Pope John Paul II, Jesus Youth and the New Evangelization (BJMM030)

 

Set apart for the new mission  

JPII, JY, and the New Evangelization

(Published in Jesus Youth International Newsletter)

I was on a crowded bus from Dindigul to Cochin. Though past midnight on that cool October night in 1978, the excitement from the previous day’s meeting with Fr Fio still lingered. He was the National Chairman of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in India. On his suggestion in the previous May, I had been entrusted with the task of mobilizing youth from all over Kerala. Eventually, we made plans for a large youth conference later in December. But he wouldn’t make it to the Conference, so with our animator Sr Cleopatra CMC, I went to Dindigul to get Fr Fio’s vision for the conference follow-up that he had suggested. “So many of you youth have already come together, and now it is a time for focused growth,” he said. “Communities of formation reaching out with a sense of mission. This must be your vision”.

More excitement awaited me when my bus reached the quiet town of Angamaly. The shrill voice of the newspaper boy rudely awakened the sleepy passengers: “The new Pope is elected, a young Pope from Poland.” After the confusion and dark rumors that followed the death of a short-lived Pope John Paul I, this new promise was a cause of immense excitement. 

We are often surprised by coincidences, but from an eternal perspective, we look at these occurrences with the eyes of faith and speak of divine interventions. On that midnight of October 16/17 in that momentous year of 1978, I was pleasantly surprised by such a coincidence, in which I later saw a very great divine providence. The seed sawn at Dindigul on the 16th of October grew into a vast movement called Jesus Youth. The great man elected on that same day, somewhat at the same time in the faraway Eternal City, to a historic mission handed on a shaping vision for that movement in the years to come, which was in brief, called the New Evangelization. 

The New Evangelization: What is it?

The resounding call of Pope John Paul II stirred up the movement deeply: "Look to the future with commitment to a New Evangelization, one that is new in its fervor, new in its methods and new in its expression." (Haiti, 1983). By his example and through much of his exhortations, this call to a fresh awakening to Evangelization was repeated. This concept is reflected in the Lineamenta of the Synod on Evangelization: “The New Evangelization is not a matter of redoing something that has been inadequately done or has not achieved its purpose, as if the new activity were an implicit judgment on the failure of the first evangelization. Nor is the New Evangelization taking up the first evangelization again, or simply repeating the past. Instead, it is the courage to forge new paths in responding to the changing circumstances and conditions facing the Church in her call to proclaim and live the Gospel today” (5).

The New Evangelization requires new skills and habits. It is always the fruit of a new discernment, something like the triple-step reflection at the path-breaking conference of the movement in 1985: (the life of) Youth Today, (the vision of) Jesus Today, and (mission of) Jesus Youth. And mission discernment always happens in a Christian community. From the initial shaping days of the movement, the call of JPII to New Evangelization became a guiding light. On the third weekends of every month, the ‘First Liners’ would come together to fan up the fervor, seek for new methods to approach youth, and form novel expressions of faith and mission. And its fruit? The gradual formation of a culture and a mission. A defining moment came in the call of JPII to observe 1985 as the International Year of Youth (IYY), and the movement’s response was the year-long preparation culminating in ‘Jesus Youth 85’ that gave the community a name and outlined its path for the future. 

The New Evangelization: how do we do it?

How do you go about this God-given task? There has been a constant reminder in the movement that it has to be “a missionary movement” and every member “a missionary.” So, no gathering or training in it could conclude without serious thought on the mission, leading to clear plans to reach out to other youth and bring them to a Christ experience. Then again, how does one join the movement? Not with a membership enrolment but with an encounter. Because “the New Evangelisation needs new witnesses… People who have experienced an area of change in their life because of their contact with Jesus Christ, and who are capable of passing on that experience to others” (JPII, 1991).

