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Priesthood and the New Evangelization
During the last two centuries the human race has experienced the greatest changes that it has known since the beginnings of history.
This is the opening line of one of the works of the famous Catholic historian Christopher Dawson, and it may be taken to represent the first insight, the basis, of his historical work as a whole. The change Dawson speaks about goes much deeper than the obvious differences of physical existence: automobiles instead of horses, electric light and central heating instead of hearth and candle, telephones and televisions and computers as regular features of life. The enormous change these and other inventions have brought about in the daily organization of life has had its impact on all aspects of the human personality and on all social relationships, in ways that are probably too profound to entirely comprehend. Our view of ourselves, of the natural world, of our families, of our work, our mental and emotional furniture, our hopes for this life, all have been revolutionized. This has demanded a response from the Church, the ancient and ever-new witness to Christ in the world.
One of the marks of the Church’s response to this massive change in human living is the call to a “new evangelization.” This call was first articulated by Pope Paul VI, and has been repeatedly insisted upon by Pope John Paul II. The distinctive nature of the call to a new evangelization is that it is a call to re-evangelization. It is directed not so much to those peoples who have not heard the Gospel, as to those ancient centers of Christianity that as cultures have more or less lost their Christian way. It is a call to bring the Gospel of Christ to those living in a new post-Christian culture, technologically organized, affluent and powerful to an unprecedented degree, agnostic towards ultimate truths, in some respects highly educated, in others slipping into barbarism. It is a call to re-evangelize not just those who have entirely abandoned the faith, but also those who still hold to it in attenuated form. The Holy Father’s constant injunction to impregnate the culture with Christ points in this direction. When Paul VI announced that Europe had once again become mission territory, he was signalling of a change of the ages; he was recognizing that a state of affairs was coming to be in the West that had not existed since at least the fourth century, and that in certain respects had never existed at all.
A crucial aspect of the new evangelization has to do with diocesan priesthood. How is the priest of today to meet the demands of the time? He will be looking for a way of living his priesthood that would be ordered to obedience to counter the modern idol of pride; ordered to chastity to counter the eroticization of society; ordered to poverty to counter rampant greed; ordered to fraternity and common life to counter the isolation and fragmentation of life around us and to provide a witness of brotherly love; ordered to prayer to sustain a life of charity, and to austerity to maintain a life of missionary zeal; ordered to the Divine Liturgy to recapture the truths of the unseen world; ordered to effective preaching to reach hearts and minds with the Gospel; ordered to the love of Scripture and to theological study to teach the faith and to meet the intellectual challenges of a highly sophisticated age; ordered to common apostolic work to spearhead a new evangelistic mission. And running through the whole, ordered to joy: the deep joy of a life given to Christ, imitating him, configured to him in priesthood, consecrated entirely to him and to his service.
The Companions of Christ have set out to fashion such a life: diocesan priests, embracing the evangelical counsels, living together a life of prayer in fraternal friendship, hoping to build and to sustain a way of life that, by the grace of God, will lead us to fruitfulness and holiness, and eventually to the joy of sharing in Christ’s heavenly kingdom with those we have served.
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