A new evangelization

Here is the text of the homily I preached this weekend, encouraged by the scriptures for the Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time to challenge readers and hearers to discover and-or to re-discover the beauty and truth of our faith, and to share the Good News with others.

Be prepared to make disciples

The Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

A few months ago, I received a phone call informing me that someone wanted to chat.  I had never met this person, but at the appointed time, he arrived.  He sat on a simple chair in the sacristy, because he was unable to descend the stairs to the office, due to the extreme pain he was experiencing.  He had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and knew that his time here on earth was limited, yet there was something he needed to do.  As we sat there that day, he recounted his involvement as a child in the life of his local parish (which was not in this city), and his deep trust in the faith which had been passed on to him by his parents.  He also recounted the pain of disillusionment when his faith in the goodness of people was tested, not once but twice, and how this disillusionment caused him to spend many subsequent years at a certain distance from the institutional Church.  As the details of his ordeal were recounted, I couldn’t help thinking that his image of a loving God must have also been tarnished, and yet there was still a spark of hope.  Now that his time on earth was definitely coming to a close, he wanted to give it one more chance: was it possible that God still wanted him, still loved him, still had room for him?  Of course there is!

Over the past number of decades, there have been many, in some case too many people to count, who have drifted away from the Church, from faith, from a relationship of trust with our God and with the community.  Throughout many parts of the developed world, a culture of abundance has lulled us into believing that God and discussion about God is something that belongs in the realm of a church which is less and less connected to the real world.

In the gospel passage that we have just heard, Jesus tells his disciples: Gird your loins and light your lamps.  Be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding, ready to open the door immediately when he comes and knocks.  When I was first ordained, people asked me whether I would return to the land of my birth, to serve the people in Guyana, alongside the Scarborough Foreign Missionaries and the local clergy who had first planted the seeds of faith.  I had never entertained the possibility of being a missionary, but as these past twenty years have unfolded, I have come to believe more and more that people of faith, who have come to believe the truths of the gospel need to learn a New Evangelization, new ways of preaching the gospel right here in our own cities and towns, in our families, in our schools and in our workplaces.  We never know when someone we meet will knock at the door, and we must be ready to open the door, welcome them in, and be willing to welcome them with the warmth of a loving heart.

The disciples and their followers in the first centuries of the early Church understood that the story of our faith is indeed good news that is worth sharing.  They also understood that this news must be witnessed before it can be spoken of. In the letter to the Hebrews, a part of which we heard today, the writer tells us that faith is the realization of what is hoped for, and evidence of things not seen.  In a world where more and more confidence is placed in things visible and tangible, faith, described this way seems indeed to have little place, yet the Letter of Diognetus, written during the first two centuries A.D. recounts in part a description of what Christians are like. Diognetus (who himself was not a Christian at the time) says that Christians live in the same neighborhoods, speak the same language, dress like everybody else; but they do not kill their babies and they respect the marriage bond. This description may seem very quaint indeed, but it is a little scary to think that Diognetus could have written this letter last week.

Since his election to the See of Rome in March of this year, Pope Francis has been calling upon all Catholics to go outside of ourselves, in search of those who need our help.  In order to do this, we need the New Evangelization.  We need to re-learn our faith with the fervor of the first disciples.  We need parish programs like Arise together in Christ! to kindle and re-kindle the sense of joyful welcome and community that should always characterise the followers of Jesus.  During the celebration of World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, Pope Francis told us all: Jesus Christ is counting on you! The Church is counting on you! The Pope is counting on you! May Mary, the Mother of Jesus and our Mother, always accompany you with her tenderness. Go and make disciples of all nations.