E22: The Art of Evangelization in the Modern World

What do we mean by the phrase “Christians must live in the world without being of the world?” 

How can we lead people to an encounter with the Heart of Christ in an age of impersonal social media and screens?

Join us for this month’s episode of Catholicism 101 as we reflect on a lesser-known letter from Pope Francis on the importance of literature in encountering the human heart, as “nothing that is human is indifferent to us.” (Letter of the Holy Father on the Role of Literature in Formation, 17 July 2024, para 37.)

Resources:

Letter of His Holiness Pope Francis on the Role of Literature in Formation
Evangelii Gaudium | Pope Francis (2013)
Beauty in the Catholic Tradition | Bishop Robert Barron
The Human Heart and The Power of Beauty | Theology of the Body Institute
Teaching Our Sons How To Look At Scantily-Clad Women | Catholic Mom

Transcript

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Hi, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Catholicism 101, Forever Learning and Living the Faith. Today we're talking about the art of evangelization in the modern world. Now, you will often hear, if you I'm sure you have, uh, people say, you know, times are changing, the world is changing quickly, the church needs to keep up with the times and, you know, get on the same page as everyone else. The church is like dragging behind and she's dragging everyone else with their, you know, like catch catch up to the rest of the world and um like realize that what you've taught, what you've always taught is outdated and no longer relevant. And it's like, okay. Things like that. It's like there are there's so many dangers in that. Um, because there are honestly, yeah, there are elements of truth in that. And we're gonna, that's what we're gonna talk about today is dissecting, you know, what's true in that, and where do we kind of lay a blanket over something that is not necessarily true. Um so we're gonna get into that and how it is actually an art. And how, yeah, we're I'm excited for this one, okay? So let's let's just go ahead and get right into it. I'm gonna start this one off with a little piece from Father Brian's homily that he gave here in Whitesville for the solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul this year. He says, the world writes the agenda for the church. That doesn't mean that the church is to conform to the ways of the world, quite the contrary. What it does mean is that the church's evangelizing work has to be in response to where people actually are. It's no good just handing out the same old things the same old way. If the church is to remain relevant, if it's to continue speaking in a meaningful way to a rapidly changing world, if it's to keep up with new knowledge and ideas, which change our ways of understanding the world in which we live, it has to renew itself constantly in the way it expresses its message and dialogues with the world. A changing world involves new challenges of what is right and wrong. A changing world brings about new social problems, new forms of poverty, injustice, exploitation and discrimination, lack of freedom and the absence of peace. There have to be new ways of preaching and witnessing to the gospel truth. For this, we need the prophetic role of the church, built on the foundations of tradition and continuity. Now, something um that he highlights here, I really want to I kind of want to dig into more. Um, number one is the fact that truth is objective and it never changes. When we say that the church has to keep up with the times as they're changing, we in no sense mean that the doctrine and dogmas of the church must change to suit the modern day. The doctrines and the dogmas that like have already been established, we're not gonna flip back on those, right? What we what we mean when we say we need to meet people where they're at is that we are called to communicate that objective, unchanging truth in a manner that resonates with the heart of that person at the present moment. So uh whenever I was an undergrad, I was a communication studies major. And um, I just have like the this like graph, not really graph, I don't know. It's like a graphic, I guess, image of like interpersonal communication, any all of this, basically like the the the source of a message, what is the message, how is the message being conveyed, and who is receiving the message, you know, the noise surrounding it, basically like the science of communication. It was honestly, it was a lot of fun. But um, whenever we talk about like preaching the gospel, um communicating this objective, change, unchanging truth, excuse me, unchanging truth in a manner that resonates with these people in their hearts. Um, when we talk about like the message changing, we don't mean the content of the message, right? We don't mean the content. We mean like the structure and like the elements of the message. Okay. Um, the the the way in which you communicate that content. I don't know that may not