The movement, in short, became a nursery for the mission, in which a culture of making every little aspect contributing to forming persons and fellowships to mission became the highest priority. The culture and lifestyle of a group is the most forceful formator. In other words, the mission is caught, not taught. The songs, the games, what you read, the points of argument, your friendship, all these formed elements of this culture.  In the casual discussions at the workplace, in the little dreams of teenagers, or what these youth do when they get together to have fun and go for relaxation, it is there that the sense of mission bloomed. But then it got clearly defined in the various formation programs and a variety of packages of JY such as Discipleship Training, Full-time Volunteers, Professional to Mission, etc., that promoted commitment as well as evangelistic fervour.  

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Most people see the outward mission initiatives of Jesus Youth and marvel, though very often they never come to see the inner dynamics of generating it. A little snack time meet or youth picnic that quietly invite other youth to new life, a small lunchtime gathering in a factory or university department to pray and share, a colourful skit with emotional appeal that leads to reconsideration of a teens life, the hi-punch music and dance that shakes not just feet and heart, but one’s deep spirit as well, an exhibition, a study group, a visit to a poor slum, such numerous ways, all born out of a young ordinary missionary heart, bearing rich harvests of hearts for the Lord, that is the fruit of the dynamics of New Evangelization in the movement. This Encounter-Formation-Mission paradigm lent the movement its depth and breadth. 

The New Evangelization: where do we do it?

“The new evangelization is a frame-of-mind, a courageous manner of acting and … capacity to know how to read and interpret the new situations in human history” (Lineamenta, 6).  The document further speaks of six areas in contemporary society that require urgent attention from all of us, or “the Sectors Calling for the New Evangelization”. They are: i) the contemporary culture which is getting highly secularized, ii) the social phenomenon of migration, iii) the means of social communications, iv) economic sector, especially the suffering of the poor, v)the realms of science and technology, and vi)civic and political life.

As the Master said, the wind of the Spirit blows where it wills. So has it happened with Jesus Youth, seeing which we rejoice. When we look back at the movement's history spanning more than a quarter of a century, it is highly uplifting to note this dynamism of the Spirit, which helped the movement spontaneously focus on these special sectors that the Church is also taking note of. It is good for all of us to ask how well we address these Sectors and what more we should do.

The New Evangelization: where should we move on?

In recent times Pope Benedict XVI has repeatedly used the image of ‘the courtyard of the gentiles’, a part of the temple precincts in Jesus’ times that was set apart for non-Jews to get them limited exposure to revealed religion without any serious commitment. He continues, “I think that today too, the Church should open a sort of "Court of the Gentiles" in which people might in some way latch on to God, without knowing him and before gaining access to his mystery, at whose service the inner life of the Church stands”. This call is especially relevant for Jesus Youth movement, which has always been very close to the present-day generation, far removed from the Church and God. For these many, at the other end of the faith spectrum, one of these Jesus Youth would be the only messenger of Christ near them and talking their own language.

In Redemptoris Missio, JPII noted, “in the Church's history, missionary drive has always been a sign of vitality, just as its lessening is a sign of a crisis of faith” (2). For the Jesus Youth movement sustaining and deepening the mission of the New Evangelization is the most urgent challenge for which there is a need to lay the firm foundation of a focused formation. Mission effort without the foundation of a relevant spirituality and formation is like the beautiful Xmas tree. It doesn’t have roots and will wither away. But there are also trees with many roots of so-called formation that do not bear fruits and the Lord indicates that they will be cut away. The movement needs a firmer foundation that will bear abundant and enduring fruits of New Evangelization.

 A rapidly changing world poses unprecedented challenges for nations, communities, and families. The Church and well-meaning elders are often bewildered by the erosion of sublime elements of culture and indisputable values. For answers and meaning, many of today’s generation look to science and technology and even for those who believe, faith and religion are relegated to a joyful company or a skin-deep solace. Amid these complex challenges, there is the need for a new breed of the disciples of Christ, wide-eyed in this thrilling world with deep roots on ‘the Rock of all ages’ carrying the ever-new wine in fresh wineskins. This is the call of Jesus Youth in the coming generation, which is the call for the New Evangelization.