A couple of years ago, at our biennial priest
convocation, our speaker was Dr. Ralph Martin, an author and professor of
theology at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit.
I remember that Dr. Martin’s presentations were quite refreshing. He shared with us his story of how he became
an author and seminary professor and I was edified that his path began in
relatively normal circumstances. For
example, the Holy Spirit first touched his heart when he participated in a
Cursillo weekend. All of you who are
Cursillistas, or who have been through other retreats like it, have had very
similar experiences to the one that opened Dr. Martin’s heart to the grace of a
spiritual awakening. He spoke very
plainly and humbly, and he was a great witness to us. And, after sharing his witness, he spoke to
us about the New Evangelization.
The “New Evangelization”, if you’ve never heard
of it before (or, if you have, but don’t understand what it is), is something
for which our Popes have been calling for the last 45 years or so. If you think that it has something to do with
going out and finding people who have never heard of Jesus to tell them about
Jesus and the saving news of the Gospel, then you will have thought well, but
you will have thought wrong. The New
Evangelization is not about evangelizing those who have never heard of Jesus
Christ (though that work is still necessary), but rather about evangelizing
those who are already in the Church. Perhaps
this sounds strange, but here’s what it means:
Since the Second Vatican Council, it seems,
there has been a disconnect between the initiation of men and women to
the faith and their evangelization.
In other words, we’ve sacramentalized millions of people (meaning, we’ve
given them the sacraments), but we’ve done a poor job of introducing them to
the person of Jesus (that is, the person for whom and through whom they have
been sacramentalized). In the past, this
didn’t seem to be so big of a problem, since the surrounding culture supported
and encouraged men and women to continue the practice of the faith, even if
they didn’t always have an understanding of the relationship with God that
their practice maintained. Today, the
cultural support for religious practice has disappeared (in fact, it has become
hostile to it); and so, those who have been sacramentalized but not evangelized
fall away from the faith since they see no underlying reasons to continue to
practice it. The New Evangelization
calls us to take up the task of evangelizing the baptized so that the
sacramental grace that they have received may become active in their lives and
draw them back into the practice of the faith.
Perhaps some of you are thinking to yourselves,
“surely it is not I, Father, who hasn’t been evangelized?” Well, chances are that a number of you
sitting here this morning do fall into this category. If so, don’t worry. It is not a sin to be sacramentalized and not
evangelized, if it happened due to no fault of your own. And most of the people who fall into this
category have already left the practice of the faith, anyway, so they wouldn’t
be here. Regardless of whether you’d
count yourselves among the evangelized or the merely sacramentalized, there is
a message for us here today. That
message is the connection between Pentecost and the New Evangelization. ///
Dr. Martin, echoing the Popes since Pope John
XXIII, said that the New Evangelization demands a new Pentecost. Just as the first evangelization began when
the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples in the Upper Room, so too will the
New Evangelization take flight when the Church, on a large scale, calls for the
Holy Spirit to descend upon her again.
This has already begun in a smaller scale as Ecclesial Movements like
the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, Cursillo (and all its permutations), and the
Neo-Catechumenal Way have found a footing in the Church and are evangelizing
the baptized: that is, helping men and women—long since baptized—to find and
establish a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We have these movements here in the
Midwest—some right here in our diocese—and so if something is stirring in you
right now as you hear about these evangelizing groups, let us know and we’ll be
more than happy to connect you to them.
All of these groups rely heavily on calling on the Holy Spirit to
enlighten them, to guide them, and to strengthen them in their efforts to
evangelize.
Nonetheless, you do not have to be a part of an
ecclesial movement to participate in the New Evangelization; our scriptures
show us that. In his First Letter to the
Corinthians, Saint Paul says, “to each individual the manifestation of the
Spirit is given for some benefit”. Did
you hear that? He said, “to each
individual...” That means that each
and every one of you here—if you have been baptized—has been given a
manifestation of the Holy Spirit. And
so, there’s no one here (again, if you’ve been baptized) who can say, “Oh, that
Holy Spirit stuff is for other folks, not me.”
Each of us has been given a manifestation of the Spirit, “for
some benefit”. If we don’t know what
those spiritual gift or gifts might be, then our task is to call on the Holy
Spirit to enlighten us to those gifts so that we can begin to manifest them for
the benefit of the kingdom of God, which has, at its root, the evangelization
of peoples. If we remember the Gospel
parable of the talents, we remember that the master did not look kindly on the
one who hid his talent instead of trading with it so as to multiply it. So, too, it will be with us who have been
given a manifestation of the Spirit for some benefit, but then failed to
discern that gift and to apply it for the building of the kingdom. ///
And so, how do we come to know those spiritual
gifts? Well, the simple way is to call
on the Holy Spirit regularly! “Come,
Holy Spirit” is a great prayer to the Holy Spirit that anyone can pray. In our Gospel today, however, Jesus shows us
another way to open ourselves to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. He says: “If you love me, you will keep my
commandments. And I will ask the Father,
and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always... The Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father
will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I
told you.” In other words, if we love
Jesus and keep his commandments, then Jesus himself will take care of sending
the Spirit to us. I like this method,
because it keeps us focused on fostering our own relationship with Jesus, which
will be essential in any evangelizing work that we are given. It also reminds us, however, that we cannot
expect to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit if we refuse to turn away from
our sins: that is, if we fail to keep the commandments of the Lord. Thus, it is a constant urging to turn away
from sin and be cleansed of it (especially in Confession) so as to remove all
barriers to the Spirit’s manifestation in us.
Thus prayer, in which we communicate with Jesus daily, and frequent
reception of the sacraments, are keys to unlocking the outpouring of the Spirit
in us. ///
Friends, on this holy day—and at the end of this
holy season—let us be bold in asking for a New Pentecost so that the work of
the New Evangelization might be accomplished through us: the work of bringing
our brothers and sisters to (or back to) the practice of the faith through a
personal relationship with Jesus. For it
is this work that will make us saints; and it is this work that will usher in
the day when Christ will return, in all his glory, to take us home to
himself. Come, Holy Spirit, Come!
Given in Spanish at St. Joseph
Parish: Rochester, IN – June 8th, 2025
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