resonate with everyone, but that it makes sense to me, and I I feel like it makes sense to many other people as well. So if that resonates with you, awesome. If not, awesome. You know, that's why that we're here because hopefully something in this resonates with you. But another um example that I kind of I like to give that was that's been given to me many times, um, and I I got it from Christopher West and the the TOB Institute and all of that, where um he's like, you know, we we grew up hearing the right words to the wrong music. Um just he and he always gives this example too of like whenever um he would be, I guess he was in like third grade, and they would go to the church for adoration. And um, they're like young kids, and the the nun who was his teacher would always like tell them, like, you need a ginger fluff, you better be respectful. Like, go off on this. Um, like this, that is Jesus, that is the Lord of Lords, that is God right there. You need to be respectful. And like the the way that she would say it instilled like a fear in them, rather and like a yeah, just like a fear in them rather than instilling something that is joyful and inspiring. And so, um, like, yes, what she was saying was true, but the way that she said it um came across in a way that actually ended up wounding hearts rather than trying to draw them into the love that she was trying to communicate, but the the music around it was really not up to what it should be. Now, what what she's trying to get across there is that like the the the presence of the Lord in the Eucharist, the Eucharistic Lord, the Blessed Sacrament, that is something to be in awe of. That is something beautiful. Um, but what she's getting at there is like this is such a great gift, and it comes with a great responsibility, okay? And so kind of jumped over like the emphasis on the gift and the beauty of the gift, um, to more of like a this is your responsibility when you've been given this gift. And it's like oh my like immediately like your muscles get tense kind of thing. And so uh what what I want to get at um in this episode is that uh you can communicate truth without compromising it and having uh joy, right? You you can and you must preach the gospel and the difficulties of living a life of faith with joy because it is truly good news, right? It is truly good news. Tough love can be done with joy and with hope. There are such things as push strategies and pull strategies, just whenever you're trying to get someone to do something or believe something or whatever, you know, and and I hate to use the word strategies because it makes it sound very technical, but I that's just kind of like what it is. Um so like you can push someone to do something, and that would be kind of like what um Christopher West's teacher in that instance was doing. You know, um push strategies kind of like uh put you up against like a, hey, it's either you do this or or you're whatever, like or you're in trouble. That's more of like a push strategy, and those are necessary. Those are good and those are necessary and they have their place. But what we often um kind of forget about sometimes because they're not as easy, they're not nearly as easy and simple is pull strategies. Pull strategies where the the goodness and the joy of something, something that makes like what is attractive, what is desirable about what you are trying to get this person to do. So you kind of um you want to place the emphasis on that. You want to um highlight how attractive and desirable whatever you're trying to get them to do is. Now, again, this I want to fully acknowledge that talking about like these push and pull strategies, uh, and it it sounds very technical and impersonal and all of this, um, which is it is necessary and it is good and it has its place. But I want to emphasize um that as we get into this or further into this episode, that these are good things to know and understand, but it shouldn't necessarily be like the the words and the phrasing and that you approach that you take to every single encounter where you are evangelizing someone. So I just kind of want to give you that little blippet there of um, I know that that sounds impersonal, and that is like the exact opposite of what I'm trying to do here, but it's it is those things are good and they have their place. So in 2013, Pope Francis put out his first encyclical, or actually, it's an epistolic exhortation, but it is called um the joy of the gospel, uh, evangeli godium. So he put this out 2013, you know, whenever he was elected a few months later. And he says, Today, our challenge is not so much atheism as the need to respond adequately to many people's thirst for God, lest they try to satisfy it with alienating solutions or with a disembodied Jesus. So the first thing I want to talk about is this disembodied Jesus that he's referring to here. Because we all have hearts that have been wounded in many very different ways, but also in many similar same ways. When we try to respond to these