OUR EVANGELISING CHURCH - PENTECOST NOVENA SERMON 2021 (Day 8)

 

Notes taken from sermon by Rev Fr Valerian Cheong

Day 8 of Pentecost Novena 2021 (SACCRE)

- OUR EVANGELISING CHURCH

Luke 9:1-6  And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal. 3 And he said to them, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics. 4 And whatever house you enter, stay there, and from there depart. 5 And wherever they do not receive you, when you leave that town shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them.” 6 And they departed and went through the villages, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.

This Gospel passage speaks about Jesus' command to all his disciples to go out to preach the Good News.

We have a duty commanded by the Lord to go out and bear the good news.

 

Overview of the talk:

The basic question Fr prompted us to ask was --> Why should Christians engage in the work of evangelisation?

And he lead us through the teachings of the church promulgated by four key church documents on the topic of evangelisation:

• Ad Gentes
• Evangelii Nuntiandi
• Redemptorist Missio
• Dialogue & Proclamation.
  

Key points pointed out by Fr Valerian were:

1. Be visibly present: The Church must strive to be visibly present as a vital Christian community in every place where it is not yet been planted or where it is not yet been seen and it is our duty to make visible the Good News.
   
2. Bringing the presence of Christ: And we do this by bringing the presence of Christ into communities so that we can help transform the societies. 
3. Implanting the church: Evangelisation over and above the preaching of the message consists in the implantation of the church, ie we build the churches.
4. Proclaim the Good News:  We are called to do more than social work.  Proclamation is the permanent priority of mission.   We are called to bring divine hope yet be mindful of what God has already accomplished in these societies.
5. The motive of evangelisation is the call and mandate from God - that that we have a duty to continue spreading the message and the message is to produce the fruit that God wishes to bear through our ministry.
6. Ultimately, we are engage in the work of evangelisation to promote the reign of  Christ on earth, and we do this out of love for Jesus and out of love for the people so that they can have the peace, love and justice of Christ rule in their lives.
   
   
   

 

 

Fr Val introduced four important documents of the Church regarding mission/evangelisation:

(1)    Ad Gentes (1965) during Vatican II

• Speaks about the missionary activities embracing Christian witness and works of charity which lead to preaching the Gospel, gathering/assembling the people of God in prayer and forming the Christian community
• The focus is on evangelising - the implanting of church among peoples - ie when we do social work it is not just charity work but with the goal to implant the church in peoples who have not heard the Gospel and to those who have not accepted or acted on it.

 

(2)    Evangelli Nuntiandi (1975) - and Apostolic Exhortation by Pope Paul VI

• The Church's evangelisation mission must include the participation in the struggle of oppressed people
• Liberating the oppressed people involves an explicit message about peace, justice and the development of the people
• The Church links human liberation and salvation in Jesus Christ:  "Evangelisation will always contain a clear proclamation that in Jesus Christ alone, salvation is offered to all as a gift of God's grace and mercy."
• Evangelisation of cultures - we get to know the people's culture and at the same time help them to interpret though the light of the Gospel - that is evangelisation.

(3)    Redemptoris Missio (Mission of the Redeemer, 1990) - an Encyclical Letter by St John Paul II

• Introduces new aspects:
• The relationship between Church and the Kingdom of God.
  
• Broadens the evangelisation mission - proclamation of the Gospel opens the way to conversation with the aim to lead them to conversion.
• Evangelisation of culture - inculturation by which the church makes the Gospel incarnate in different cultures and leads to communities
• Recognition of inter-religion dialogue as part of the Church's evangelisation mission.  

 

(4)    Dialogue and Proclamation  (1991) - from the Pontifical Council of Inter- religious Dialogue and the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples.  

• Dialogue of Salvation - Jesus sent the disciples out to do things.  Today the church tells us to be sent out to do things, and at the same time to engage people in the mystery of salvation. This is an integration part of the Church's evangelisation mission (#38)

• Proclamation - The church's mission is to proclaim the Kingdom of God established on earth thru Jesus Christ thru his life, death and resurrection. This was God's decisive will and offer of salvation to the whole world.  So in places where proclamation is difficult (eg political, geographical etc), then the Church is already carrying out her evangelisation mission not only through her presence and witness but also through activities as work for integration human development and dialogue (eg the church engages through integral human development - schools hospitals etc)

WHAT IS THE DEFINITION OF EVANGELISATION

Evangelisation refers to the whole of the Church's missionary activities - including the proclamation of the Gospel, building communities, integral human development.

