After my first post, a few people reached out via (mostly) reddit messages/comments

commenting that they find the New Evangelization to be a flashy, modernist idea for the church. Maybe not quite that dramatically, but many have expressed hesitancy that the church should focus on reproposing Christ to CURRENT members instead of converting other religions like Muslims, protestants, and Jews. One redditor commented on what he thought is an appropriate place to begin evangelization:

Conversion of heathens. If people really wanted to spread the gospel they would do it in asia or the arab world, not in christian countries.

So I’ve been ruminating on this all week. Is the Church truly mistaken in working to strengthen from the inside out? Is quality of faith important? Should we really be worried about people who are making it to Mass, but aren’t really sold on the idea of living an authentic Christian life?

Truly, the term “New Evangelization” is a newer invention (Thanks Saint JPII). But then again, we never find words like sacrament or Immaculate Conception in the Bible either…so obviously the Church has latitude in defining terms that guide our faith discussions.

It was in this frame of mind that I went to Mass today, questioning the very purpose of the synod that I am going to be part of. And then I heard the second reading. And then the Gospel. And I was like “HOLD UP!” In case you didn’t pay as close attention, the USSCB posts the entirety of the readings just for you!

In the second reading, St. Paul writes of the Israelites:

All ate the same spiritual food,

and all drank the same spiritual drink,

for they drank from a spiritual rock that followed them,

and the rock was the Christ.

Yet God was not pleased with most of them,

for they were struck down in the desert.

The Jews, as they wandered through the desert, had God with them, very much like every Mass has Jesus present in the Eucharist. But, they grumbled, were thankless, and didn’t appreciate the WONDER that God is as He provided for their every needs.

In a similar way, the Church today is filled with people who eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ, but do not experience a conversion of their heart.

In the Gospel, Jesus told a parable of the fig tree and a gardener who attempts to save the fig tree. It could be said that the fruitless fig tree is representative of people whose faith don’t produce fruit. How, except through evangelization, can we hope to act like the gardener and help others find fruitful faith?

For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree

but have found none.

So cut it down.

Why should it exhaust the soil?’

He said to him in reply,

‘Sir, leave it for this year also,

and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it;

it may bear fruit in the future.

If not you can cut it down.’”

Evangelizing those who are fallen away from the Church or who are lukewarm in their faith requires different methods than evangelizing non-believers or members of other religions. Figuring out those methods is one of main purposes of the synod.

So while this idea of the “New Evangelization” is a new idea, a novelty as such, it’s addressing a problem that has been part of our faith story from the days of Moses. So much a problem, that Jesus spoke of fruitlessness in many parables, even warning that those with lukewarm faith will be spit out.

It’s not a call to end our missions abroad or to cease the conversion of non-believers, but an acknowledgement that we need to equip the faithful to be gardeners, prepared to help others grow. We have to have avenues of invitation to encounter Christ beyond Mass on Sundays. The Church must foster fellowship and discipleship. It is so important to the continuation of Catholicism that church isn’t a Sunday obligation, but a personal encounter and relationship with the Savior, with the King, with God. And that is what the New Evangelization is about.