evangelization ............................................................................................................................. 5 First Wave of Evangelization - Evangelizing Greco-Roman World ................................................................ 6 Era Context / Recipients............................................................................................................................ 6 First Wave of Evangelization Details: ........................................................................................................ 6 Tasks / Methods .................................................................................................................................... 6 WHO? Protagonists ............................................................................................................................... 6 Historical and Theological Motivation .................................................................................................. 7 Lessons from the first wave of Evangelization .......................................................................................... 8 First Lesson: We need to believe what we speak! ................................................................................ 8 Second Lesson: We need to SOW CHRIST ............................................................................................. 8 Conclusion First Wave: .......................................................................................................................... 9 Second Wave of Evangelization – Evangelizing Barbarian Invaders of the Roman Empire .......................... 9 Era ............................................................................................................................................................. 9 Context / Recipients – Germans, Celts, Slavs, Saxons .............................................................................. 9 Tasks - Religious and Cultural ................................................................................................................. 10 Protagonists ............................................................................................................................................ 10 Successes ................................................................................................................................................ 11 Lessons to be Learned ............................................................................................................................. 11 Cantalamessa - Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 11 Third Wave of Evangelization – Evangelizing the American Continent ...................................................... 12 Era ........................................................................................................................................................... 12 Context / Recipients – The Discovery of the American Continent ......................................................... 12 Tasks - Religious / Political ...................................................................................................................... 12 Protagonists – Mendicant Orders, then the Jesuits ................................................................................ 12 ©Sister Marie Kolbe Zamora, S.T.L., October 2013. 1 Theological Motivation ........................................................................................................................... 13 Lessons to be Learned ............................................................................................................................. 13 Lesson #1: Humility in our Evangelizing .............................................................................................. 13 Lesson #2: Institutional goals are not enough .................................................................................... 14 Conclusion: Avery Dulles ......................................................................................................................... 14 New Evangelization – Evangelizing the “Catechized” / the “Sacramentalized” ......................................... 15 What’s New about the New Evangelization?.......................................................................................... 15 Context / Recipients – Baptized Catholics who are Distant from the faith ........................................ 15 MAPPING THE UNIVERSE v MAPPING OURSELVES ............................................................................. 15 Jesus Christ – Point of Departure for New Evangelization ..................................................................... 15 USCCB on New Evangelization ................................................................................................................ 16 Protagonists ............................................................................................................................................ 16 Tasks of the New Evangelization: Pope Francis ...................................................................................... 16 Primacy of Witness ............................................................................................................................. 17 Urgency of Going Out to Encounter Others ........................................................................................ 17 Pastoral Program Centered on the Essential ...................................................................................... 17 Select Bibliography...................................................................................................................................... 18 ©Sister Marie Kolbe Zamora, S.T.L., October 2013. 2 What’s New About the New Evangelization? Learning from our heritage. As I begin, it is important to acknowledge that this presentation is heavily indebted to Raniero Cantalamessa. Several years ago Fr. Cantalamessa delivered a series of Advent meditations to Pope Benedict XVI in which he traced the history of evangelization in the Church. These meditations have been published in Italian (Come la scia di un vascello, 2012) and are in the course of being translated into English (Navigating the New Evangelization). These meditations are an important source and guide for the Church’s thinking about the New Evangelization. Introduction: Fr. Robert Taft, an American Jesuit Priest and an archimandrite of the Easter Catholic Church, had this to say about the Church in relationship to enculturation – words that I think can apply to the Church’s missionary, evangelizing activity. “The only way to understand the Church in regard to enculturation is to study what the Church has been. The Church of Christ is not something that we re-invent every day according to our personal desires. The Church of Christ is a tradition that is handed on from one generation to the next. The only way to know that tradition in its entirety is to study it in all its concrete historical – cultural manifestations.”1 Purpose of this Presentation What the Church has been, the Church can be! What the Church has done, the Church can do!! Taking Fr. Taft’s affirmation as my lead, it is my hope in this presentation to jog through the 3 waves of Evangelization that have been part of the Church’s history. The GOAL of this trip through time would be to inspire each one of us to reflect on what the Church has been and done so that we can together discern that the Church needs to be an do in this era of New Evangelization. 1 “The Missionary Efforts of the Easter Churches as an Example of Inculturation” (Vatican, 1998) ©Sister Marie Kolbe Zamora, S.T.L., October 2013. 3 Outline of this Presentation • Defining Evangelization / New Evangelization • First Wave of Evangelization – 1st Three centuries • Second Wave of Evangelization – Middle Ages (5th – 15th centuries) • Third Wave of Evangelization – Age of Exploration / Early Modernity • New Evangelization – Post-Modernity Because of the Apostolic (and sub-Apostolic) nature of the first three centuries of the Church’s life, these three centuries were and remain a model for all time. They are, in many ways, still normative for the Church’s life. For this reason, I will probably “stroll” through (rather than jog through) this era so that we might be able to draw inspiration from it for this era of New Evangelization. What