Liturgy & Evangelization

[Notes from a presentation I gave at  the 1999 Southwest Liturgical Conference in Houston.]

Caravaggio’s painting of the "Supper at Emmaus" captures the moment in Luke’s story when the disciples recognize Jesus "in the breaking of the bread" (Luke 24:13-35). One, leaping from his chair, grips its arms to steady himself; the other flings out his own arms, ready to embrace. Jesus appears as a beardless youth. His hands are held in blessing—in such a way that you cannot tell if there are nail scars or not. A server pours drinks, oblivious to what is happening.

The breaking of bread is the moment of revelation. It provides a pinnacle from which they can look back and recall their journey with him on the road, and the way that he had broken open the scriptures to them—"Were not our hearts burning within us?"

The U. S. Bishops take this story as a model for catechesis in their pastoral plan for Adult Faith Formation, Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us. They see liturgy not as a tool in the service of catechesis or evangelization, but as itself an evangelizing encounter.  Thus they say, "We will trust the capacity of prayer and sacrament to open their eyes to the presence and love of Christ."

Catholic evangelization is not a "once for all" activity directed toward getting an unbeliever to make a decision, but is a process of conversion which can never end. As Pope Paul VI said, "The Church is an evangelizer, but she begins by being evangelized herself" (Evangelii Nuntiandi 15). The U.S. Bishops speak of "fostering ongoing conversion" or "fostering adult faith" in describing the liturgy, but we could easily substitute equivalent forms of "evangelize" in this paragraph:

Liturgy fosters this ongoing conversion [evangelization] by uniting us in Christ and with one another, uplifting our spirits in thankful, joyful praise, and renewing our hearts in love for God, turning us to love of neighbor. Each aspect of worship—the homily, the physical environment, hospitality, liturgical ministries, congregational participation, appropriate music, the Sunday bulletin with inclusions—has the potential to foster adult faith [to evangelize], bringing people into a more intimate relationship with Christ and with one another.

Liturgy "has the potential"—but does it always fulfill this potential?

A generation ago Harvey Cox predicted the coming of a Secular City in which religious symbols and language would cease to have meaning. But he admitted in his later book Religion in the Secular City that time had proven him wrong. We live in a time not of secularism, but of longing. The symptoms include the tremendous interest in "spirituality," lingering nostalgia within the Church for liturgies that evoked a sense of mystery, the growth of a tourist-trade in the supernatural, and in extra-liturgical small communities of faith.

But is this drawing people to the liturgy? Paulist president Frank DeSiano thinks that we’ve missed the boat. "What people have been signaling to us over these decades leads us to a very unsettling impression: at worship, they don’t feel they have contact with God. Worse than being bored, people don’t feel touched by God." He sees this as the reason for the growth of the common distinction between "religion" and "spirituality" and of paraliturgy and devotionalism. People are telling us that "They will do whatever it takes for them to have a sense of contact with God. Because they are not getting that at our liturgies."

And he concludes: "If liturgy could present people with an experience of Christ, with contact with Jesus, it would come closer to what people are actually seeking today." [DeSiano, Sowing New Seed, p. 79ff]

Ritual: Evangelizing or obstacle?

Many people in today's world think that ritual is an obstacle to evangelization.  They imagine that we must de-mystify Christian worship, eliminating all symbols and ritual that would not be immediately understandable to the person off the street with no Christian background.  Lutheran pastor Walt Kallestad wrote an influential book called Entertainment Evangelism in which he turns the Christian assembly into a passive audience that must be entertained.  This is perhaps the most crass example of the extremes to which this approach can descend.

But contrast this secularizing approach with what the fourth century bishop St. Cyril of Jerusalem said in his catechetical lectures (which were very influential in the post-Vatican 2 recovery of the catechumenate, or "RCIA").

I have long been wishing, O true-born and dearly beloved children of the Church, to discourse to you concerning these spiritual and heavenly Mysteries; but since I well knew that seeing is far more persuasive than hearing, I waited for the present season; that finding you more open to the influence of my words from your present experience, I might lead you by the hand into the brighter and more fragrant meadow of the Paradise before us; especially as ye have been made fit to receive the more sacred Mysteries, after having been found worthy of divine and life-giving Baptism. Since therefore it remains to set before you a table of the more perfect instructions, let us now teach you these things exactly, that ye may know the effect wrought upon you on that evening of your baptism. [Mystagogical catechesis. Lecture 18].

That's exactly the point affirmed by the Bishops, and illustrated in the story of the Road to Emmaus -- or as we say commonly, "Actions speak louder than words."  It's only after you've seen and experienced that your heart can be opened to understand.

One of the longest lasting tools of evangelization in the Catholic Church was the parish mission.  I've written about the history of the parish mission elsewhere, and you can check that article for details.  One of the key elements in it was ritual; dramatizations and choreography and symbol were essential to its impact.  St. Paul of the Cross, founder of the Passionists, was a master of the art.

