CNA\/EWTN News<\/a>).- The synod of bishops on the New Evangelization released a \u201cmessage to people of God\u201d Oct. 26, emphasizing hope in the face of an increasingly secular culture, because Christ promises salvation.<\/p>\n\tAddressed to all \u201cpeople of God,\u201d the nearly 7,000-word proclamation focused on the theme that all the problems confronting the Church throughout the world \u2013 from evil expressed in bloody persecutions to the deadening allure of Western secularism \u2013 should not cause fear, because Christ promises salvation, now and forever.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThere is no room for pessimism in the minds and hearts of those who know that their Lord has conquered death and that his Spirit works with might in history,\u201d it proclaims. \u201cThe work of the New Evangelization rests on this serene certainty.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tIn fact, the most dire spiritual assaults on faith should be seen as opportunities, it says. Even \u201cthe most bitter forms of atheism and agnosticism\u201d represent not a spiritual \u201cvoid but a longing, an expectation that awaits an adequate response.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tAt the Oct. 26 synod press briefing, one reporter asked if the synod message was too optimistic.<\/p>\n
\tCardinal-designate Luis Tagle of Manila replied, \u201cI think it is important to affirm that the Church is alive,\u201d in spite of the \u201cfear of some people about the decreased numbers of practicing Catholics \u2026 and the influence of oppressors of the Church quite increasing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tReferring to his native region of Asia, where the overall number of Christians has always been a tiny, often oppressed minority, he said that this should pose no overarching problem for the faithful.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cYou live there, you thrive there, you express your joy and your hope. You don\u2019t wait for the situation to change.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tHis fellow Synod Fathers\u2019 closing message is a ringing call to personal conversion and to bring the Gospel to others in all places and stations of life in an ever-changing world.<\/p>\n
\tThe message begins with the Gospel story about the Samaritan woman who meets Jesus at the well and is instantly transformed. This \u201cshows that whoever receives new life from encountering Jesus cannot but proclaim truth and hope to others. The sinner who was converted becomes a messenger of salvation and leads the whole city to Jesus,\u201d the document says.<\/p>\n
\tBut without inner conversion, evangelists for the faith will fall flat.<\/p>\n
\tStarting with the Synod Fathers themselves, Catholics must humbly recognize their weak and sinful natures and accept the transformative power of Christ.<\/p>\n
\tThis alone makes people worthy of his call to conversion and evangelization. Without Christ, the Christian mandate to share the message of salvation in Jesus is an impossible mission.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIf this renewal were up to us, there would be serious reasons to doubt,\u201d the Synod Fathers said. But \u201cthrough conversion\u201d and following the Lord, \u201cwe find our strength and our certainty that evil will never have the last word, whether in the Church or in history.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe message goes on to address different ways the New Evangelization can move people in all areas of life \u2013 the arts and sciences, politics, consecrated life \u2013 to accept Christ\u2019s salvation through the ministry of the Church.<\/p>\n
\tOne of the most important aspects of the New Evangelization concerns families and the young, both of which are under attack due to families falling apart and an anti-Christian culture, especially in secularized Western culture, which is being increasingly exported to the world.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cA New Evangelization is unthinkable without acknowledging a specific responsibility to proclaim the Gospel to families and to sustain them in their task of education,\u201d the message proclaims. \u201cFamily life is the first place in which the Gospel encounters the ordinary life and demonstrates its capacity to transform the fundamental conditions of existence in the horizon of love.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tIt calls for a strengthening of couples in sacramental matrimony, with a renewed emphasis on catechizing children living in a wayward culture.<\/p>\n
\tIn fact, young people are a prime focus and vehicle for the New Evangelization, the message notes.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe want our communities to harness, and not to suppress, the power of their enthusiasm; to struggle for them against the fallacies and selfish ventures of worldly powers which, to their own advantage, dissipate the energies and waste the passion of the young, taking from them every grateful memory of the past and every earnest vision of the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe message ends by calling on the Virgin Mary to guide the Church in its vocation to re-present her Son and his Church to a dark world.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cOur work \u2026 can seem like a path across the desert; we know that we must journey, taking with us what is essential: the company of Jesus, the truth of his word, the Eucharistic bread which nourishes us, the fellowship of ecclesial communion, the impetus of charity.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIt is the water of the well that makes the desert bloom. As stars shine more brightly at night in the desert, so the light of Mary, Star of the New Evangelization, brightly shines in heaven on our way. To her we confidently entrust ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Vatican City, Oct 26, 2012 \/ 12:59 pm (CNA\/EWTN News).- The synod of bishops on the New Evangelization released a “message to people of God” Oct. 26, emphasizing hope in the face of an increasingly secular culture, because Christ promises s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1031,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vatican"],"yoast_head":"\n
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