The missionary call to the Church today requires a new Pentecost and the intercession of Mary the Mother of Jesus

As we approach the Millennium the urgency of evangelization, that is to say of Proclaiming the Good News of salvation, becomes more and more apparent. For the majority of people today God is "the unknown God," completely remote from their daily life. Many worship the golden calf of materialism and hedonism. "The banners of darkness are boldly unfurled" and often promiscuity and unnatural vice are portrayed as normal and even respectable.

God is left out from the decisions of governments and states. The very same politicians and statesmen who condemn the violation of human rights, themselves do not hesitate to violate the basic human right to life, with the consequent unprecedented slaughter of the unborn.

Many nations that formerly proclaimed themselves as Christian are now living in a post-Christian era. Finally, there are the vociferous dissident "theologians" who, while still claiming to be Catholic, attack the moral and doctrinal teachings of the Church—even from within. The result has been to create a situation where many have no firm guidelines to live by.

It is to this poor sin-soiled world, living in darkness and in the shadow of death that the message of the Gospel is particularly directed. "I have come not to call the just but sinners to repentance."

Man does not live by bread alone and cannot be satisfied with a higher and higher standard of living or with unlimited pleasure. On the contrary, these lead to boredom, frustration and often despair. This very dissatisfaction is providential and provides a fertile ground for evangelization.

The first point to make is that there is a serious duty for every Catholic to pass on the Gospel. Indeed, our Lord's very last words to his disciples were, "Go and preach the Gospel to all nations, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you."

When Our Lord spoke about the last judgment he identified himself with the poorest of the poor—and who could be poorer than those spiritually poor, starving and thirsty for the Gospel, who have nothing to live for; those spiritually naked, without sanctifying grace; in the prison of sin, desperately sick; those who are strangers to their Father's house. In the words of Pope Pius XII "there are none so poor and naked as those who know not God."

If we have a duty, and we have, to be concerned about the physical needs of our brethren, is there not an even greater obligation to come to the aid of their spiritual need?—to feed those spiritually hungry and thirsty with the Word of God; to clothe those spiritually naked with the wedding garment of sanctifying grace; to free those in the prison of sin, ourselves included; to welcome those who are complete strangers to the Faith into their Father's house?

In the Sermon on the Mount Our Lord said to his followers, "You are the light of the world. A city seated on a hilltop cannot be hidden." That city cannot be hidden because it reflects the light of Christ, the light that dispels the darkness of ignorance and confusion. St. Peter puts it this way: "You do well to attend to the firm prophetical word as to a lamp that shines in a dark place, until the day dawn and the morning star arise in your heart."

Faith is that firm prophetical word, because it is founded on the authority of God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. It is indeed a lamp that shines in a dark place enabling the believer to comprehend human history in the light of eternity. As the Catholic Catechism puts it, "The whole of human history is marked by the original fault of our first parents." At the same time the believer sees history touched by the redeeming cross of Christ—bathed in the light of the risen Savior.

Before Our Lord's ascension into heaven he entrusted to his disciples the mission of proclaiming the Gospel to all nations. They were not to depart from Jerusalem. but to await the coming of the Holy Spirit. "You shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the uttermost part of the earth."

Left to themselves they would never have been able to fulfil Our Lord's mission: the task would have been too great, the obstacles overwhelming. They waited in prayer, gathered in the upper room in Jerusalem, together with some holy women and Mary the Mother of Jesus. The words "and Mary the Mother of Jesus" could almost be taken as an afterthought, very similar to the words in St. Luke's Gospel about the birth of Jesus, "she laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them at the inn."

Yet these words contain a wealth of meaning. It was not just accidental that our Blessed Lady should he praying together with the infant Church, for she herself had conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. Mary, the sinless virgin, was the prototype of the Church in all its perfection. She was the Woman, prophesied after the Fall, who would crush the head of the serpent; the Woman who stood at the foot of the cross, to whom were entrusted the "banished children of Eve": "Woman, behold your son." It was Mary, filled with the Holy Spirit, who was the first evangelist, carrying in her womb the savior to her cousin Elizabeth. It was from Mary that St. John the Baptist received the good news, and leapt for joy in the womb of his mother.

Hence it was fitting that Mary should be there at Pentecost, the mother of the Church, praying for her children. She is truly called the Queen of Apostles, because just as she cared for her divine Son in his childhood, and right up to the cross on Calvary, so too she cares for his Mystical Body, as mother and queen. This means that the Church in its missionary work continues to pray "together with Mary the mother of Jesus" for the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, the disciples went forth to preach the Gospel, facing persecution and martyrdom. Our Lord had said to them, "I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and I would that it be kindled." They would kindle that fire throughout the civilized world.

The Acts of the apostles and the letters of St. Paul give us a vivid account of the spread of Christianity in the power of the Holy Spirit. The first mark of that early Church was that it was Catholic—that is to say that its mission was not just to the Jews but to all people. Furthermore, the Church continually faced persecution, particularly from the fundamentalist Jews. Hence the great number of martyrs. St. Paul himself had been a fundamentalist, "a Hebrew of the Hebrews" when, as Saul, he persecuted the early Church, and consented to the martyrdom of St. Stephen.

The figure of Christ crucified was the driving force in St. Paul's life—that figure so well described by Isaiah: "There is no beauty in him. . . despised and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with infirmity. . . surely he hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows.. . but he was wounded for our iniquities: he was bruised for our sins. . . and by his bruises we are healed."

