‘What’s the news?’ ‘What’s happening?’
The above greetings of friendly enquiry are fairly typical examples of modern parlance; they express, with the informality that would not be out of place in the off-hand style of the email, a casual and undemanding interest. We would be rightly accused of being somewhat over pious in identifying such expressions as emanating from a secularised mindset. Nevertheless, if a perception of life does not embrace the One who is the News, the One whose plans and purposes are weaved into all that happens, then we exclude ourselves from making the most meaningful responses to the above questions.
What St Paul refers to as ‘God’s hidden purpose’, ‘to bring all things together under Christ in the fullness of time’ (Eph 1:9,10), is a dynamic happening which finds its focus in God’s creative dialogue with the human race, made in His image and likeness. The knowledge that we are each invited into this mysterious dialogue awakens, with each fresh appreciation, a renewed desire to be drawn more intimately into this most fundamental current of life.
And so, as people of faith, we hear the deeper questions of: ‘What is God saying?’ and, ‘What is God doing?’ These become the necessary questions which bring life and excitement to our minds and hearts; the process of evangelisation is happening in us, around us and through us, by the power of God’s Spirit.
For those of us who find our vocation in this most wonderful ministry of evangelisation it is our challenge that we be aware of what the Lord is doing in our personal lives… today, what he doing in the church… today, and what he is doing in the world… today! And God’s activity which is magnified by a generous human response, or dulled by a human indifference, is nonetheless unabated in its drive to find expression and be recognised as the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit.
So, what is the news? And what is actually happening? Unless the seed falls to the ground and dies it bears no fruit; if the seed falls to the ground and dies it bears fruit in abundance (John 12:24). Here we have a tool for discernment; the Lord is always in the process of putting to death that which has run its course, and of bringing forth new life from new creativity.
If we are able to understand ‘decline’ as a positive activity of the Lord who brings things to an end in due course, then we are immediately at an advantage when we begin our task of interpreting the ‘signs of the times’. It’s not as if we are seeking a glimpse of God’s presence amidst the chaos or the routine; the voice of the Lord is not the needle hidden in the haystack or the lone voice in the crowd. The Lord’s mighty presence dominates the perception of reality for the person of faith, and God’s work is evident in success and failure, in growth and decline, in the blossom and in the seed.
How foolish the gardener who, bemoaning the passing of summer, neglects to set about the autumnal tasks of sweeping the leaves, cleaning the machines and turning his attention to tasks of maintenance which were relegated to a forgotten ‘to-do’ list by the pressing growth of the summer months. How foolish we might be in the church if we feel that decline in numbers of priests and religious, falling Mass attendances and aging congregations can be construed only in the negative.
How else can the Lord re-direct His church if not by changing the direction of his wind and leading us to that place of confusion and crisis in which we develop an aching need to hear his voice and in repentant commitment desire to respond with renewed generosity be we given yet another second chance?
We are being invited by the Spirit in these days to pledge our allegiance to the Lord in the context of a church that is losing its institutional strength. Who could have imagined, during those heady years of the Second Vatican Council, that the church would be reeling on the back foot as we make our way into the third millennium, but more importantly who could have discerned that we were sowing so many seeds of destruction in the hey-day years of the fifties and sixties? Institutional strength has never provided the most fertile of conditions for new life; and now we are called to rediscover the life-transforming power of the gospel rather than the life-conforming power of the institution. This would not be to relativise in any way the importance of the hierarchical aspect of the church which protects our tradition and teachings.
The radicality of the newness of God’s initiatives always takes us by surprise, so much so, that we only dare to accept it on a step-by-step basis. We seem to be able to concede only to the inevitable with gloomy resignation, forgetful of a Lord whose hope for us is unbounded. However, a personal faith which is less crowd-influenced and more Jesus-focused has an exceptional quality from which the charism of evangelism can be born. Without evangelisation there is no heartbeat in the church, which means that it’s worth losing everything to produce that seed of new life.
‘What’s the news?’ ‘What’s happening?’ The Lord is at work in the world in a new way. That’s the news, and that’s what’s happening! This has been referred to in recent years as the New Evangelisation, and for twenty-five years this has been the inspiration and purpose of Sion Community. We are a community of priests and lay people, married and single, younger and older, coming together from the UK and from overseas, to share in life and mission. Supported by benefactors and friends who provide us with the encouragement and means that help us to grow, we commit ourselves to a Vatican II vision of the church which points us towards a missionary outlook in a collaborative context.
The drive towards mission and evangelisation which gives an essential identity to our lives, we then encourage as an important dimension in the lives of all Catholic parishes and communities. And it can still come as surprising, if not shocking, news to the baptised people of God that the task of the New Evangelisation begins with me and you right now!
Lord, you come to open the eyes of the blind, and to set us free from the captivities in which we find ourselves ensnared. May we have the vision and courage to hoist the sails to capture the winds of Pentecost that you may take us into the unchartered territories of freedom and new life. AMEN
Fr Gerard Kelly
April 2010