Trinity Sunday - 2017

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” You may have notice from time to time, while watching TV, usually a live event where a crowd is gathered, someone in the back ground holding up a sign with this written on it, just these numbers,  3:16". If you have not made the connection - it refers to this text of scripture, which is chosen as the gospel reading for this feast of the Most Holy Trinity. Clearly, someone, at a grass roots level, is taking advantage of the TV exposure to evangelize. One might wonder how effective this effort might be, but if you google just the numbers "3:16" you are taken immediately to the bible passage. No doubt there are those who consider this as an unwelcome intrusion of another's religious belief into an nonreligious public event. In other words, "... didn't ask, not interested, keep your religion to yourself". But by virtue of our baptism, we as Catholics have a mandate and responsibility to be Evangelists. Pope John Paul II, in 1983, first exhorted the Church to undertake the mission of a New Evangelization in his encyclical, Redemptoris Missio. The Holy Father, described three situations requiring three unique approaches to Evangelization: 1.       Evangelization to the nations: This is a situation where “Christ and his Gospel are not known.” 2.       Evangelization of Christian communities: This is the ongoing evangelization of those “fervent in the faith.” 3.       New Evangelization: “where entire groups of the baptized have lost a living sense of the faith, or even no longer consider themselves members of the Church, and live a life far removed from Christ and his Gospel. In this case what is needed is a ‘new evangelization’ or a ‘re-evangelization.’” The new evangelization pertains to a very specific group of people: fallen-away Christians. For most Catholics in the western world, we see the need for this type of evangelization all around us. Everyone knows someone who was once baptized but who no longer practices the faith. In 2010, Pope Emeritus Benedict established The Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization which gave direction to this mission of New Evangelization, which continues to be our calling in the church today. Matthew ends his gospel account with these words of Jesus, "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” Mtt 28:19 So just how are we to evangelize today? A couple of years ago, Archbishop Richard Smith, bishop of the diocese of Edmonton and former president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, gave a talk on the new evangelization. In his talk, Bishop Smith pointed out that by virtue of our baptism we are all commissioned to be evangelists. He then went on to explore the way evangelizing works. It has two main components, WORD and SIGN, and both are necessary together. Word alone cannot convey the full message of the Good News, because people may not take from the words we use the same meaning that we intend to communicate. Bishop Smith gave this example. ·         When we use the word joy people often hear pleasure, ·         truth is heard as opinion, (we hear a lot about “alternate facts” these days), ·         conscience is heard as feeling, (morality comes from the way you feel), ·         justice is heard as vengeance. But when our words are accompanied by a corresponding sign, gesture, personal witness, then what we mean to say is made clear. Remember, one who says one thing and does another is called a hypocrite  This was first laid out for us by St. Peter when he says, "Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence." 1Pt. 3:15. First, people must see it in your life, then your words will have a convincing sign of reference to endorse them. Everyone is entitled to their opinion these days and words are flying like a sand storm. What is lacking is signs of truth to accompany them. The true evangelist must be both sign and word.