Letter to a Protestant

Dear friend,

Okay, I’m a Catholic and you’re a Protestant. I figure I’d come right out and say it, not to draw some line in the sand (goodness no) but to put into words what we both might be thinking.  “Oh, you’re one of them.” Right? Well, maybe there are a few things that you might want to know before we move on:

First, let me just say I like you. I have a smile on my face as I write. I don’t have some sort of knee-jerk reaction to you being Protestant. You are a Christian. You are my brother or sister in Christ Jesus. You are my friend and Jesus told us that there is no greater love than to give up one’s life for a friend. So we can start off on a very positive note.

I am so happy that you have let Christ into your life, that you have found your greatest love and deepest identity in him. Me too. I love it that your ultimate horizon is not worldly fame, financial fortunes or earthly possessions, as tempting as those things are in the world. No matter how many trophies we might accumulate, nothing satisfies. Only Jesus. You know that because I see it in you. After all, you live your life in the imitation of the suffering Servant, the lowly One, the Christ, and I love that about you. I honor and respect that so much.

You see, when you say that you are a Protestant, I know that you and I are so very close already. We have a bond in Christ that goes so deep. It's like we're family, perhaps closer than our own flesh and blood. We are the body of Christ. Together, we operate as Christ’s hands and feet in the world today. When it comes right down to it, I need you. Perhaps you sense that you need me too. We both probably sense that if  the world is gonna know Jesus as Lord, we're gonna need to work together. I want that. I know you do too.

Isn’t it wonderful to love Jesus, by the way? Isn’t it liberating to place your trust, not in an ideology or even a set of doctrines, but in a Person?  Pope John Paul II once said, “We are not saved by a formula but by a Person.” Of course he's talking about Jesus. This has always made a great impression on me. Earlier in my faith journey I was very concerned with being right. I just thought that's what you do. But most of the time it only fed my pride and left me at odds with others. I’m sorry about that. Now don't get me wrong, I continue to be a rather insatiable student of history and theology, but I think about it more in terms of right relationship than anything else – being in loving relationship with God, with others, and with the world in which I live and move. Jesus is such a good model for this.

Speaking of popes, I love our current pope. But I wanted you to know that he isn’t Jesus. Now I know you know this but you might be a little unsure of where I'm coming from. Gosh, we Catholics have made this so confusing for you! I’m sorry about that too. Now I believe Pope Francis is a holy and humble man, but I never get that confused with the Savior. What I find so inspiring about Francis is that he is a man of the Word, he walks what he talks, and he lives what he preaches. Our local bishop recently put it this way as he was ordaining priests, and I thought it was worth sharing: “Believe what you read (in the Bible); preach what you believe; and practice what you preach.” Boy, if we could all do that we’d be in pretty good shape!

I’ve heard many of my Protestant friends say lately that they are inspired by the pope. Francis’ simplicity and commitment to the common people, especially the poor, is just so powerful. Personally, he is a great challenge to me.  He shows me I've got a long way to go to be like Jesus! But the pope isn’t God, let's be clear. I do not worship him or pray to him. I don’t believe (nor does the Catholic Church) that everything he says is gospel truth. He is a follower of Christ, in need of a Savior, indebted to God’s grace, just like you and me. I’m sure he’d be the first to tell you that.

I don’t know if you usually associate this with Catholics but I do pray. And I’m not even talking about Hail May’s and Our Father’s (as wonderful as those prayers are). When I pray I simply talk to God and God talks to me. Matter of fact, the more I pray the more I’m inclined to button my lip and just listen! Surely God has a lot more important things to say to me.

I’d have to say that after nearly 20 years of being an intentional disciple of the Lord, my personal relationship with God is most shaped by reading the Bible and praying every day. Just like you, I thank God and praise him when I pray. I ask God to purify me from sin and fill me with the Holy Spirit. I accept Christ’s lordship in my life and invite him to change me any way he wants. I ask God to make me an instrument of his grace, truth, forgiveness and justice. I beg God to fill me with his love so that I can love others the way Jesus loves us. And I ask God to use me to draw others into a loving, growing relationship with Christ. I ask God to help me to be a good husband to my wife, a good father to my kids, and a good neighbor to my, well neighbors. Just writing about prayer now reminds me how little it helps to talk about prayer and how important it is just to pray.  So I’m going to pray for you now. I hope you’ll pray for me.

