Monday, May 19, 2014

Entry 21: Transmitting the beauty of the Gospel.




 A popular phrase, but perhaps we're called upon to do more...

 It’s been a few weeks since I’ve written an entry, so I need to refresh my memory about what’s being talked about in this section of EG:  Francis’s focus here is on the missionary spirit that he believes lies dormant in most human beings. He does wish to awaken that spirit, but  at the same time, he is also inviting us to not get too complacent with the talents,skills, and tools that we have to offer for the task of evangelization.  We should always remember that these tools we use to transmit the message of the Gospel to people of today need to be renewed once in a while ( EG 41). In other words, the emphasis for Francis is not ‘change the message’ but ‘change the language/tools with which you wish to communicate the message’.  (we remember the controversial, but important words from Saint  John XXIII “The deposit of the faith is one thing... the way it is expressed is another”  (EG 41).  The real emphasis for Francis here, is that we recognize that the beauty of the Gospel is increasingly lost on this world, and  that we need to explore new ways that can help people experience this beauty once again.( EG 42)

  All this is well and good, but even for Christians who do have a missionary spirit, there is a great challenge that also needs to be addressed by the new evangelization: at the end of the day, no matter how zealous the pastor/priest, it's impossible for us to reach out to everyone.  We have to learn to accept the disbelief and different beliefs of many people in this world, but also to remember that there are some aspects of the Church that remain a challenge for many in this world.  The idea of the cross we must carry is only one example. For many in this world, suffering is a proof that God does not exist, so this notion that our faith accepts suffering and embraces the presence of God in that experience, is confusing, or as Francis puts it, obscure. (EG 42)

  What makes the Christian faith so unique is our assent, or adherence to this cross. As Christians, many of us accept and embrace our own crosses, because we know how Jesus carried his own  cross out of great love for all people. We may never be able to fully comprehend the depth of His sacrifice, but we can at least understand some aspects of the love that was behind this act.  That understanding is a good step in our effort to reflect ‘our teacher’s’ way of life. This is not something we do out of a desire to emulate him ( as if we were merely asking ourselves ‘What would Jesus Do’), but it's something that deepens our closeness to him and ‘awakens the assent of the heart by its nearness, love and witness.’ (EG 42)

  This is a powerful statement that I struggled with. I think it’s because our tendency as 21st century Christians is to seek to emulate Jesus in a very intellectual way. We limit the Love of our God, and the Passion of the Christ to ideas and theories that are able to explain why we believe, why we follow this Jesus. However, when our faith depends more on the rational, than on an affective experience of the heart, when we spend more time ‘thinking about God’ than praying to God, then we have a problem. In a recent homily, Pope Francis went as far as to say that a faith that is lost in/focused only on ideas is in fact a heresy. Perhaps we can chalk this up to an example of ‘tough love’ from our beloved Pontiff, but it’s also an idea he pursues from a different angle in point 43.

  
 In this point, he returns to one of the core ideas of this section: The Gospel is a gift of life to be enjoyed by all people. If it is not all people who are capable of enjoying this gift, perhaps we should be asking harder questions like “ are there traditions and precepts in our Church that get in the way of the Joy of the Gospel that we should perhaps be reevaluating?” ( my paraphrasing of his main idea in EG 43) After all, no matter how many precepts we have in Church tradition, even Aquinas himself –citing Augustine- reminded us that these precepts should be ‘insisted upon in moderation’ (EG 43). For in the end, it is not rules and traditions that make this a living faith, but our desire to to make sure that the Gospel can be read, understood and embraced by a large amount of people. 

 I have a feeling  Francis isn't going to make a lot of friends among the more Conservative branches of our Universal Church with this kind of thought process. I too am a little resistant when reading those words. I'm left with questions like : " How do we discern what has become less useful for the Church? How do we move forward as Church with this baggage which is spiritually rich, but perhaps, theologically out-dated?" Then there's issue of 'what is irrelevant to some is very meaningful to others'. And finally,  who are we to judge that the spiritual practice of one is no longer useful to the universal Church? If it nourishes some people, do we have the right to say '...but it's irrelevant today'? These are big questions that create a lot of 'healthy tension' in the Church that pushes us to respond to the challenges of our modern era. I do look forward to see how future Synods will guide us through these complicated issues, but I' m mostly excited  to see where Pope Francis' train of thought will go on this subject! Perhaps this can become an incentive to write more regularly!!

 Blessings on your week!



42. All of this has great relevance for the preaching of the Gospel, if we are really concerned to make its beauty more clearly recognized and accepted by all. Of course, we will never be able to make the Church’s teachings easily understood or readily appreciated by everyone. Faith always remains something of a cross; it retains a certain obscurity which does not detract from the firmness of its assent. Some things are understood and appreciated only from the standpoint of this assent, which is a sister to love, beyond the level of clear reasons and arguments. We need to remember that all religious teaching ultimately has to be reflected in the teacher’s way of life, which awakens the assent of the heart by its nearness, love and witness.

43. In her ongoing discernment, the Church can also come to see that certain customs not directly connected to the heart of the Gospel, even some which have deep historical roots, are no longer properly understood and appreciated. Some of these customs may be beautiful, but they no longer serve as means of communicating the Gospel. We should not be afraid to re-examine them. At the same time, the Church has rules or precepts which may have been quite effective in their time, but no longer have the same usefulness for directing and shaping people’s lives. Saint Thomas Aquinas pointed out that the precepts which Christ and the apostles gave to the people of God “are very few”.[47] Citing Saint Augustine, he noted that the precepts subsequently enjoined by the Church should be insisted upon with moderation “so as not to burden the lives of the faithful” and make our religion a form of servitude, whereas “God’s mercy has willed that we should be free”.[48] This warning, issued many centuries ago, is most timely today. It ought to be one of the criteria to be taken into account in considering a the reform of the Church and her preaching which would enable it to reach everyone.