Evangelisation is the spreading of the teachings of Jesus OUTSIDE the Church.
"All authority is given to me in heaven and on earth, go therefore to all nations baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and TEACHING THE TO OBSERVE all I have commanded you....."
For two thousand years the bringing of the Gospel into the world (the teachings of Christ) has been known as EVANGELISATION. And it was not just by preaching the Word but also by living the Word. People could look at the Catholic Church and see how the values given to it by Christ contradicted the values of the world. People like St Augustine were impressed by the faithfulness of young people to chastity before marriage, to faithfulness within marriage, and the example set by parents to children and the love shown by parents to children. There was very little divorce and remarriage for that was the values the world taught. He did not see just loving communities, or people of Faith, but people who followed the teachings of He whom they professed to follow. It was being faithful to the teachings of Christ that formed the framework in which evangelisation could take place.
Along the way the Church has lost its evangelical spirit. Priests are teaching their communities to ignore Jesus if it is too hard to follow him. As long as you say you love Jesus it is nice and comforting to assume you are following your conscience and he understands. Jesus never in his preachings mentioned conscience for conscience is a dangerous idea that sin has no consequences. I was hearing about a mother who was helping her divorced daughter through an examination of conscience when she was about to marry outside the Church. The Mother told her daughter "Do you realise that if you do so you will not be able to receive Holy Communion" "That cannot be true Mum for my friends Mum has divorced and remarried and she goes to Communion, and so does Mrs Brown and others" Of course her friends Mum and Mrs Brown and others believe that what they do does not affect others, but it does, and it certainly does not give the impression of a Church dedicated to the following of Jesus, nor a Church where evangelisation is taken seriously. But along with the misrepresentation of the word Evangelisation there is also the misrepresentation of the word 'Ecumenism'. Many coming into the Church have been taught the Church no longer holds to its doctrine of infallibility. This was based on a statement in Vatican II which had been awkwardly translated but said nevertheless ".. in so far as other Christians hold the truths taught by the Catholic Church they are in an incomplete union with the Catholic Church..." Because infallibility was seen as 'triumphalism' rather than truth this phrase was dishonestly translated as "We are all one Christian Church and nobody has a monopoly of truth. I use the word dishonestly because the conclusion is so erroneous it beggars belief. But then nobody was concerned with truth anymore since they had a new meaning of the word 'love' in which faithfulness had been excluded.
Having left truth behind the Catholic Church in England and Wales then began to find other ways of justifying their existence. They began to close in on themselves and what you did in the Church for the Church Community became the measure of your Catholicism. It was far from the Evangelisation taught by Jesus and experienced by Augustine. The Church building the Kingdom in the World became the World building its Kingdom in the Church as the teachings of Christ became just 'rules and abstract principles' Yet as I have shown in previous blogs there are a lot of people out there waiting for the Good News Children go to Catholic Schools and do not receive his teachings. They are not prepared for marriage by chastity teachings, which the world of course sneers at and since the world is in the Church it is sneered at there also. The excusing of sin has led to a denial of the sacred and the Mass and Holy Communion has lost its appeal to the young, indeed if all we have to do is give to the poor it is logical that we do not need a Church for that.
For two thousand years the bringing of the Gospel into the world (the teachings of Christ) has been known as EVANGELISATION. And it was not just by preaching the Word but also by living the Word. People could look at the Catholic Church and see how the values given to it by Christ contradicted the values of the world. People like St Augustine were impressed by the faithfulness of young people to chastity before marriage, to faithfulness within marriage, and the example set by parents to children and the love shown by parents to children. There was very little divorce and remarriage for that was the values the world taught. He did not see just loving communities, or people of Faith, but people who followed the teachings of He whom they professed to follow. It was being faithful to the teachings of Christ that formed the framework in which evangelisation could take place.
Along the way the Church has lost its evangelical spirit. Priests are teaching their communities to ignore Jesus if it is too hard to follow him. As long as you say you love Jesus it is nice and comforting to assume you are following your conscience and he understands. Jesus never in his preachings mentioned conscience for conscience is a dangerous idea that sin has no consequences. I was hearing about a mother who was helping her divorced daughter through an examination of conscience when she was about to marry outside the Church. The Mother told her daughter "Do you realise that if you do so you will not be able to receive Holy Communion" "That cannot be true Mum for my friends Mum has divorced and remarried and she goes to Communion, and so does Mrs Brown and others" Of course her friends Mum and Mrs Brown and others believe that what they do does not affect others, but it does, and it certainly does not give the impression of a Church dedicated to the following of Jesus, nor a Church where evangelisation is taken seriously. But along with the misrepresentation of the word Evangelisation there is also the misrepresentation of the word 'Ecumenism'. Many coming into the Church have been taught the Church no longer holds to its doctrine of infallibility. This was based on a statement in Vatican II which had been awkwardly translated but said nevertheless ".. in so far as other Christians hold the truths taught by the Catholic Church they are in an incomplete union with the Catholic Church..." Because infallibility was seen as 'triumphalism' rather than truth this phrase was dishonestly translated as "We are all one Christian Church and nobody has a monopoly of truth. I use the word dishonestly because the conclusion is so erroneous it beggars belief. But then nobody was concerned with truth anymore since they had a new meaning of the word 'love' in which faithfulness had been excluded.
Having left truth behind the Catholic Church in England and Wales then began to find other ways of justifying their existence. They began to close in on themselves and what you did in the Church for the Church Community became the measure of your Catholicism. It was far from the Evangelisation taught by Jesus and experienced by Augustine. The Church building the Kingdom in the World became the World building its Kingdom in the Church as the teachings of Christ became just 'rules and abstract principles' Yet as I have shown in previous blogs there are a lot of people out there waiting for the Good News Children go to Catholic Schools and do not receive his teachings. They are not prepared for marriage by chastity teachings, which the world of course sneers at and since the world is in the Church it is sneered at there also. The excusing of sin has led to a denial of the sacred and the Mass and Holy Communion has lost its appeal to the young, indeed if all we have to do is give to the poor it is logical that we do not need a Church for that.
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