weekly Letter from the Archbishop of Zaragoza
for Sunday March 27, 2011
The Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI calls us to undertake, particularly in Europe, the new evangelization. This is very necessary and urgent because the secularization of consciousness, whose beginnings date back to the late Middle Ages and whose epicenter is located in the Enlightenment, has been making during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries a mass phenomenon. This has resulted in the emergence of a secularized Europe and, last section, secular, which not only strives to abandon the faith of Christ, but also shows respect to its determination resentful former Christian and tries, as the program of Nietzsche, the presence of God to eradicate all forms of culture and all public institutions.
Well, given the radical novelty of the situation created, it is natural that the Church considers that a new evangelization, as well as to propose that such evangelization will be characterized by a new zeal, by the introduction of new methods and proposing new expressions. This is clear and obvious.
Now well, obviously, the new evangelization Bloom pursues holiness in both its agents and recipients. Clearly we remembered John Paul II on the very threshold of the new millennium when he said that the perspective must be set in the pastoral way of the Church is holiness (cf. NMI 29 and 32).
And this, holiness, necessarily built from listening to the Word of God and the participation in the life of Christ through the sacraments, among which stands out the Eucharist, source and summit of all evangelization.
Not surprisingly, the Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, picking up the concern neoevangelizadora Paul VI in 'Evangelii nuntiandi' have been laying the foundations of the new evangelization in the Eucharist and in the revealed word. Recall that the XI Synodal Assembly October 2005 was on the Eucharist, source and summit of the life and mission of the Church. Its fruits were offered to us by Pope Benedict XVI on February 22, 2007, postinodal in his apostolic exhortation "Sacramentum Caritatis." And the XII bishops 'synod, held at the Vatican from 5 to October 26, 2008, would have as its theme' The Word of God in the life and mission of the Church. " Its fruits were offered to us by the Holy Father on 30 September 2010 in the Apostolic Exhortation 'Verbum Domini'. Finally, on 21 September last year, Benedict XVI, Apostolic Letter in the form of 'Motu Proprio', 'Ubicumque et Semper', instituted the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization. The
in short, the Church, to meet the challenge of the new evangelization, invites us to prepare ourselves for this great mission. And the preparation is to first take us the path to holiness, that path that we want to go and lead others.
But that road we must travel to achieve holiness necessarily passes through the encounter with the truth contained in the Word of God, and the encounter with the Living, which offers full and pour in the Eucharist, as the Truth and the Life is Christ . Only our establishment in the Truth and our participation in the life of Christ we need to infuse the warmth and wisdom necessary to exit without fear and with clear mind to meet the men of our time, as marked by the absence of any horizon significance and, therefore, fasting prisoners hope and networks of relativism, which leads inevitably to the decline in nihilistic pluralism.
The essential principle Christian vision of life is thus the primacy of grace, that is, the primacy of the Word of God, the Logos, Christ, and the primacy of the Word of God made flesh, that it is the Jesus Christ, Truth and Life of the world, truly and substantially present in the Eucharist.
Therefore, the encounter with the Truth and the Life of Christ is the necessary condition of possibility of any work of evangelization and of all pastoral planning.
And this meeting will consist primarily and fundamentally in prayer, which takes the form of 'lectio divina' in regard to Holy Scripture and charges the form of worship of Christ in the Sacrament with respect to the Eucharist.
Indeed, prayerful approach to the sacred text (lectio divina) is a key factor in the spiritual life of every believer (cf. DV 86). And it is even Eucharistic adoration, which is but a natural continuation of the celebration of the Eucharist, which is itself the greatest act of worship of the Church (SC 66). In the background, receive the Eucharist means adoring him whom we receive. Tan
great importance is the prayer of adoration of the Eucharist, Pope Benedict XVI earnestly recommended practice to the pastors of the Church and the People of God. More than that, the Pope advised to be very helpful in providing an adequate catechesis explaining to the faithful the importance of this act of worship. He also contends that, among the various forms of Eucharistic adoration, there is one, continuous and perpetual adoration, which is the most radical, since it involves the worship of the Blessed Sacrament for 24 hours a day. Benedict XVI urged the bishops of the Church that, especially in densely populated areas, churches or oratories seek to devote themselves to perpetual adoration (cf. SC 67). And the Pope recommended, finally, that "to the catechetical formation, especially in their preparation for First Communion, children start on the meaning and the beauty of being with Jesus encouraging awe before his presence in the Eucharist "(SC 67).
† Manuel Ureña Pastor
Metropolitan Archbishop of Zaragoza