20180124
NEW EVANGELIZATION EVER OLD AND YET EVER NEW
24 JANUARY, 2018, Wednesday, 3rd Week, Ordinary Time
Readings
at Mass
Liturgical
Colour: White.
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First reading
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2 Samuel 7:4-17 ©
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The word of the Lord came to Nathan:
‘Go and tell
my servant David, “Thus the Lord speaks: Are you the man to build me a house to
dwell in? I have never stayed in a house from the day I brought the Israelites
out of Egypt until today, but have always led a wanderer’s life in a tent. In
all my journeying with the whole people of Israel, did I say to any one of the
judges of Israel, whom I had appointed as shepherds of Israel my people: Why
have you not built me a house of cedar?” This is what you must say to my
servant David, “the Lord of Hosts says this: I took you from the pasture, from
following the sheep, to be leader of my people Israel; I have been with you on
all your expeditions; I have cut off all your enemies before you. I will give
you fame as great as the fame of the greatest on earth. I will provide a place
for my people Israel; I will plant them there and they shall dwell in that
place and never be disturbed again; nor shall the wicked continue to oppress
them as they did, in the days when I appointed judges over my people Israel; I
will give them rest from all their enemies. The Lord will make you great; the
Lord will make you a House. And when your days are ended and you are laid to
rest with your ancestors, I will preserve the offspring of your body after you
and make his sovereignty secure. (It is he who shall build a house for my name,
and I will make his royal throne secure for ever.) I will be a father to him
and he a son to me; if he does evil, I will punish him with the rod such as men
use, with strokes such as mankind gives. Yet I will not withdraw my favour from
him, as I withdrew it from your predecessor. Your House and your sovereignty
will always stand secure before me and your throne be established for ever.”’
Nathan
related all these words to David and this whole revelation.
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Responsorial Psalm
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Psalm 88(89):4-5,27-30 ©
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I will keep my love for him always.
I have made a covenant with my chosen one,
I have sworn to David my servant:
I will establish your dynasty for ever
and set up your throne through all ages.
I will keep my love for him always.
He will say to me: You are my father,
my God, the rock who saves me.
And I will make him my first-born,
the highest of the kings of the earth.
I will keep my love for him always.
I will keep my love for him always;
with him my covenant shall last.
I will establish his dynasty for ever,
make his throne endure as the heavens.
I will keep my love for him always.
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Gospel Acclamation
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1S3:9,Jn6:68
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Alleluia, alleluia!
Speak, Lord, your servant is listening:
you have the message of eternal life.
Alleluia!
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Or
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Alleluia, alleluia!
The seed is the word of God, Christ the sower;
whoever finds this seed will remain for ever.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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Mark 4:1-20 ©
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Jesus began to teach by the lakeside, but such a huge crowd
gathered round him that he got into a boat on the lake and sat there. The
people were all along the shore, at the water’s edge. He taught them many
things in parables, and in the course of his teaching he said to them, ‘Listen!
Imagine a sower going out to sow. Now it happened that, as he sowed, some of
the seed fell on the edge of the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some
seed fell on rocky ground where it found little soil and sprang up straightaway,
because there was no depth of earth; and when the sun came up it was scorched
and, not having any roots, it withered away. Some seed fell into thorns, and
the thorns grew up and choked it, and it produced no crop. And some seeds fell
into rich soil and, growing tall and strong, produced crop; and yielded thirty,
sixty, even a hundredfold.’ And he said, ‘Listen, anyone who has ears to hear!’
When he was
alone, the Twelve, together with the others who formed his company, asked what
the parables meant. He told them, ‘The secret of the kingdom of God is given to
you, but to those who are outside everything comes in parables, so that they
may see and see again, but not perceive; may hear and hear again, but not
understand; otherwise they might be converted and be forgiven.’
