The New Evangelization

Today is the start of the Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization. Having been to Rome a year ago this week (and going again two weeks from today!!) AND being FOCUS Missionaries where our job is to evangelize...this hits right at home!

This is the 25th Synod of Bishops and is dedicated to "The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith." Pope John Paul II wrote in his encyclical Redemptoris Missio (The Mission of Christ the Redeemer), "the moment has come to commit all of the Church's energies to a new evangelization and to the mission ad gentes. No believer in Christ, no institution of the Church can avoid this supreme duty: to proclaim Christ to all peoples." Who knew that the successor of John Paul II would make the New Evangelization the focal point of his pontificate!

The Synod is meeting in Rome from October 7-28. What is a Synod of Bishops? The term "synod" means "going forward together." As Ralph Martin of Renewal Ministries stated, "The Synod will include about 200 bishops and cardinals from around the world, some elected by their national bishops' conferences, some appointed by the Pope." In addition to the Bishops there are about 40 "experts" and 40 "auditors" who don't vote but are involved in the small group discussions and have a chance to speak.

We can see that the Holy Spirit has been at work and is continuing to work, because FOCUS started 15 years ago and is all about evangelization! Not only that...our founder, Curtis Martin, was appointed by Pope Benedict to be one of the experts or auditors and will be with the Bishops in Rome!

Okay...it gets even more exciting! Curtis Martin extended the invitation to leaders in FOCUS to join him in Rome at the end of the council for a leadership training! That means we are going, along with our teammate Stacey, to join over 50 other FOCUS Missionaries from Oct. 21-28. What a privilege it will be to be in Rome for the last week of the synod, to be fasting and praying for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit! And of course we'll take tons of pictures and blog about everything! Check out this website to read more about this amazing opportunity!

What is the New Evangelization? Evangelization refers to missionary outreach. According to John Allen Jr, who writes for the National Catholic Reporter, he quoted Croatian Archbishop Nikola Eterović, the secretary of the Synod of Bishops, who defined new evangelization by distinguishing three different kinds of missionary effort:

• evangelization as a regular activity of the church, directed at practicing Catholics;
• the mission ad gentes, meaning the first proclamation of Christ to non-Christian persons and peoples;
• "new evangelization," meaning outreach to baptized Catholics who have become distant from the faith.

 (To read more from this article, check out his link here.)

Pope Paul VI first stated "The Church exists to evangelize." In today's homily from the opening of the Synod, Pope Benedict XVI repeated those words and added, "In every time and place, evangelization always has as its starting and finishing points Jesus Christ, the Son of God." He went on to say, "The Synodal Assembly which opens today is dedicated to this new evangelization, to help these people encounter the Lord, who alone fills our existence with deep meaning and peace; and to favour the rediscovery of the faith, that source of grace which brings joy and hope to personal, family and social life."

He ended with this, which I believe is a beautiful prayer and I invite you to keep Pope Benedict, the Bishops, and all the people gathered in Rome for these three weeks in your prayers!

"Dear brothers and sisters, let us entrust the work of the Synod meeting to God, sustained by the communion of saints, invoking in particular the intercession of great evangelizers, among whom, with much affection, we ought to number Blessed Pope John Paul II, whose long pontificate was an example of the new evangelization. Let us place ourselves under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Star of the New Evangelization. With her let us invoke a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit, that from on high he may illumine the Synodal assembly and make it fruitful for the Church’s journey today, in our time. Amen." (To read the full text of Pope Benedict's homily, click here.)