There are many things that I was planning to write to you about – Mary, the saints, sacraments, salvation, the Trinity – but for some reason it just doesn’t feel right. Perhaps we’ll get to that stuff on down the road, but I guess the most important thing is to get to know each other first. It seems like the more I get to know people, even people who I think are very different from me, the more I find that we’re more alike than anything. I get the sense sometimes from God, ya know those times when you’re deep in prayer, that we’re all really united already, we just don’t know it. And if we don’t know we’re part of the same body, it’s hard to act like it. But I hope we can change that – one person, one heart (and perhaps one letter) at a time.

I would love it if you’d write me back. I am so interested in your faith, your life, and your story with Jesus. I have a lot to learn from you. And I have a feeling we could become good friends. Thank you, truly, and God bless you.

Yours faithfully in Christ,

Michael

The "Missional Moment": Young Life & The Catholic Church

Last week I was able to speak to Young Life area directors from across the country about the exciting “missional moment” that we’re currently experiencing.  More than ever, Young Life is dedicated to a strategy of evangelization that is sensitive to Catholics.  We need to help Catholic kids be the best Catholics they can be, calling them into the highest ideals of Catholicism (see my last post on “Evangelical Catholicism”) and welcoming the manifold gifts the Catholic tradition offers.  In addition, we need to partner with Catholic parishes, parents, priests, schools, colleges and social service agencies to ensure that “even kid, everywhere” has the opportunity to know Jesus Christ and follow him.

On the other side of the coin, this “missional moment” is seeing an incredible openness of the Catholic Church to embrace the very things that Young Life is so good at.  The “new evangelization” has been proclaimed as the central strategy of the Catholic Church for engaging the world in the 21^st century and beyond.  Going where people are, earning the right to be heard, proclaiming the truth in love, new methods, a new ardor – these are all things that the Catholic Church is talking about right now, with great fervor. 

Cardinal Donald Wuerl of the archdiocese of Washington, D.C. recently noted that the Catholic Church is in a position similar to that of the early church.  The rise of secularism means that modern disciples “bring the experience of the risen Lord to a world that simply doesn’t know what they are talking about. . . It’s introducing the experience of a relationship with God to people who are so absorbed in this secular culture that their horizon doesn’t reach that high.”[1]

What prelates like Wuerl and practitioners like Sherry Weddell have been calling for is a return to what is called the kerygma.  Kerygma is a Greek term that refers to the primary proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  The kerygma is sharing Christ and inviting people to respond.  The first disciples preached the kerygma and the world is in need of the kerygma again.  Cardinal Wuerl continues:

Engaging secularism is going to be the major challenge. I think that is going to mean a return to a very basic kerygma. We sometimes get so caught up in one or another aspect of the teaching, we forget that if a person hasn’t been introduced to Christ, if a person hasn’t embraced the risen Lord and the church that’s an expression of that experience, what we’re saying just sounds like a bunch of rules or negative statements limiting their personal freedom. We have to get back to that core kerygma.[2]

The wonder of this “missional moment” is that the stated needs of the Catholic Church are precisely what Young Life is doing every day.  With great success around the world, Young Life leaders are proclaiming the kerygma of Jesus Christ in ways that counter the secularism of our age and transform lives, one relationship at a time.  This is simply what we do.  We’re good at it and we are primed to share it with the Church and the world over.  Just imagine the impact of 1.2 billion Catholics on earth, energized by the “new evangelization” and a fresh kerygmatic proclamation of Jesus Christ!  The impact would be colossal, world-changing, kingdom-building. 

Are you ready to embrace this “missional moment”? 

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[1]             John L. Allen, Dennis Coday and Joshua J. McElwee, “Wuerl: ‘Teach truth from the pulpit, then meet people where they are’,” The National Catholic Reporter, Feb 26, 2013 accessed 2/26/13 at: http://ncronline.org/node/46101.

[2]             Ibid.

Christ Our Foundation

It is hardly imaginable for me to speak about anything else this week but the surprising announcement that Pope Benedict XVI will be resigning at the end of the month.  He literally gave his two weeks notice.  People have responded in wildly different ways, of course, but the key element in this news has been surprise.

