On Saturday, September 15, I preached the retreat for the opening of the second semester of the Permanent Deacon Programme. For the information of the archdiocese, all 24 candidates have persevered through the first semester of the programme and are eager to continue their preparations to become deacons in the archdiocese.

Study edition of Pastoral Letter

In the last conference/discussion of the afternoon I shared the text of the study edition of the Pastoral Letter that I issued on Trinity Sunday with the diaconal candidates and their wives. The printers had delivered the study editions the afternoon before the retreat. I told the participants that 25,000 copies of the study edition would be distributed throughout the archdiocese in the very near future.

I presented the study edition of the Pastoral Letter in the context of the two meetings that had already been facilitated by the archdiocese:
1) The meeting with the leadership of the Catholic Communication Houses in the Archdiocese along with private sector executives;
2) The retreat during the following week with all the Department Heads of the Archdiocese.

I told those making the retreat that a third meeting has been scheduled with the principals of Catholic schools. The goal of the meetings was to look at the various ministries of each group from the viewpoint of the theology of solidarity, which is the foundation of the broad-based collaboration we are trying to achieve in the Archdiocese.

I informed the diaconal candidates and their wives that both meetings led to explicit commitments by the participants to collaborate in solidarity for the common good. As the diaconal candidates began to discuss the issues in the Pastoral Letter, they also expressed their interest and their willingness to collaborate in solidarity for the good of the future of the Archdiocese.

The underlying issue

The discussion with the diaconal candidates took the same direction as the prior meetings noted earlier. The concentration was on the issue of evangelisation in the strict and broad senses of the term. There was agreement on the need to evangelise and strengthen:
1) The Catholic population who practice their faith regularly (the 17% from the archdiocesan poll which is within the international statistic of 15-20% who practice their faith regularly); 
2) To contact those who do not practice regularly (NB the statistic of 17% goes up considerably when the question is changed to include the words “not regularly or occasionally”). Many of these people have not gone anywhere i.e. they have not affiliated with other Churches – they just stopped practicing; 
3) To continue attracting new members to the Catholic Church through witness, preaching and pastoral presence/service e.g. through the RCIA programme.

Contemporary models of evangelisation

Cardinal Avery Dulles SJ, who still teaches at Fordham University in New York, recently addressed the Evangelical Catholic Institute which focusses on finding and forming leaders who will evangelise. In his address, the Cardinal listed six models of evangelisation. His list could be very helpful to us as we try to move forward pastorally as an archdiocese in a spirit of collaborative solidarity. Allow me to summarise his list:

1) Personal witness
Cardinal Dulles quotes Pope Paul VI who said, “The first means of evangelisation is the witness of an authentically Christian life, given over to God in a communion that nothing should destroy and at the same time given to one’s neighbour with limitless zeal.”

This first model is certainly confirmed in the RCIA programme which helps form people who have been deeply affected by the witness of adult Catholics. Witness was so important to St Francis of Assisi that he told his followers “to preach the gospel every day and, if necessary, to use words’.

2) Verbal testimony
The Cardinal gives some very important examples of verbal testimony: proclamation, catechesis, apologetics and the written word. For a second time he quotes Pope Paul VI. “Even the finest witness will prove ineffective over the long run if it (the witness) is not explained.” The Cardinal rejects the idea that dialogue is preferable to proclamation. Christ alone is the way the truth and the life. That truth must be proclaimed!

3) Christian worship
Since worship is an activity of the believing community directed primarily to God, it is not conducted for the sake of making an impression on outsiders. However, the Cardinal observes, perhaps for that same reason, worship does make an impression. Outsiders are struck by the intensity and sincerity of the Church’s relationship with God. Worship facilitates evangelisation because it immerses the community in the mystery of Christ.

4) Community
We are confronted by anonymity in a secularised world. People find themselves searching for interpersonal community. In our time a number of very intense communities have developed. They evangelise not so much by going out but by attracting people to come in and experience a community of love and mutual support.

5) Inculturation
Technically this term means incarnating the gospel (giving it flesh and blood) in the cultural forms familiar and intelligible to those being evangelised. Because he understood that modern culture is resistant to the gospel, Pope Paul VI used the words “the evangelisation of cultures” rather than inculturation. His concern was the danger of concluding that culture could be a satisfactory vessel for the Christian faith. It cannot.

6) Works of Charity
Throughout history, the Church has been a leader in the social apostolate through the establishment of schools, hospitals and programmes for the poor. Pope John Paul II taught that the social teaching of the Church is a form of evangelisation because it deals with human rights, the promotion of the common good and the building of a civilisation of love. Many converts to the faith were initially attracted to the Catholic faith by the commitment of the Church to social ministries.

Conclusion

The underlying goal of collaborating in solidarity is evangelisation. It is my hope that as the archdiocese reflects prayerfully on the study edition of the Pastoral Letter, the end result of the reflection process will be a renewed willingness among the people of the archdiocese to commit themselves to a vigorous programme of evangelisation.