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Nineteenth Sunday of the Year
8 August 2010
Dear Friends in Christ,
Early in his pontificate, Pope John Paul II began to speak of the Church’s need for a New Evangelization, meaning the proclamation of the Gospel as though for the first time in places where it had been preached to great effect centuries before but where in our time the Gospel has ceased to move souls and shape cultures. This need for a New Evangelization is what I call Evangelical Catholicism, and now Pope Benedict XVI has created a new department in the Roman Curia called the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization because he acknowledges that Europe and much of what once was a part of Christendom has abandoned the Gospel and ceased to follow the Lord Jesus. But this is not the first time Europe has been in need of a New Evangelization.
In the late 12th and early 13th centuries, large numbers of people were carried away from the truth of Christ by a strange heresy called Catharism. Ignorance, superstition, and immorality were rife, including among the clergy, and this was a thousand years after many parts of Europe had received the Gospel with saving faith and become the foundation of Christian civilization! The Church needed a New Evangelization, and the instrument used by God for this mission was St. Dominic, founder of the Order of Preachers. Dominic was born in Calaruega, Spain in 1170, and he was a priest of the Spanish Diocese of Osma. Early in the 13th century, he was traveling with his bishop on a mission to Scandanavia which took them through southern France, and it was there that Dominic saw firsthand the misery of the Church and the success of false doctrine. This experience moved him to begin preaching the Gospel with new energy and dedication, and soon others wanted to join him. The priests and those wanting to be priests who joined him became the Friars of the Order of Preachers, and several reorganized communities of contemplative nuns who dedicated themselves to prayer were also part of this new Order of Preachers. Dominic’s principal means of accomplishing his mission were a simple, apostolic way of life rooted in prayer; deep study of Holy Scripture, philosophy, and theology; urgent and persuasive preaching of the Gospel; and complete fidelity to the Church and loving obedience to her pastors, starting with the Bishop of Rome, the Successor of St. Peter. In later centuries, active congregations of teaching and nursing Sisters would join the Dominican family, and our own Nashville Dominican Sisters belong to that part of the worldwide Order of Preachers.
St. Dominic died in 1221 and his feast is kept on 8 August, although it is not observed in the sacred liturgy this year because it falls on a Sunday. Dominic’s life and mission, and the Order he left as a perpetual gift to the Church, show us that a New Evangelization can succeed in even the most unlikely places with what appear to be the most inadequate means. St. Dominic, pray for us!
Father Newman