No one was perhaps more surprised than Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria (see video below).  He was sitting in the consistory meeting of bishops where the pontiff first broke the news.  Arinze is a fascinating character.  Born in Nigeria, Arinze was converted to Christ from African tribal religion at the age of nine.  He entered the seminary at age 15.  He became a priest and later graduated summa cum laude with a doctorate in sacred theology from Rome.  At age 32, he became the youngest bishop ever ordained in the Catholic Church. 

Perhaps even more fascinating is that Arinze could very well be the next pope.  There are no guarantees with this sort of thing, yet many Vatican insiders suggest Arinze is a frontrunner.  No matter who appears in St. Peter’s Square as the next successor to St. Peter, I found Arinze’s reaction to Pope Benedict’s announcement to be among the most beautiful and grounded:

Some people may be so shaken [by the news of the pope’s resignation].  But my hope and prayer is that it will help many to become more mature in their faith.  Our faith is not on the pope.  It is on Christ who is the foundation of the Church.  Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.  We all are servants.  We come and go.  Christ doesn’t come and go.  He stays.[1]

As we enter into the season of Lent, the ashes on our foreheads (today is Ash Wednesday) remind us that “dust you are and to dust you will return”(Gen 3:19).  Our lives are like grass, flourishing one day and gone the next (Ps 103:15-16).  Yet our common faith is not ultimately in priests or pastors, Young Life leaders or youth directors (however great they may be).  Cardinal Arinze reminds us that our foundation is not even the pope.  The hope that binds us all is in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who is the same yesterday, today and forever.  In this we stand united.  In this the Good News is proclaimed.  In this God’s reign will endure forever.

The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart.

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Romans 10:8,13

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[1]             Cardinal Arinze’s comments were taken from an interview conducted by Francis X. Rocca of the Catholic News Service on February 12, 2013.  

The Whole Christ

St. Augustine is hailed by both Protestants and Catholics as one of the greatest and most consequential fathers of the early church.  His struggles with sin and eventual conversion to Christ, cited in his great autobiographical work, The Confessions, is as powerful today as it was in the summer of 386.[1]  When reading Augustine, we often find him embroiled in some of the great theological debates of his time – against the Arians, the Donatists, the Manichaeans, the Pelagians. 

When we read his sermons, however, we see an altogether different side of Augustine, more personal, more psychological.  Scholars encourage us to pay close attention to the preaching of Augustine because there “we come to listen to the voice of his soul.”[2]  So if St. Augustine preached a message and reiterated it tirelessly would you listen to it?

In his sermons we find Augustine proclaiming a particular message over and over again – the idea of the “Whole Christ.”

All men are one man in Christ, and the unity of Christians constitutes but one man.  Let us rejoice and give thanks.  Not only are we to become Christians, but we are to become Christ.  My brothers, do you understand the grace of God that is given us?  Wonder, rejoice, for we are Christ!  If He is the Head, and we are the members, then together He and we are the whole man.

When by faith Christ begins to abide in the inner man, and when by prayer He takes possession of the faithful soul, He becomes the whole Christ, Head and body, and of the many He becomes one.[3]

Augustine stresses the point that we together, all baptized followers of Jesus, brought together under one Head, we are the whole Christ.  The whole Christ is not the Savior alone but the Head plus the members, Christ united with the Church, all gathered together in unity – one soul, one man, one person, one Christ.  Thus Augustine built on the foundation of St. Paul (1 Cor 12) and elaborated on the doctrine commonly called the “Mystical Body of Christ.”  And what did Augustine make of the divisions, the biases, and the slander of the early church?

When the Head and the members are despised, then the Whole Christ is despised, for the Whole Christ, Head and body is that just man against whom deceitful lips speak.[4]

Think about it.  Pause for a moment and reflect.  What does this mean for us as Protestants and Catholics today?  What does it mean for Young Life leaders ministering to Protestant kids and Catholic kids?  What does it mean for us to consider the many members of the one body?  What does it mean for us to truly embrace the whole Christ?

Now the body is not made up of one part but of many.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!”

And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!”

Now you are the body of Christ,

and each one of you is a part of it.[5]

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[1]             The famous account of Augustine’s conversion can be found in The Confessions, Book VIII.

[2]             Emile Mersch, The Whole Christ: The Historical Development of the Doctrine of the Mystical Body in Scripture and Tradition, Eugene, OR: WIPF & Stock Publishers, 2011, 413.