In his preaching, St. Paul continually speaks of the crucified Savior, "The only knowledge I claimed to have among you was about Jesus Christ and him as the crucified Lord." Again, "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified to me and I to the world."

St. Paul summarizes the power of his apostolate in his words to the Corinthians: "In all things we suffer tribulations; but we are not distressed. We are straitened: but we are not destitute. We suffer persecution: but are not forsaken. We are cast down: but we perish not. Always bearing about in our body the mortification of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our bodies."

This was the power that sustained him in all his afflictions right up to the time when, as an old man condemned to death, he wrote, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course ..." Under the same condemnation he wrote about joy, when chained to a Roman jailer, knowing that soon he would be executed: "Rejoice in the Lord always: again I say rejoice for the Lord is near."

We see how Paul and all the apostles were faced with insurmountable obstacles and yet these very obstacles through the power of the Holy Spirit became the means by which the Gospel message was kindled throughout the civilized world.

The challenge facing the Church today is possibly even greater than that facing the early Church partly because many have been "vaccinated" against the Faith by a poor catechesis, which presents our Savior as a good man and nothing more. However the struggle is not only against worldly power but above all against the spirit of evil in high places. This calls for a new evangelization. Once again the Church needs to pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, "together with Mary the Mother of Jesus."

The emphasis on prayer together with Mary has already begun to take place in our own age when the Holy Father Pope John Paul II together with all the bishops consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on the Feast of the Annunciation in 1984. This must be a continual consecration of all evangelization.

As already mentioned, the duty of passing on the Faith is for all Catholics, who have the basic obligation from their baptism and confirmation to provide for the material and spiritual needs of the poor. In his Lenten message of 1998, after enumerating the various forms of material poverty and desperate need of the poor, the Holy Father reminded us that "another equally serious form of poverty exists."

It is not the lack of material means but that of spiritual nourishment, of a response to essential questions, of hope for one's own existence. This poverty touches the soul and brings about grave sufferings. The consequences of this are right before our eyes and are often very sad, a life void of meaning. This kind of misery is mostly found in environments where people live in comfort, materially satisfied but without a spiritual orientation. Christ's words in the desert confirm this: "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Matt. 4:4).

Given the urgency of evangelization, the first question that arises is the need for Catholics to be instructed in the Faith, for the simple reason that no one can pass on what he has not got. This knowledge of the Faith must not be merely academic but related to life—that is to say lived out in the daily duties of one's state, in prayer (e.g., the rosary), daily Mass if possible, and the frequent reception of the sacraments. An excellent means of deepening one's knowledge of the Faith is the study of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Here we find a summary of the Faith based on scripture, tradition, and the teaching authority of the Church as well as patrology and the writings of the saints.

The next question that must be emphasized is the need to discern the best way to evangelize in particular cases. The purpose is not to win arguments but rather to be an instrument of conversion. This always requires sacrifice and perseverance. As St. Paul put it, "I am in labor until Christ be formed in you." The children of Fatima have stressed this necessity of sacrifice and prayer for sinners.

Again, there has to be an avoidance of any aggressive evangelization, but rather respect for and courtesy towards those who differ from us. At all costs heated arguments must be avoided, as they only serve to arouse hostility and bad feeling. St. Paul's advice to Timothy is well worth taking to heart: "Insist on sound doctrine in season and out of season, in all patience." That last advice, "in all patience" is possibly the hardest to take, but it must be taken if there is to be any genuine evangelization.

Sometimes a gentle sense of humor can disarm fierce aggression. We see this in the example of some of the English martyrs who went cheerfully to their death, and sometimes joked with their executioners—for instance St. Thomas More. An example of this sense of humor in defending the Faith can be seen in the famous and holy Dominican, Father Vincent McNabb. He was continually being heckled and abused by a certain woman while he was preaching at Speakers Corner in Hyde park, London. On one occasion she cried out at him "If you were my husband I would give you a cup of poison!" to which Father McNabb replied, "Madam, if I were your husband I would take it!"

Many see in the millennium the possibility of a springtime of evangelization, even perhaps a miraculous intervention. While this may be so, the urgent cries of the spiritually poor are loud and distressing now. Our Lord's words to his disciples remind us of this: "You say there are yet four months and then the harvest comes, but I say unto you, see the countries for they are white already for the harvest." Without the knowledge of God, man is left with a philosophy of despair.

The missionary call to the Church today requires a new Pentecost and again the intercession of Mary the Mother of Jesus for the coming of the Holy Spirit. He alone can make possible that which, humanly speaking, would appear to be impossible. Perhaps the following prayer, based on the prayer for the conversion of England could well summarize the prayer of the Universal Church:

"O blessed virgin Mary, Mother of God, and our most gentle queen and mother, look down with mercy on us, poor banished children of Eve. By thee it was that Jesus our Savior and our hope was given unto the world, and He has given thee to us that we might hope still more. Plead for us thy children whom thou didst receive and accept at the foot of the cross, O sorrowful mother. Intercede for those who are searching for the truth and those starving for the word of God, that with us in the one true fold they may be united to the chief shepherd, the vicar of Thy Son. Pray for us all, dear Mother, that through faith fruitful in good works we may all deserve to see and praise God together with thee in our heavenly home. Amen."

This article first appeared in the December 1998 edition of the Homiletic and Pastoral review.

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