 

 

 

SOME DOCTRINAL PRINCIPLES ON EVANGELISATION

 

(1)    MAKING VISIBLE THE GOOD NEWS

• The Church must strive to be visibly present as a vital Christian community in every place where it is not yet been planted or where it is not yet been seen.

• As universal instrument of salvation, the church must strive to offer the good news of God's redeeming love to everyone who has not yet heard it.

• Ad Gentes #2 - "The pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature, since it is from the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit that she draws her origin, in accordance with the decree of God the Father.  This decree, however, flows from the "fount - like love" or charity of God the Father..."
• In Luke 4:18, Jesus says about himself: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed^, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
• Ad Gentes #1:  "Divinely sent to the nations of the world to be unto them "a universal sacrament of salvation,"(1) the Church, driven by the inner necessity of her own catholicity, and obeying the mandate of her Founder, strives ever to proclaim the Gospel to all men."

• It is our duty and our identity as Christians to make visible the Good News.   
• Are we evangelising by our very presence, in our workplaces, in our neighborhood?
• Can people tell we are Christians by the way we live and conduct ourselves and the way we interact with others? 

• The Church of earth is the sign and foretaste of the eschatological  kingdom of God.  It is the sign and instrument of the present reign of Christ, "For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet."  1 Cor 15:25 

• The essential mission of the church until the end of time is to manifest and promote the gracious reign of God in the world and the Church does this by "establishing and building up communities which make present and active within mankind the living image of the kingdom." Redemptoris Missio #19 

• The church promotes the reign of Christ by spreading through the whole world Gospel values which are an expression of the kingdom and which helps people to accept God's plan.

(2)    PRESENCE AND WITNESS

• If the church is to be influential in offering the mystery of salvation to people who have not heard the gospel, she has to be present to them through her own members who live among them. 

• This is the meaning of Christ's incarnation - when we celebrate Christmas every year, we celebrate Christ's incarnation of himself into humanity. 

•  That is the role of the Church, to incarnate ourselves, bring the presence of Christ into communities such that they too can see and experience the presence of Christ in the world.

• Ad Gentes #10:  The Church, in order to be able to offer all of them the mystery of salvation and the life brought by God, must implant herself into these groups for the same motive which led Christ to bind Himself, in virtue of His Incarnation, to certain social and cultural conditions of those human beings among whom He dwelt. 

• This is how we model ourselves after.  Eg the missionaries came and implanted and made the presence of Christ felt through the schools hospitals, social work, and helped transform the society.
  

(3)   PROCLAMATION

• Evengeli Nuntiandi 22:  Evengelistion is not complete if the name, the teaching, the life, the promises, the kingdom and the mystery of Jesus are not proclaimed. 
  

• ie, if we do not proclaim the name of Jesus Christ, all we are doing is social work.  We are called to do more than social work. 

• St John Paul II declares - proclamation is the permanent priority of mission - the church cannot elude Christ's explicit mandate nor deprive man and women of the good news of being loved and saved by God.
  

• When we do such evangelisation work, we bring along divine hope, the message that there is a destination that we are arriving to.

• Redemptoris Missio #44/Evangeli Nuntiandi #27:  Evanglisation will always contain, as a foundation, centre and summit of its dynamism, a clear proclamation that in Jesus Christ, salvation is offered to all people as a gift of God's grace and mystery.

• In the document Dialogue and Proclamation - the manner of proclamation is described, ie how to go about proclaiming:
  

• It reminded missionaries that the Holy Spirit present and active among the hearers even before the church's missionary actions come into operation - they may already be touch by the Holy Spirit in some way unknowingly through the pascal mystery of Jesus Christ.
  