[3]             Augustine of Hippo, In Ps. 39, enarratio 2a, P. L., Vol. 36, 219; In Ps. 127, P. L., Vol. 37, 1686; In Ps. 90, sermo 2, P. L., Vol. 37, 1159.

[4]             Augustine of Hippo, In Joh., 21, P. L., Vol. 35, 1568.

[5]             1 Cor 12: 14, 21, 27.

What Does the Catholic Church Have To Offer Young Life?

Last week I spoke about the “ecumenical gift exchange,” the idea that God calls every member of the body of Christ to share their gifts at the common table of the world’s needs.  We need each other if we are going to provide a compelling witness to the world today.  Another way to put it is that we are “mutually impoverished” when we fail to recognize and actively partner with other members of the body.  I made the suggestion that there is a “YL-sized hole in the Catholic Church,” that the Church would be strengthened by the gifts that Young Life has to offer.  The dynamism of Young Life’s initial proclamation of the gospel to kids (the kerygma), the call to true conversion and the commitment to ongoing discipleship is precisely what the Catholic Church struggles with, according to recent research.[1] 

So it may be clear what Young Life might offer the Catholic Church in this exchange, but what do you think the Catholic Church has to offer Young Life?  This was the question posed by one of my readers who directs the office of youth ministry at a prominent metropolitan diocese in the U.S.  What do Catholics, and the long-standing religious tradition that has formed them, have to give Young Life leaders?  I could not be more excited to answer this question.  Clearly, both Young Life and the Catholic Church have something to give and receive.  By no means does Young Life see itself as the solitary antidote for the Church’s ills.  Matter of fact, I would argue that Young Life has much more to gain in the ecumenical gift exchange.

The Catholic tradition represents a veritable treasure trove of theological reflection and spiritual wisdom. Its sacramental worldview, its reconciliation of faith and reason and its commitment to justice are but a few of the gifts which our Protestant brothers and sisters would be blessed to receive and explore. Many of my Protestant friends are elated to discover the lives and teachings of Catholics who they’ve never heard of but nonetheless inspire their faith – Francis de Sales, Therese of Lisieux, Charles de Foucauld, Yves Congar, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and countless others.

Beyond its rich intellectual tradition, the Catholic Church also has an immense deposit of pastoral gifts to offer Young Life’s leaders as they pursue “every kid, everywhere.”  With over one billion Catholics worldwide, there is no bigger body of believers to welcome and support Young Life staff wherever they may find themselves. The depth of its liturgy and the intimacy of the Eucharist offers real nourishment for those who draw near. Lectio divina, the liturgy of the hours and Eucharistic adoration are incredible ways to strengthen our relationship with God and others. The Catholic Church has much to give to the mission of Young Life.

“The moment has come,” Pope John Paul II said, "for the entire body of Christ to commit to evangelization.”[2] A dynamic partnership between Young Life and the Catholic Church not only represents a significant step toward fulfilling the Great Commission, but it also has the potential to showcase the depth, beauty and sophistication of the Catholic tradition to those outside her communion. While Young Life has the potential to help reanimate the core of the Christian faith for millions of Catholics around the world, non-Catholics within Young Life might also uncover the incredible depth of spiritual wisdom and blessing as they build relationships with their Catholic friends.

Are we, as Catholics, ready to offer our gifts at the table of kids' needs?  Are we ready to enter the great ecumenical gift exchange?

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[1]             See Pew Research Center, “’Nones’ on the Rise: One in Five Adults Have No Religious Affiliation,” The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, Oct 9, 2012; Pew Research Center, “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey,” The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, Feb 2008; and Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), “Sacraments Today: Belief and Practice among U.S. Catholics,” CARA, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., cara.georgetown.edu/sacraments.html (accessed October 25, 2012).

[2]             Pope John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio (Mission of the Redeemer), 3.

A YL-Sized Hole in the Church?

Young Life leaders are fond of saying to kids, “There is a God-sized hole in your heart,” meaning that human beings were made to have God at the center of our lives.  St. Augustine said this in another way late in the fourth century, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”[1]  However and whomever says it, we all understand the basic wisdom here.  There is an inherent reciprocity between us and God.  We were made for relationship and things are going to be not quite right until we come together as we were designed. 