He said to
them, ‘Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand any of
the parables? What the sower is sowing is the word. Those on the edge of the
path where the word is sown are people who have no sooner heard it than Satan
comes and carries away the word that was sown in them. Similarly, those who
receive the seed on patches of rock are people who, when first they hear the
word, welcome it at once with joy. But they have no root in them, they do not
last; should some trial come, or some persecution on account of the word, they
fall away at once. Then there are others who receive the seed in thorns. These
have heard the word, but the worries of this world, the lure of riches and all
the other passions come in to choke the word, and so it produces nothing. And
there are those who have received the seed in rich soil: they hear the word and
accept it and yield a harvest, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.’
NEW EVANGELIZATION EVER OLD AND YET EVER NEW
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ 2 SM 7:4-17; PS 89:4-5,27-30; MK 4:1-20 ]
It was only
in recent times that the Church started speaking about the New Evangelization, beginning
with St John Paul II. This term was used to reawaken and elicit renewed efforts
in a new missionary and evangelizing undertaking. It is new in its
ardour, methods and expression. “Consequently, the new evangelization is
not a matter of redoing something which has been inadequately done or has not
achieved its purpose, as if the new activity were an implicit judgment on the
failure of the first evangelization. Nor is the new evangelization taking up
the first evangelization again, or simply repeating the past. Instead, it is
the courage to forge new paths in responding to the changing circumstances and
conditions facing the Church in her call to proclaim and live the Gospel
today.” (Lineamenta, 13th Synod of Bishops, No 5).
In other
words, the Church is invited to renew her efforts to meet the new challenges
facing Church and society in the face of changing cultures as a result of
globalization, technological advancement and urbanization. Today, because of mass
communication and a digital era, the way we proclaim the gospel would be quite
different from our forefathers. How are we to live the Christian life
today in a urban and affluent setting? How do we speak of the family unit
in a world where family members no longer stay together in the same locale, or
even same country? How do we speak of the indissolubility of marriage and
sexual ethics in a world where the ideals of marriage are seen to be
impractical and irrelevant? How can we maintain the traditional understanding
of marriage as between a man and a woman in the face of same-sex union?
How can we maintain the uniqueness of Christ as the Saviour of the World and
the fullness of truth in the wake of inter-religious dialogue?
It is
encouraging to read in today’s gospel how the work of the New Evangelization
was already in practise during the time of Jesus. We read how Jesus was
not stuck in the old ways of proclaiming the gospel: He “began to teach by the
lakeside, but such a huge crowd gathered round him that he got into a boat on
the lake and sat there. The people were all along the shore, at the
water’s edge.” Until then, Jesus was using the traditional places to
proclaim the gospel, namely, in the synagogues where the Jews would gather to
worship and listen to the Word of God. But His preaching there was often
not welcomed because of His criticism of the laws and the religious leaders and
most of all, the breaking of the Sabbath. He aroused much opposition from
the religious leaders.
Hence, He
felt that perhaps the best way to proclaim the message of His Father’s
unconditional love and mercy was not in the synagogues but in the open fields,
at the sea shore and on the hills. Instead of waiting for the people to come to
the synagogue, He went out to them in the countryside. Jesus brought His
mission to the people. He did not confine Himself to a synagogue
but He brought God’s love directly to the people wherever He went. His
synagogue was the field or along the road. He did not need a permanent
place to preach the Word of God.
This brings
to mind today’s first reading when King David was feeling guilty that he was
living in a house of cedar whilst the Ark of the Covenant was housed in a
tent. King David wanted to build a Temple for the Lord. But
the Lord thought otherwise. He said, “I have never stayed in a
house from the day I brought the Israelites out of Egypt until today, but have
always led a wanderer’s life in a tent. In all my journeying with the
whole people of Israel, did I say to any one of the judges of Israel, whom I
had appointed as shepherds of Israel my people: Why have you not built me
a house of cedar?” The truth is that the God we worship is a Trek God, a
God who lives in the midst of His people and moves with them. This God is
so close to His people He wants to be near them. He does not want to be
isolated and kept away from His people.
This is our
constant temptation, which is to compartmentalize God in daily life. This is what
secularization seeks to do as well. Many of us feel happy to put
God at an altar, or in the tabernacle at church. We live a dichotomy
between faith and life. We are Catholics only when we are in church, but
outside of church, we behave like everyone else. Our faith is not
expressed in our daily life. Our God is kept in our churches and in our
homes. That is why God is not felt in public and daily living. We
only remember Him once a week for an hour. And we feel happy about that
because the rest of the time is ours to live according to how we want to live.