wounds first and foremost with technical things such as like philosophies, principles, theories, etc., all this, that is the very disembodied Jesus that Pope Francis wants us to refrain from whenever we are evangelizing with. Um and that would that would be like truth without love, whenever we are preaching the truth without love. So, yeah, as I said, you know, logic, philosophies, principles, theology, all of these things, they are incredibly important, right? They have their rightful duty, they have their rightful place, they are very important. And many people are actually evangelized by their brain being tickled, right? Um not every human heart, though, is sensitive to that and just like drawn to academia. Again, these things are good and they are necessary, but in approaching a heart that is in search for the truth, we first have to remember that the truth is a body-soul person. Pope Francis again um in his he wrote this letter to um it's letter from the Holy Father on the role of literature information. And he says this we must always take care never to lose sight of the flesh of Jesus Christ, that flesh made of passions, emotions, and feelings, words that challenge and console, hands that touch and heal, looks that liberate and encourage, flesh made of hospitality, forgiveness, indignation, courage, fearlessness, and a word, love. It honor it kind of goes back to uh what I talked about last week of you cannot reduce a person to an ideology, you cannot reduce a person to a theory, a philosophy, um, to just like a set of logic. You cannot reduce a person to that because the human heart is so much more than that. Um, like the word of God, the we call we call Christ the Word, the logos, because he is the word made flesh. And the word made flesh, the logic, the wisdom of the Father has a beating human heart with these words or excuse me, with these emotions and feelings, these passions, um, all of these things. We we cannot, whenever we are evangelizing and we are sharing and preaching and teaching the good news of Christ, we cannot forget the heart of these people. We cannot, we cannot give them a disembodied Jesus who only cares about philosophy and theory and logic. While while those things are very good and necessary, yes. That um Julianne Stans, she was here uh in the Diocese of Owensboro in December 2024. Question mark? Yes. And she said she said something that has uh stuck with me. I don't think I'll ever forget it. Um she said, an arrow pointed at the head cannot pierce the heart. You know, we're some pretty smart cookies in the Western world, right? We the like historically, um, and still to this day, you know, if if you look at the church of the East and of the West, um, the Church of the West is we are very good at like formulating our dogmas and doctrines and like choosing our words very carefully and very intentionally, um, and just like having that really fleshed out very well and very beautifully. Um and then you look at the Eastern Church and it everything is poetic and incredibly beautiful. Uh there is this saying that the the church needs to breathe with both lungs. You know, you you can't have one or the other, you have to have both. Now, I do want to say I would encourage you not to um hear an inch and run with it for a mile. Like, I'm not saying that all we do in the Western church is um like feed people a disembodied Jesus. That's not at all what I'm saying. And I really hope and pray that you don't take what I'm saying and run to extreme conclusions with it because that's not it. But yeah, that's kind of um what what we mean by the disembodied Jesus is you know reducing a person and reducing honestly the faith to um just like logic, philosophies, principles, etc. Now, alienating solutions. We're gonna we're gonna talk about that. This really involves um compromising truth in the name of love, which is you know really just false love. Um you I could give you kind of like a metaphor of it is allowing the wound to be further compromised by infection. You do what makes you happy, you do what makes you feel good, that kind of thing. Now, I do want to affirm there is a good desire in this approach to care for the heart of the person that has clearly been wounded, but truly loving someone means doing what is best for them, especially when it requires some sort of sacrifice or just makes you uncomfortable, you know, because just because you're uncomfortable speaking the truth, or you are afraid of critique, condemnation, or people just having like this less than opinion of you. Having that fear um and like succumbing to it, it does not justify saying things such as like, oh, well, I personally wouldn't do that, but you know, you do whatever makes you happy, you know, you do whatever is best for you. And again, there's like an asterisk on this. We're speaking of things where objective truth is at stake. Um, and so the the whole the whole concept here, if you want to get into the concepts, it's called moral relativism. And um just a little me being a