When Redemptorist missionaries crossed the US in the mid-1850s, using the parish mission, with all its symbols and songs and fervent preaching to revive and strengthen struggling parishes of immigrant Catholics, many people compared what they were doing with the revivals of Charles Finney and other Protestant evangelicals.  Some accused the missionary priests of having jumped on Finney’s band-wagon. Orestes A. Brownson, the leading American Catholic intellectual of the period, took pen to paper to rebuke the cynics. Those who made such a comparison were naive, he charged, and were looking at the phenomena on the most superficial level. Not only were there important differences between the two events, but the Catholic mission antedated the Protestant revival by centuries. If someone was copying, it wasn’t the Catholic. Brownson also criticized the revivalists for the lack of ceremonial and sacraments. The call to the sacraments imparted an objective character to the message of grace in the Catholic mission that was lacking in the subjectivism of Finney’s emotionally charged decision-based methodology. This led historian Jay Dolan to term the Catholic mission "sacramental evangelicalism."

But if taken too far, a Catholic evangelist using the tools of the mission can become just another entertainer.  It is not gimmicks which convert, but the word of God, whether proclaimed, or revealed in symbol or rite.

Said Pope Paul VI: "The Church evangelizes when she seeks to convert, solely through the divine power of the message she proclaims, both the personal and collective consciences of people, the activities in which they engage, and the lives and concrete milieu which are theirs." Evangelii Nuntiandi 18.

Evangelization is not just a matter of  preaching and teaching doctrine. It "must touch life," said Paul VI.  "Evangelization thus exercises its full capacity when it achieves the most intimate relationship, or better still, a permanent and unbroken intercommunication, between the Word and the sacraments. In a certain sense it is a mistake to make a contrast between evangelization and sacramentalization, as is sometimes done." "The role of evangelization is precisely to educate people in the faith in such a way as to lead each individual Christian to live the sacraments as true sacraments of faith—and not to receive them passively or reluctantly." EN 48.

Evangelization as Introduction to a Worshiping Community

Evangelization invites people to join a community, gathered around a table in celebration.  And how are they to come, unless they are invited?  And when the come, will they feel that they are welcome?

And that requires person to person contact.  "In the long run, is there any other way of handing on the Gospel than by transmitting to another person one’s personal experience of faith?" EN 46

Here's where many Catholic churches have problems. People often contrast the welcoming they get if they visit an evangelical Protestant church with what they get at the typical Catholic parish. When you go to an evangelical service, more often than not people recognize that you’re a visitor. They welcome you. They show you where things are. They introduce you to other people. They invite you to make yourself at home.

Granted, that’s easier in a church of 100 individuals than in one of 5000 families. If you ask the person you turn to at the sign of peace if they’re a visitor they may gruffly respond: "I’ve been a member of this parish for 30 years, and I’m on the parish council. I just don’t come to this mass very often."

Even the layout of the building in a Protestant church can be more welcoming than a Catholic church.  Consider just the most fundamental basics.  Catholic churches don't have coat racks.  And it is often very hard to find a restroom.  I went to a John Michael Talbot concert at the Cathedral in Boston, which was built in the days of 30 minute low masses.  There were only two stalls, with antiquated plumbing, so people who wanted to use the restroom had to go around the block, to the high school. 

What about greeters? Do we think that just because we have greeters that we are hospitable? What is the point if someone is greeted warmly by an usher, and then is told gruffly, "You’re in my pew!" A more common experience for me is that ushers merely stand there talking with their friends, ignoring people they don't know.

How about music? A couple of years ago I went to a Christmas eve midnight mass that began with a 45 minute carol service—but the congregation wasn’t invited to sing, they weren’t told where the songs were, and the songs were choir arrangements. Certainly Easter and Christmas are two great evangelizing opportunities—are they performances, pulling out the stops in showmanship—or do they invite "full, active, and conscious participation."

Preaching

The proclamation of the Gospel is the heart of evangelization. Pope Paul VI said that while quiet witness of life is necessary, it is not sufficient. "Evangelization will also always contain—as the foundation, center, and at the same time, summit of its dynamism—a clear proclamation that, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, who died and rose from the dead, salvation is offered to all men, as a gift of God’s grace and mercy . . . a transcendent and eschatological salvation, which indeed has its beginning in this life but which is fulfilled in eternity." EN 27

The purpose of the homily is to break open the Word of God in the context of this liturgical celebration, and to facilitate an encounter with Jesus Christ.  It's effectiveness as an evangelization instrument is related "to the extent that it expresses the profound faith of the sacred minister and is impregnated with love. The faithful assembled as a Paschal Church, celebrating the feast of the Lord present in their midst, expect much from this preaching, and will greatly benefit from it provided that it is simple, clear, direct, well-adapted, profoundly dependent on Gospel teaching and faithful to the magisterium, animated by a balanced apostolic ardor coming from its own characteristic nature, full of hope, fostering belief, and productive of peace and unity." EN 43

Eucharist—font and summit

"Nevertheless the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; it is also the fount from which all her power flows. For the goal of apostolic endeavor is that all who are made sons of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of his Church, to take part in the Sacrifice and to eat the Lord’s Supper." [Vatican 2, Sacrosanctum Concilium (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy) 10]