We do not think of God unless we are in trouble.
Precisely,
the New Evangelization challenges us to go out of our churches, our comfortable
and secured confines, to the people where we are to share the Good News. Many of us are happy
to meet only in church for instructions and for activities. This makes us
exclusive, but we are not reaching out to the unreached and to the crowd who do
not yet know Jesus. This is why Pope Francis invites us to go out to
preach and share the gospel; “In our day Jesus’ command to ‘go and make
disciples’ echoes in the changing scenarios and ever new challenges to the
Church’s mission of evangelization, and all of us are called to take part in
this new missionary ‘going forth’. Each Christian and every
community must discern the path that the Lord points out, but all of us are
asked to obey his call to go forth from our own comfort zone in order to reach
all the “peripheries” in need of the light of the Gospel.” (EG 20)
Pope Francis
wrote, “I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has
been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being
confined and from clinging to its own security. I do not want a Church
concerned with being at the centre and which then ends by being caught up in a
web of obsessions and procedures. If something should rightly disturb us
and trouble our consciences, it is the fact that so many of our brothers and
sisters are living without the strength, light and consolation born of friendship
with Jesus Christ, without a community of faith to support them, without
meaning and a goal in life. More than by fear of going astray, my hope is that
we will be moved by the fear of remaining shut up within structures which give
us a false sense of security, within rules which make us harsh judges, within
habits which make us feel safe, while at our door people are starving and Jesus
does not tire of saying to us: ‘Give them something to eat’ (Mk 6:37).
(EG 49)
Not only are
we to witness Christ in the world, beyond the walls of our parishes and
churches, but we must use a new language to speak to our people, especially the
young. In
the gospel, Jesus said, “The secret of the kingdom of God is given to you, but to
those who are outside everything comes in parables, so that they may see and
see again, but not understand.” What was unique about Jesus as a teacher
was that He used parables to convey the God-experience to the people. He
used everyday life examples to help people connect with the love and mercy of
God. Jesus knew that if he continued to use the language of the day, they
would be inattentive and He would not be able to sustain their interest more so
in the wide open fields where the people could leave as and when they
liked. To help them relate with God’s love, He used parables and stories
so that they could identify with what Jesus sought to speak to their hearts and
evoke their experiences of God in their lives.
Again, this
is what the New Evangelization is asking of us. We need to find new
ways not just new means to express the unchanging truths of the
gospel. By merely repeating the orthodox language of our faith, we
are not understood. Moreover, such language no longer holds the attention of the
people. The unchanging truth must be expressed in a way that is not alien
to our people. We also need to reconsider some of our customs, precepts,
devotions and even the way we worship. Some of these were once useful and
effective in helping people to encounter God but has now become alien to the
modern generation. Liturgy evolves with time and it is not fixated as
many would like to think. Liturgy is a celebration of life. Whilst
the essence of worship cannot change, the way we worship needs to evolve
according to the time. The work of the New Evangelization requires us to
communicate more effectively the perennial truths of the gospel in a new way.
In the final
analysis, let us not run the risk of losing the heart of the Gospel’s message,
which is to help people to encounter Jesus personally. Let us focus on the
essentials, what is beautiful, liberating, joyful and enriching, rather than on
the secondary dimensions of our Catholic Faith. This was what Jesus
sought to do in His preaching. Instead of being bogged down by the
traditions, customs and rules of the Scribes and Pharisees, Jesus proclaimed
the essential message of the gospel – the Father’s unconditional love and mercy
through His healing miracles, exorcisms, works of mercy and forgiveness of
sins. He came to set His people free from guilt, a slavish
observance of the laws and a religion that makes life burdensome. We must
not allow the presentation of the Catholic Faith to degenerate into a modern
Pharisaism. This is the heart of the gospel as described by Pope Emeritus
Benedict, “Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty
idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon
and a decisive direction”. (Deus Caritas, 1)
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of
Singapore © All Rights Reserved
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