The same could be said for the Church.  Paul talks about the Church as one body with many parts, each made perfectly to operate in relationship with the other parts.  Even those parts we think are less important are actually, in truth, “indispensable” and worthy of special attention.[2]  The point is that no part is disposable, each plays a crucial part in the body of Christ.

Could it be that Young Life and the Catholic Church were made for one another?  Is it possible that at this point in history, the Catholic Church needs something that Young Life is uniquely (but certainly not solely) equipped to offer?  Recent research suggests this is so.  According to the Pew U.S. Religious Landscape Survey of 2008, only 30% of Americans who were raised Catholic still practice their faith today.[3]  Less than 20% of U.S. Catholics attend Mass each week.[4]  Nearly four times as many adults have left the Catholic Church as have entered it, most by the age of eighteen.

What is interesting about this data is the reason why Catholics are leaving the Church.  It is not because of controversial issues like abortion, birth control and same-sex marriage.  It is not because Catholics, by in large, take issue with Church teaching.  The CARA report reveals that our Catholic brothers and sisters are “simply drifting away from the Church.”[5]  Their spiritual needs are not being met.  Sherry Weddell of the Catherine of Sienna Institute notes that “the majority of Catholics in the United States are sacramentalized but not evangelized,” meaning they have not been called into an explicit personal, growing relationship with Christ.[6]

Young Life’s unique mission is to call adolescents into a personal relationship with Christ and help them grow in their faith.  In other words, it is uniquely equipped to evangelize and disciple.  Young Life’s bread and butter is reading the signs of the times, building real relationships, earning the right to be heard and calling kids to a life-changing, ever-growing relationship with God.  It excels at the very things the Church is struggling with.

Could it be that God is calling us into relationship?  Has the Lord set the stage for an ecumenical gift exchange where each part of the body of Christ contributes toward the common good?  I pray that we might have eyes to see and ears to hear.

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[1]             St. Augustine, Confessions, I, 1.

[2]             1 Cor 12:22-23.

[3]             Pew Research Center, “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey,” The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, Feb 2008.

[4]             Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), “Sacraments Today: Belief and Practice among U.S. Catholics,” CARA, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., cara.georgetown.edu/sacraments.html (accessed October 25, 2012).

[5]             Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, Disciples Called to Witness: The New Evangelization, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, D.C., 2012.

[6]             Sherry A. Weddell, Forming Intentional Disciples: The Path to Knowing and Following Jesus, Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, 2012, 46.

"Luther's Unfinished Reformation": What Protestants (and Catholics) Should Know about Vatican II

This year, 2012, marks the 50^th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, otherwise known as Vatican II.  While most Catholics are intimately familiar with this groundbreaking event (as it radically changed the way Catholics worship), many Protestants are left wondering, “What is this Vatican II that I’m always hearing about?  And why does it matter to me?” 

When Pope John XXIII called the council only ninety days into his pontificate, nobody could anticipate the colossal legacy of renewal and reform that would be inaugurated by the Second Vatican Council.  The son of Italian peasants, the lovable Pope John was famously asked why he called the council.  It is reported that “Good Pope John” opened a window and said, “I want to throw open the windows of the Church so that we can see out and the people can see in.”

This symbolic act would characterize the great aggiornamento (or “updating”) that the Catholic Church would welcome as a product of the four-year deliberations of Vatican II between 1962 and 1965.  In the four hundred years since the beginning of the Reformation, the Catholic Church’s posture to both Protestants and the modern world at large was primarily closed, defensive and triumphalistic.  As the humble servant of the servants of God, Pope John XXIII effectively flung open the arms of the Church to embrace and illuminate the world as the “city on a hill” Christ called her to be.[1]

What is an “ecumenical council” anyway?

To provide a little background, Vatican II was the 21^st ecumenical council of the Catholic Church.  These historical councils have been called throughout the history of the church to settle theological disputes, define Christian doctrine and promote the effective promulgation of the gospel throughout the known world (the word ecumenical comes from the Greek word oikoumene which means “the inhabited world”). 