nerd fun thing that I like to do sometimes is um if my friend's like trying to choose an ice cream flavor, I'm like, I don't know, man, you do you. It's not a moral dilemma, you do you. Um, like I'll I'll put that asterisk on it just because I'm a nerd and I like that. Anyway, but we cannot feed people false love out of fear for the truth and like the truth being uncomfortable. Because honestly, the truth kind of hurts sometimes. I say kind of the truth does hurt sometimes. And that's okay. The truth hurts sometimes. It's okay because what really matters is how do we deal with the pain? You know, do we do we let it eat us alive and continue to look for, like let it beat us down until we finally were like, okay, where's the easy way out? You know, where's this false sense of love? Where can I find it? You know, and we're not saying it in as many of those words. Or do we continue to offer it up um for a greater good and a greater glory for something that goes beyond ourselves that we know the Lord will not abandon us in? That's a whole other thing. But avoiding these two extremes of a disembodied Jesus and these alienating solutions, avoiding them requires much prayer, discernment, and great virtue. So virtue is virtue is a balance between two extremes. So, for example, the virtue of humility, it is this beautiful, happy medium between self-reliance and self-condemnation. Uh, this is why you often hear of false humility. Uh, and that would be in the cases of like where someone just can't seem to take a compliment. So that's what we mean whenever we say uh virtue is like this beautiful, happy medium, this balance between two extremes. Now, growing in virtue and you know, recognizing where you need growth and virtue. Um, and the funny thing is, like you don't have to be on just one side of the extreme. You know, oftentimes you can be a pendulum that just like swings back and forth all the time. Uh, for example, like humility. Every time I go to confession, just about the first thing I have to confess is self-reliance. And then whenever my self-reliance doesn't work out, I fall into self-condemnation and I suddenly hate myself. Like first I think I'm the bee's knees, and then I think I'm the absolute worst thing ever. Um, but we have to examine that. We have to, in order to grow in virtue, we have to look at this and be like, okay, where am I falling short? Um, whether it be in the excess or the deficit, you know, and growing in this virtue, this necessary virtue, it cannot be found simply by reading textbooks on logic, philosophy, and apologetics. And apologetics being reasons to believe, you know, emphasis on reason as in like reason and will. So reasons to believe, why is it reasonable to believe? Again, these things are good and necessary and they have their place. But how do we bring back that balance? Um, you know, how do we point the arrow from just the head to also the heart? Right? We we have to dive into the depths of the human heart and the human experience. Um and it's like, how do we do that? Where do we encounter that? The contents of the heart are made visible by art. I'm gonna say that again. The contents of the heart are made visible by art. The human person is often referred to as the masterpiece of God, right? His greatest work of art. We are the visible manifestation of his heart. Now, John Paul II, my boy, the theology of the body, man and man and woman, he created them. His thesis statement, his thesis statement of that huge work, it is he says, the body and fact, and only the body, is capable of making visible what is invisible, the spiritual and the divine. It has been created to transfer into the visible reality of the world, the mystery hidden from eternity in God, and thus to be a sign of it. You know, in creating us, our hearts, like the fullness of our hearts, are but a piece of the heart of the Father. Right? The entirety of my heart is but a Peace of the fathers. Okay. And so whenever um, like whenever someone encounters my heart, they are encountering part of the heart of God, right? There is this saying too, uh, I think I used it in the last episode of like each person shines a unique beam of God's glory. Whenever you encounter the inner workings, wounds, joys, and sorrows of another person, you encounter God Himself. In that same role of literature information, Francis, Pope Francis said, as Christians, nothing that is human is indifferent to us. You will not and cannot encounter a heart, a human heart, that does not have the heart of the father as both its origin and its destiny. Now, let's um just kind of like state the obvious that whenever you encounter other people, the first thing you think or notice is not always going to be, wow, this person reminds me of God. Like, oh wow, this is what God must be like. Um, you know, but here's the thing, that's how it should be. So this is um where Francis kind of gets into what he calls evangelical discernment of culture. Okay. This is the whole phrase, you know, you can be in this world without