Today
there are some perplexity about the ways of the announcement and in the
paths of evangelization, since it is to set a "new pastoral" in a
traditional tissue of the Church. If you return to the theme is because
the pastoral translation of "directions of the Church" is hard to be
implemented in the parish communities.
Within this short space you can not make speculations. I do it for
granted that today it is necessary to invent a new way of proclaiming
the Gospel of Jesus. Therefore I will briefly analyze some of the
criteria for the effectiveness of the mission of the Church in today's
history. It should start from the fact that the announcement has its
"historic" connotation, because it is located in the bends of everyday
life (culture as a way of life) and this operation requires at least two
preliminary checkings:
- to examine the way of life of our people for Christian life
(what they think and live of it, "in a post-Christian culture");
- to check out our ecclesial language that is very far from
understanding what common. Consequently, it is important to be aware
that you can not continue to manage the life of the Church as if "the
world has not changed".
Distances between Gospel and culture
How to eliminate the distance between the Gospel of always and
culture of today? Already Paul VI had warned us that "the drama of our
time is the separation of the Gospel from culture" (Evangelii
nuntiandi n. 18). After more than forty years this separation is a
lot pronounced. If culture is something,so man becomes more
human, whether it is that spiritual atmosphere in which the person lives
and performs his activities, it must become clear to pastoral leaders
that our spiritual health depends greatly on the quality of the cultural
air that we breathe. One must ask: What gulps of fresh air enters the
pastoral community in his own environment, to the point to "connect
faith to life"?
The evangelization of culture is intended to ensure that the Gospel
permeate the concrete reality of people's lives. "The ministry should
take up the task of shaping a Christian mentality in everyday life" (Ecclesia
in Europa, 58). This is not to proselytize or to convince with
compelling reasons or pleasant occasional initiatives. We need a stable
system that shows the transition from a state of Christianity to a state
of mission, because "the world has changed" (cf. CEI, Il volto
missionario delle parrocchie in un mondo che cambia (30 May
2004).
Then it is necessary that the proclamation, to enter in the heart
of the cultures, must be preceded by a preparation of the soil:
listening to human and real problems, reflection on
the
same as ever values, even if combined with the actual mindset. It is to
enter together in this kind of new life vision. If the fundamental
problem of our people is the "indifference" towards the Gospel, the
first and indispensable pastoral task becomes to attract attention,
arouse interest, studying and inventing concrete anchor points where to
dock the proclamation of the Gospel.
This is the task of the shepherd, the Pastoral Council, the
Responsible adult of the communities and ecclesial movements. Therefore
rises the need to reflect on this new way of being Church today! There
are no easy recipes, but you have "to invent initiatives" useful groped
in this approach of the Gospel to people's lives. But it looks more
likely for the parishes is difficult to "invent the new"; it is easier
to "repeat the old". Therefore we offer guidelines for the pastoral care
that helps the local Christian community to respond to the challenge of
unbelief and religious indifference, that characterizes the culture of
the people in the beginning of this third millennium.
Pastoral Guidelines
1st. Seriously reflecting on the fact that the mentality
of the people (even Christian) to the Gospel has deeply changed. A
first implication is born by a global and specific looking of culture,
understood as the acquired system. You have to help people and groups in
a given local Christian community, more or less "distant" from the
evangelical indications, to shorten the distance, through cultural
initiatives that highlight the activities, lifestyle choices and
behavior.
This "objectification" indicates that the answers on the evangelization
are depending on the whole of attitudes, choices, decisions and
behaviors, both people and groups. It also explains why the
evangelization can not be limited to the personal aspects of the
announcement but must assume, from the beginning, a conscious cultural
dimension.
The reflexive critique analysis also can not be limited to the
theoretical aspects of the culture, but to the practical consequences
which affect the daily lives of those who live within the same society
(young people, the elderly, workers, patients, professionals, urban,
rural environment...) representing, in it, a particular culture.
2nd. Deepening the relationship between culture and
personality, a relationship which is not unique, depending on specific
environmental differences. In every culture there are different
assessments and attitudes also opposed to the healthy, the sick, the
young, the old, the employed, the unemployed, to foreigners, education,
property...
This cultural pluralism explains the extreme difficulty of bringing a
parish community to a common denominator. Experience shows that, faced
with this obstacle, the problem is solved by limiting itself to the
usual traditional pastoral offered to all, but significant for the few.
3rd. Constant reference of culture and its functions to
the society in which we live and of which you are part, even
unknowingly (for many traditional Christians). The pastoral action
must not appear detached from the way of life of the people. Between the
society and culture are interwoven ongoing relationships and exchange
mutual influences: the set of ways of life of a given group; patterns of
behavior and values
shared
by members of a group or society; the increasing complexity of human and
social conditions.
Who wants to evangelize is called to discern, collaborate, develop
creativity to the many social problems, passing first through the
cultural models of each specific local community. It follows that it
will have to engage in the problems and cultural situations of their own
community, without neglecting other cultural communities near and far.
In other words, the evangelization to the parishes and groups of all
kinds contributes to evangelize the global society, provided that knows
how to operate in a meaningful and appropriate to different cultural
contexts, based on a principle not of imitation, but of analogy.
4th. Beware of religious language in the communication of
the Gospel message. There is no doubt today that the common language
is very different from that of faith. Abstract formulas are repeated
often, incomprehensible to man of our time. Even the ritual liturgy must
undress the rigid style of the past, becoming beautiful, sober, suitable
to celebrate the glory of the Lord, intelligible in words and gestures
that speak for themselves, without the need for further explanation.
The same catechetical vocabulary must be translated into understandable
terms. Shepherds, catechists, educators are called to make a personal
effort, even before it arrives from the institutions. Of course, without
betraying the message. There is need, a huge work of translation,
especially for inculturation.
The meeting between "Word and Life" must assume the style of the
Incarnation of the Word. The language must be narrative,
transcultural, why does not transmit ideas, but tells the facts known to
all, that recall the body or the scope of common experience: the hand,
foot, eye, mouth, birth, sleeping, dying, the water, the sun, the
night... In this way the Christian community becomes visible and audible
realization of the Gospel.
Finally, an invitation to reflect on two documents: the encyclical of
John Paul II Redemptoris Missio (7 December 1990) and the already
mentioned Pastoral Note of the CEI Il volto missionario delle
parrocchie in un mondo che cambia (30 May 2004). From reading,
reflected by the light of the above criteria, may start pastoral
proposals of "new evangelization", which arise from the base and involve
in the implementation.
Giuseppe Morante sdb
Istituto Salesiano «Madonna di Lourdes»
Via Margherita di Savoia, 22
80058 Torre Annunziata (NA)
