On the New Evangelization

I can get behind this:

At the same time, he explained, the New Evangelization “is not about a new message different from the one of the past, as we preach the same Jesus Christ yesterday, today and forever. What is new is found in the heart of the one who proclaims the Gospel.”

“This person must be someone who is totally in love with the Lord, with somebody who has satiated his thirst with the Word of Christ,” he said, underscoring that the New Evangelization should be new in its ardor, in its methods and in its expression.

Archbishop Ruiz Arenas then listed a series of requirements for undertaking this task. The first, he said, is to “give primacy to grace,” as John Paul II taught. “We must be aware that it is the Holy Spirit that works in the Church. We must not fall into the temptation to think that it is our works or our plans that lead to results and to conversion,” he explained.

The second is “to live as an authentic missionary disciple. Discipleship is a reality that cannot be lived in an isolated, individual way, but, rather, it must be lived in community. The Lord went about choosing and calling his disciples. Today, he calls each one of us as well and gives us a mission.

“We must live the joy of feeling that we are called and loved by the Lord,” he continued.

The third requirement is to show great generosity, while the fourth is that all the activity of the Church must be an expression of love and service in search of the comprehensive well-being of the human person. This love and service speaks for itself and constitutes a form of evangelization. “By our words, our silence and our example, we make what we proclaim and celebrate believable,” the archbishop said.

The fifth requirement is that prayer be at the foundation of everything that we do: “We live in a world of continual agitation and movement, which translates into activism that runs of risk of ‘doing for the sake of doing.’”

The sixth requirement is the centrality of the Eucharist, “which contains in itself the very nucleus of the mystery of the Church and constitutes the source and summit of the entire Christian life. The mystery of the faith is celebrated in it with joy, as it makes present the central event of our salvation and brings about the work of our redemption, making the redeeming sacrifice of Christ ever present in our time,” the archbishop said.

The seventh requirement is continual reading of the word of God. “We urgently need to trust in the sacred Scriptures and be familiar with them, so that they will be the compass that guides our path,” he said, recommending the prayerful reading of the Bible through lectio divina.

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/benedict-xvi-and-john-paul-iis-tips-for-new-evangelization/#ixzz1cPNMsiOB