being of it. Right? You can be in this world without being of it. That's like the evangelical culture part. The discernment part is the fact that what you feed yourself matters. You know? It is 100% possible to consume secular content without it consuming you. But it is something that takes a lot of discernment and a lot of self-mastery. And like, are you going to do it perfect 100% of the time? No. No. You know, that's that's the goal. That's 100% the goal. But like, let's let's be let's be gentle with ourselves. Let's hold ourselves to a high standard while being gentle with ourselves when we do mess up because we're human and we need grace upon grace upon grace upon grace. So I do want to tell this story um that's very that's that's circulated a lot. It's about um the bishops of Antioch in the early church. So so in the early Christian church, several bishops were gathered outside a cathedral in Antioch when a beautiful prostitute passed by on the street. Upon noticing her, the crowd of bishops looked away to avoid being seduced. Bishop Gonas, however, stared intently at her, and then she said to his fellow bishops, Did not the wonderful beauty of that woman delight you? The bishops remained silent. Gonas insisted, indeed it delighted me, but he wept for her. When the prostitute saw how the bishop looked at her with such purity, she was caught off guard. No man had ever looked at her with such purity. He was not lusting after her, but rather saw something in her that she did not even see in herself. The simple purity of that one bishop's glance marked the beginning of her conversion to Christ. She soon returned to find him, and today we know this former prostitute as Saint Pelagia. Cause here's the thing, friends. Do you want to be looked at or do you want to be seen? It is the heart that determines what the eyes really see and what the ears really hear. Okay. So the discernment part comes in is like, okay, what is the state of my heart? Do I do I need to shield my eyes? Right? Do I need to be um extra cautious in what I consume? You know, like whether when it comes to music, movies, books, things like that, it's like, do I need to be cautious? You know, like, am I a sponge? Um is this something that I have mastery over that like I can appreciate it for what it is and see the beauty and the poetry in it? Or is it something that's like gonna take me down this like little slope and um like you you you become what you eat kind of thing? Like you are what you eat. Because though the first one of like being able to consume secular content um through the eyes of faith, and like see just like the core at heart of the human person in that while still being able to like recognize the distinct ways and like oh, like the the the this is where this is where like it gets a little bit skewed, you know. Can you recognize the goodness and the desires of the human heart that are good in the stories and the songs and the movies that just like are not really super wholesome, you know? Um, it's like are you able to do that? And most of us are gonna have to say no, honestly. Um, you know, St. Paul says, Christian, know thyself. That's why, that's why Francis calls it evangelical discernment of culture. He doesn't want to like the end goal is not to avoid it entirely. That is like, yes, it is it is difficult to be in the world while not being of it. But here's the thing: we live in the world, and so we have to learn. So we have to learn how to see and affirm the goodness of the human heart, the goodness that are the roots of these desires that lead us to alienating solutions or disembodied Jesus, you know. It it is something that comes from so much prayer, discernment, virtue, and boatloads of grace. Boatloads of grace. Like if you're struggling, go to the sacraments. If you're struggling, go to the sacraments. And then if you're still struggling, go back to the sacraments. Um now, we live in a day and age that is very fast-paced, that is very screens, that is um, you know, I I will often say, like, I'm a child of um instant gratification, like my my patience it's it's it's slim, it's slim. And um trust me, I get it. One of the greatest ways, though, for us to slow down and encounter art that portrays the human heart in a way that is like substantial in a way that it stays with you and it makes it like you it makes you slow down and sit with it and be with it, is literature, right? Um kind of throwing that in there because the whole the whole letter from Pope Francis is on the role of literature in the form information. And in this, I I have the the letter linked in the resources, by the way. It's wonderful. I also have um a a uh blog post from Catholic mom from Holy Cross Family Ministries, that that story of um the bishops and the prostitute in Antioch that that is at. So I have those both linked in there. But in the role of literature letter, Francis quotes this French author named Marcel Proust and his work in search of lost time. Listen to this. This is so cool, this is so