Interestingly, the precedent for ecumenical councils comes from the Bible.  More specifically their model draws from the fifteenth chapter of Acts of the Apostles where Peter, Paul, Barnabas and a whole host of elders and apostles proclaimed the true gospel at the Council of Jerusalem.[2]  Here the early church, as a forerunner to the twenty-one ecumenical councils that would follow to date, gathered to challenge unorthodox teaching (in this case the obligation to follow Mosaic law as Christians) and to proclaim that “we believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved.”[3] 

These biblically based councils have been convened throughout history to adjudicate some of the most intense disputes and define some of the most critical formulations of Christian theology.  The first official ecumenical council, the Council of Nicaea (325 A.D.), condemned Arianism, which had denied that Jesus was fully God.  The Council of Ephesus (431 A.D.) repudiated Pelagius and his contention that humanity could overcome sin without God’s help.  At the Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D.) the Nestorian heresy was finally condemned.  These ecumenical councils, particularly the first seven, are accepted by both Protestants and Catholics as the authoritative debates which established the essential doctrinal backbone for Christianity.

Vatican II & the Reformation

Avery Dulles, American theologian, Jesuit scholar and Cardinal of the Catholic Church, described Vatican II as “Luther’s Unfinished Reformation.”[4]  Of all the things that could be said about Vatican II, a crucial point of interest for those seeking unity within the body of Christ is that the Second Vatican Council can be understood as a long-awaited acknowledgment of some of Martin Luther’s concerns and an answer to his original desire to reform, not separate from, the Catholic Church.  Marquette University historical theologian Patrick Casey noted that “Luther had emphasized the Bible as more important than Aristotle, the need for a vernacular liturgy, the restoration of the role of the laity, a ministerial clergy, and better preaching – values that had sustained Protestantism throughout the centuries and values that Vatican II was now reasserting.”[5]

It would seem that Luther’s Reformation represents one chapter of an ongoing process of reform and renewal that can be witnessed in historic events like Vatican II.[6]   We, the church, are ever in need of continual reformation in the light of Christ and the restoration of unity among Christians is one of our highest callings.  We still have a road to travel before we arrive at total reunification.  It would be unwise to simply overlook those issues that still divide us.  Yet the openness, honest dialogue, and prayerful humility of the Second Vatican Council are models for us all as we hope for unity under “one Lord, one faith, and one baptism.”[7]  May we continue to open the windows of our hearts to let the fresh winds of the Holy Spirit breathe new streams of aggiornamento into the church today. 

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[1]             Mt 5:14.

[2]             Acts 15:1-35.  Some scholars also believe that the Council of Jerusalem was documented by the apostle Paul in Galatians 2:1-10.

[3]             Acts 15:11.

[4]             Patrick W. Carey, Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ: A Model Theologian, NY: Paulist Press, 2010, p.159.

[5]             Ibid.

[6]             Originally drawn from a sermon delivered by Avery Dulles entitled “Luther’s Unfinished Reformation,” this thesis was later published in the periodical Catholic Mind, issue 63 (April 1965), pp.32-35, quotation on 35.

[7]             Eph 4:5.

Evangelization: A Hot Topic for the Church Worldwide

Something epic is happening as we speak.  Many around the world don’t know it but on the 50^th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, the Church has convened, for only the 13^th time in history, a general assembly of the Synod of Bishops.  Over the next three weeks, the global gathering of bishops will discus what it sees as the most pressing issue facing the Church today.  What is it?  Evangelization.

“The Church is essentially missionary, and offers a revelation of the face of God in Jesus Christ, who assumed a human face and loved us to the end,” declared the Lineamenta, a preparatory guide or outline for the synod.  “Yet we are living in a particularly significant, historic moment of change, of tension and of a loss of equilibrium . . . The situation is requiring the Church to consider, in an entirely new way, how she proclaims the faith.” 

This is the call of the new evangelization.  This is precisely what Young Life leaders are doing when they immerse themselves into the lives of kids and come up with fresh and innovative ways to celebrate the message and Person of Jesus Christ.  Always with an eye on their audience, always reading the “signs of the times,” Young Life leaders bring a revitalizing energy to the church’s universal mission to proclaim the gospel to all peoples. 

I eagerly await the apostolic exhortation that will follow the synod and shed light on the direction the Church is taking to fulfill its evangelizing mission amidst the complex demands of a postmodern world.  Young Life leaders may be blessed to follow the dialogue as it unfolds from the Vatican.  John Allen, acclaimed American journalist and senior correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, is often featured on CNN and NPR.  Check out his latest update from this historic event and the global discussion on a topic near and dear to all of our hearts – evangelization.

http://ncronline.org/node/36796