The Acts of the
Apostles reports that after the Lord has been lifted up in a cloud before
the eyes of the apostles, the latter were left standing still gazing up into
the heavens. Then two men dressed in white stood beside them and asked them: “Why
do you stand here looking up at the skies? This Jesus who has been taken from
you will return, just as you saw him go up into the heavens.”
On this Solemnity of the Lord’s Ascension, we look up
heavenward because we acknowledge in faith that the Lord has completely been
victorious against the alienating power of sin and evil. Nothing separates now the human being from
God for in the person of Jesus, the human being has charted his way back to God
and now definitely shares in the life of God.
We look up to heaven because where Jesus is now we will all be.
However, as we keep that flame of hope alive in our
hearts, we should not just stand looking up heavenward. We need to do our task, a great task left by
the Lord to his disciples as we read now in today’s gospel (Mk. 16: 15-20): “Go
into the whole world and proclaim the good news to all creation. The man who believes in it and accepts
baptism will be saved; the man who refuses to believe in it will be condemned.”
After two millennia of proclaiming the good news, the
whole world has indeed heard of the gospel.
Christianity, we can say, is now all over the world. But this assertion is no reason for the Lord’s
disciples to stop proclaiming the gospel.
This generation, some claims, is the era of de-Christianization. The increasing secularization of societies
beginning from the West (where Christianity had flourished) results to
abandonment of faith or, at the least, taking faith for granted. We see Christian societies, which had their
faith in God enshrined even in their constitution, now abandon their religious
values and norms to make way for human’s egoistic claims of rights—surprisingly,
even those which smack of perversion. We
now see that when God is put aside, everything goes. No more sense of sin; no more conscience to
discern what is right and what is perverse. And what is immoral can now be the norm.
Sadly, many Christians are no longer bothered by this.
The beloved Pope, now Saint John Paul II, had started the call for a
new evangelization in the face of this alarming situation. His successor, Pope Benedict XVI, rightly
continued this agenda as priority concern for Europe, for North America, and
for the whole world. He established the Council for New Evangelization at the Vatican. In October of 2012, the Synod of Bishops in
Rome took up the theme of New Evangelization which, according to the
Pope, “speaks of the need for a
renewed method of proclamation” to effectively address the heavy traces of the
developments of secularization. Moreover, Pope Francis, in Evangelii Gaudium, exhorted the Christian
faithful to embark upon a new chapter of evangelization marked by joy.
In the Philippine context where people are still
religious enough to embrace Christianity (at least in name) but not Christian
enough to make a difference in the social ills that beset the nation, the new
evangelization is in order too. Since
the early 90s, the Philippine Church has called for the process of a renewed integral
evangelization—renewed catechesis, renewed worship, and renewed social apostolate.
What makes for an effective proclamation of the good
news? Difficult question. Experts in the different but related fields of
disciplines may suggest new approaches.
But as far as the first reading of today suggests, two essential
elements have to be there in whatever approach we try: the power of the Holy Spirit and the power of
witnessing.
“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes down
on you; then you are to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and
Samaria, yes, even to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1: 8).
The Power of the
Holy Spirit. Clearly only by the power of the Spirit can anyone proclaim the
good news effectively. Before the Lord
ascended to heaven, he allayed the fears of his disciples and assured them of
the Advocate. And on Pentecost, the apostles
were emboldened by the power of the Spirit to proclaim the good news to all
peoples. Techniques in public speaking
and in the use of modern gadgets now may indeed be of great help but without
the Spirit that moves the hearts and enlightens the minds, any proclamation
will not have its transforming power.
May the Church’s efforts for new evangelization be led and inspired by
the Holy Spirit. This is what Pope Francis called the Spirit-filled
evangelization. For him, the spirit-filled evangelizers are fearlessly open to the Holy Spirit like the apostles and they must
pray for the Holy Spirit’s help to proclaim the Gospel not just with words but
by a life transfigured by God’s presence (EG, 259).
The Power of
Witnessing. Words well said may be
pleasing to the ears but will soon be exposed as empty when these proclaimed
words do not come from a true witness—one who speaks of what he truly believes
in and of what he lives by. For
Christianity to make a difference once again in our world today, it needs not
just preachers and teachers (and bloggers).
It needs more importantly witnesses of Jesus Christ. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, for instance, had
effectively proclaimed the love of God to the poorest of the poor and touched
the heart of the whole world, believers and non-believers alike, because of her
life and how she lived it as a disciple of Christ.
As the Lord commissioned the first generation of
Christians to proclaim the good news to the whole world, the same Lord reminds
us of that same task today. More than
ever, the world today needs to be evangelized... effectively. On this Solemnity of the Lord’s Ascension, it
is not enough that we gaze heavenward to enkindle our hope for the Lord’s
ultimate victory for all creation. We
need to look around us and see the realities that call for transformation
through the gospel values. In the words of Pope Francis, we are all
invited to become "spirit-filled evangelizers" with “enthusiasm for a new chapter
of evangelization full of fervor, joy, generosity, courage, boundless love
and attraction!” (EG, 260).
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