important. He says, novels unleash in us, in the space of an hour, all the possible joys and misfortunes that in life it would take us entire years to know, even slightly, and of which the most intense would never be revealed to us, because the slowness with which they occur prevents us from perceiving them. It is so cool. It is so cool. He also quoted C. S. Lewis, um, his An Experiment in Criticism, and it says, In reading great literature, I become a thousand men, and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself. And I am never more myself than when I do. Like I said, every human person is a work of art. Each of us is a visible manifestation of the heart of God. Whenever we transcend ourselves and we encounter the hearts of others, we truly are more ourselves because we are encountering another part of our shared heart, which is the heart of God. As the church, we are the body of Christ. And as each of us, our entire heart is but a piece of the Father's. Whenever we all are together, when we are all in community, you know, Jesus says we're two or three are gathered in my name, there I am with them. Um whenever we are all in communion with one another, we got a big old piece of the Lord's heart right there. You know, that is the goal is unity. The goal is unity. We want the heart of Christ, the heart of the Father to all be one. We don't want any parts missing. We all carry a piece of the heart of the Father. And just like C.S. Lewis points out, you know, I am never more myself than when I transcend myself. You know, I am never more fully me than when I am outside myself. And again, John Paul II, St. John Paul II. Man can only find himself through a sincere gift of self. And knowing these things, knowing these principles, these philosophies, the logic, all of this, all of the brain things behind all of it. Um, it is a lot easier. It is a lot easier for so, so many of us to be in touch with our brains and learn all day and be in textbooks and things like that without ever once allowing the Lord to prick our hearts. It can be so much easier for us to admit that we don't know something rather than um the vulnerabilities of our hearts be on display, the woundedness of our hearts. And in literature, in um a very particular way, especially in the fact that it makes you slow down, um, the author's heart is on display. And whenever you encounter their heart by reading what they have written, um, you know, this novel that they have written or uh creative nonfiction, whatever it is, um, you are transcending yourself and encountering another piece of the heart to which both of yours belong. So, what is the greatest way to evangelize in our modern world? Slow down, get in touch with your own heart by consuming art, you know, in particular literature. And you know, I'm not much of a reader. Okay, fine. Audiobooks exist. Audiobooks exist, and they're good. Now, give the Lord the mustard seed of reading a novel or listening to a novel, and allow him to transform your methods of evangelization, like your own evangelization techniques. Allow him to transform those methods as flowing from the heart as the lived experience of the truth. Now, I kind of want to have this one final quote from Pope Francis's letter on the role of literature information. He says, Literature helps readers topple the idols of a self-referential, falsely self-sufficient, and statistically conventional language that at times also risks polluting our ecclesial discourse, imprisoning the freedom of the word. The literary word is a word that sets language in motion, liberates, and purifies it. Ultimately, it opens that word to even greater expressive and expansive vistas. It opens our human words to welcome the word that is already present in human speech, not when it sees itself as knowledge that is already full, definitive, and complete, but when it becomes a listening and expectation of the one who comes to make all things new. So if you're asking yourself, you know, where do I start? What do I even read? Like if I'm feeling inclined to read, what do I even read? Um, so my advice to you would be discern your prayer. What calls to you, you know? Um, also, the classics are classics for a reason. So I I would I would encourage you to peruse your local library. And um, you know, as you go, like ask for the Holy Spirit to help you in choosing a book. Help ask him to guide you as you choose a book. Um, and you know, a uh a really beautiful prayer, you know, as as you're walking into this library. You know, it's really one of those things that's like, Lord, this is what it is, and I'm gonna let you take it from here. It's Lord, what do you want to teach me about my heart? Then let him take the reins, and you'll end up in a book, and he'll be teaching you something about your own heart and also something about his heart, and then the hearts of however many millions of people. So that's gonna be it for me today. I'm gonna have to go crack open a book. Um, but until I'm with you next time, have a blessed day.