•  ie, urges us to be mindful of what God has already accomplished and to learn from Jesus himself, and observing the times and seasons as prompted by the Spirit.  Dialogue and Proclamation #69
  

• Dialogue and Proclamation #69 also says Jesus only progressively revealed to his hearers the meaning of the Kingdom, God's plan of salvation realized in his own mystery. Only gradually, and with infinite care, did he unveil for them the implications of his message, his identity as the Son of God, the scandal of the Cross. Even his closest disciples, as the Gospels testify, reached full faith in their Master only through their Easter experience and the gift of the Spirit. Those who wish to become disciples of Jesus today will pass through the same process of discovery and commitment.

 

(4)    PLANTING AND BUILDING THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY

• Ad Gentes #6: "The proper purpose of this missionary activity is evangelization, and the planting of the Church among those peoples and groups where it has not yet taken root."

• Pope Paul VI emphasized: evangelisation over and above the preaching of the message consists in the implantation of the church, ie we build the churches.
  

• St JPII clarifies that he does not share this view but he agrees that the that the promotion of human value at the heart of the church -  and declares that the church serves the kingdom by both spreading Gospel values throughout the world by establishing communities and founding new particular churches.
  

• The evangelising mission is not complete when a new Christian community is established, it must continue until the new church is developed to its full maturity.
• eg in Singapore, the missionaries had not only built the church, they see that the church grows, flourishes and is able to be independent on its own.
  

• SJPII suggests that the clear sign that the new church has reached maturity is when it begins to undertake evangelizing missionary first in its own locality and spreads out elsewhere as part of the church universal mission.

 

(6)     MOTIVES FOR EVANGELISATION

• A powerful motive for evangelisation used to be that there was little hope for the salvation of people who lacked explicitly Christian faith and membership in the Church.
  

• However this view has been corrected by Vatican II which expressed a more optimistic view for the salvation of those who lack Christian faith through no fault of their own, eg in place not accessible to missionaries, or in other cases, due to political reasons.

• Dialogue and Proclamation #29 says: "it will be in the sincere practice of what is good in their own religious traditions and by following the dictates of their conscience that the members of other religions respond positively to God's invitation and receive salvation in Jesus Christ, even while they do not recognize or acknowledge him as their saviour (cf. AG 3,9,11)."
  

• So why proclaim the Gospel if the whole world can be saved by the uprightness of heart?   Is it necessary to preach the Gospel of Jesus if everybody is good?
  

• Evangelii Nuntiandi #81:  can we gain salvation if through negligence or fear or shame- what St. Paul called "blushing for the Gospel"[Rom 1:16] - or as a result of false ideas we fail to preach it? For that would be to betray the call of God, who wishes the seed to bear fruit through the voice of the ministers of the Gospel; and it will depend on us whether this grows into trees and produces its full fruit.
  

• ie, the motive for evangelisation is the call which the Church has received from God.  it is a mandate from God that we have a duty to continue spreading the message and the message is to produce the fruit that God wishes to bear through our ministry
  

• St John Paul II describes the fruit that God wishes the Church to bear as that of "announcing and inaugurating the Kingdom of God and of Christ among all peoples"

 

 

IN SUMMARY

• God is calling the church to promote the reign of Christ in the world.  

• Christ reigns not only where people know and obey him as the Lord, but also where people live according to the value of his Gospel of love and justice even without knowing him. 
  

• Missionaries can be assured they are following the call of God and working to Spread God's reign, no only by preaching the Gospel to people who have not yet heard it,and forming new Christian communities but also by their presence and witness.

• This is happening still today.  Even when the church was forced out of countries (war, political reasons), a few missionaries remain in those places, and their presence gives hope to the locals. 
• When the missionaries remain in the land,  it is called the preferential option for the poor where they put efforts to free the people from oppression and promote their human development by friendly dialogue with those of other faith, ie to engage people of othe faith.

• The church assures us that in all these work, we are following the call of god to be signs and instruments of this kingdom.

The main questions to ask now is:  

• Why should Christians engage in the work of evangelisation?
• Why should Christians be eager to promote the reign of Christ on earth?

 

The answer has to be that it is out of love -->  love of Jesus Christ, and for the people who will be graced by what his reign of love, peace and justice will bring to their lives.   The imeptus for us to spread the message is to see that the love, peace and justice of Jesus will reign in the life of people whom we encounter.