My New Little Series on Evangelization and Community.
I've been thinking lately about two things: evangelization and community, and how they are inter-related. Here's some posts that will follow along these thoughts as I have them. As always, any series that I do are sporadic and incomplete. They are intimations and suggestions towards answers, not the answers themselves.
The Idea of Community
Most of my ministry is devoted to the cause of the new evangelization. I am trying to get a sense of where the Spirit is moving the Church today, of how He is transforming things like parish ministries, outreach, the marginalized and forgotten, the active and the devout. The new evangelization seems to suit me because I enjoy the idea of reaching out to Catholics who aren't really all that Catholic. The Mission Ad Gentes is too remote and I'll leave it to better, smarter, holier people to do authentic mystogogy.
Community is more difficult for me because I am a nerd and a bit of a loner when it comes to ministry stuff. Heck, this whole website is somewhat of a testament to that - it's just me typing away in my makeshift office all alone. But community is important, and so I need to focus my energy on developing a sane and helpful approach towards "fostering the Christian community", whatever that means.
The natural law cannot and ought not be, in every instance, enforced by human laws. That is to say, human laws are a moral guide, but are not sufficient to make men moral.
Indeed, the lawgiver who wants to make other men saints by criminalizing all sin is actually stepping outside his authority over the community and is overreaching, according to Aquinas' understanding of the natural law. There are for Aquinas many things that are sinful and destructive, but which still ought not to be prohibited by human legislators. Such things, though evil, ought to be tolerated within society. Criminalizing such things causes reprocussions even more disasterous than the evil itself.
This struck me deeply.
Jesus Christ, God the Son, reveals to us the mystery of the inner life of God, showing through his words and deeds that God is not a solitary being, but is a communion of Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus is the Son that has come to humanity to fully reveal the countenance of the Father, showing us the Eternal Father’s face through the incarnation.
In revealing to us the face of the Father, Jesus breaks open eternity for mankind, making a relationship with the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit a real possibility for each and every one of us. The Trinity is as much the main message of the Good News as is the cross and Resurrection.
This self-giving, life-giving love is the heart of the Blessed Trinity and therefore, it is the heart of our Christian faith and morality.
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In revealing to us the face of the Father, Jesus breaks open eternity for mankind, making a relationship with the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit a real possibility for each and every one of us. The Trinity is as much the main message of the Good News as is the cross and Resurrection.
This self-giving, life-giving love is the heart of the Blessed Trinity and therefore, it is the heart of our Christian faith and morality.
The Still-Point of the Turning World
The Incarnation of the Son of God changes everything, especially the way we speak about morality. Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, is the divine presence in the world. He is the center, the constant, upon which all activity, both divine and human, turn.
Because God became man in Jesus Christ, he has become for humanity both the Source of moral goodness and the exemplar of that goodness. He is life's Source and Definition. There is nothing possible to add when fullness is already present.
What is Christian morality, then? It is the imitation of the virtues of Christ.