Pope Benedict had connected his treatise on the New Evangelization as the way to the “Door of Faith” his motu proprio. If evangelizers will lead souls to the ‘door of Faith’ they must use the “New evangelization” which the Pope repeated is not new at all but the same old, traditional, classical evangelization taught by Christ to the apostles before His ascension.
We saw the two parts of Pope Benedict’s article on “New Evangelization” which he delivered in New York while still a cardinal, firstly, the method of evangelizing and secondly, the essential contents of evangelization. The method of evangelizing is that the evangelizer must be a contemplative. The contents of his teachings fall under the general topics of a.) conversion, b.) the Kingdom of God, c.) Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and lastly, d.) Eternal life.
In the last article we combined two things, from the method of evangelizing, the fact that the evangelizer must be a contemplative with the first essential content of evangelizing, conversion. The Evangelizer must have been converted. Let us stop there. If the evangelizer has undergone conversion then he must be like the prodigal son who have returned completely back to his father’s house and had received the new gown and ring. This means that his past sins must have been forgiven because of the virtue of Faith that he had received from God and as a consequence he would not return to his past sins. And he has received the infused knowledge of the commands of Christ and how to observe them. This is a contemplative. But his knowledge of the commands of Jesus and his observance of these commands would not be perfect until he reaches Charity. So a contemplative can teach the four essential contents of the New Evangelization.
Most Diocesan priests do not believe that they are contemplatives because they believe their training was for the active life. The Catholic Church never trained anyone just for the active life. She trains every one for the life of perfection which is the contemplative life. So both Diocesan priests and lay people should had been trained to be contemplatives because the Gospel of Trinity Sunday shows that Christ’s command to His apostles is to teach every one to be contemplatives………”teach them all that I have commanded and how to observe them.” “All the commands..” would refer to the perfection of the spiritual life which includes contemplation.
Because of this defective concept in their training many Diocesan priests are not able to reach contemplation, i.e. they are not able to undergo conversion and as such are not able to convert those whom they teach. This defective training is also obvious among nuns as shown by recent corrections. It is also obvious in all ecclesial communities specially those founded by lay men. I am afraid I just described the whole Church.
But even as of now, all the programs we have noticed that referred to the “New Evangelization” had nothing to do with the instructions given by Pope Benedict. They refer to the old defective evangelization that Pope Benedict wishes to correct. There is the insistence of non-contemplatives wanting to preach. If they are not contemplatives they would not know the next three important contents of Evangelization namely, entrance into the Catholic Church (The Kingdom of God), union with the created soul of the Catholic Church (Jesus Christ), union with the uncreated soul of the Church (the Holy Spirit) and the consequence of these three steps which is Eternal Life. A non-contemplative can only teach ‘conversion’ and in a very poor way at that.
Maybe, the contemplative orders in the Church should evangelize. But when Abbots are seen receiving in a welcome ceremony from a Jesuit his entrance into the mystery of Yoga and St. Clare contemplative nuns doing some eastern dance to welcome the morning sun instead of praying lauds, we wonder where have all the contemplatives gone. Maybe, there are still Carthusians somewhere in the Alps who are contemplatives or followers of St. Romuald in the valleys of Italy. But contemplatives don’t want to be known, neither do they wish to go about talking or preaching to unbelievers.
Contemplatives know the teachings of God perfectly and have put into practice all of those teachings. …..as the apostolic commission of Christ instructed.
If one has the right description and definition of contemplation we will not find them in most Cardinals, Bishops, priests, seminarians, nuns, founders of communties, not even in theologians and apologists….etc. I admit there are some hiding, as is natural to them, in the caves of those mountains. It was there that the first genuine contemplatives were found.
According to Pope Benedict who would qualify as Evangelizers of the New Evangelization?
These are like the apostles, contemplatives who are ‘sent by God,’ so the word “apostle.” Not all contemplatives are sent by God. But Popes can send contemplatives to Evangelize as Pope Gregory sent the monks St. Augustine to England and St. Boniface to Germany. St. Therese, though a contemplative was not sent and remained inside her convent living in silence all her life.But she is an Evangelizer by her contemplation. That is why she is the patroness of the Missions. The Pope is calling for both kinds.
The Holy Father living the basic tenets of the Catholic Religion religiously, fortified by his vast knowledge of the teachings of the Church and almost living a monastic life knew very well that an Evangelizer should be infused with Divine Knowledge of the word of God through grace and the virtue of Faith. Remember we are just in the first step of the essential topics that we have to teach. And even now we find that most would not qualify to see the second, third and fourth topics because they would not have the necessary knowledge of them that comes only by infusion from God.
Considering that we have few contemplatives and they are supposed to preach one on one as the Holy Father said in Brazil, how many can be converted to the Catholic Faith? Very few. We cannot hope for a springtime.We can only hope for a polarization. In that some will seriously become Catholics while the rest will just fall away. The Holy Father is aiming at the some who will seriously become good Catholics. That is why he is just looking at a small and pure Catholic Church as the target of his ‘New Evangelization’ which are the former Catholic nations that are now lost to the Church.
Contemplation is a pure gift of God. We cannot be contemplatives by choice, effort, studies or by any human way. The Pope cannot produce contemplatives and neither can we. We and the Pope can do our best to dispose ourselves to God’s gifts. But contemplation is from God. So what do you suppose will happen in these our times when seemingly very few would qualify as Evangelizers of the ‘New Evangelization?’ As in the days of old God will raise contemplatives to save the few. He will do this on His own. His chosen vessel would not even suspect they are chosen. They will be Vessels who do not chose God but whom God has chosen. This scenario had been described by St. Bonaventure, by St. Benedict and the Saints from St. Sulpice. And the Holy Father had hinted that this scenario exist today. His ‘New Evangelization’ and ‘Porta Fidei’ are precisely describing this scenario.