Wow! It has been quite an interesting Lenten season for us Catholics.
First, Pope Benedict the 16th stepped down as the leader of our church. All eyes turned toward Rome last week when the College of Cardinals were all called into Convention, and then into Conclave, to choose our new Pontificate -- who came in the form of the Argentinian Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis. He is the first Pope from the New World, the first Jesuit Pope, and our first Francis. I missed watching his Inaugural Mass on television this morning (I chose sleep instead), but I didn't miss watching his first historic words to the world last week when he stepped out onto the Balcony over St. Peter's square and said "Good Evening." I was sitting in my living room, taking a break from cleaning. When he led us in prayer.....from those in St. Peter's Square to everyone in the world who was watching via TV, the internet, Twitter.....I couldn't help but feel the Holy Spirit at work. Here we are, the Catholic, Universal church, being led in prayer by our new Pope. My spine tingled through each word of the "Our Father," "Hail Mary," and "Glory Be." Words cannot express what that kind of unity felt like. Oh! To be there in more than spirit....!
I can't help but feel revitalized in my faith at a time like this. Catholicism is one of the top topics in the public's mind right now. It's up to us as Catholics to do something good with it, to keep the ball rolling. We are starting to learn what the shape of Pope Francis' ministry will look like based off of the example he led back in his home country. The media has not hesitated to dig up anything and everything in an attempt to either exalt or demean this man. Yet, on the fore front of all of that media buzz are all the little ways that Pope Francis lives the Gospel.....in choosing the bus rather than the papal limo, or paying his hotel bill the morning after the vote. In Pope Francis we have a humble servant who was exalted because of his humility. It's beautiful. It's a living testament to the fact that we as Christians need to be living examples of our faith, and DO, ACT upon Christ's words when he tells us to Feed his people. Just like St. Francis of Assisi famously said: "Preach the Gospel always. With words if you have to."
This is not to discredit the work of our scholarly Pope Emeritus, Benedict the 16th, whose writings have been described as little time bombs planted in our recent history, waiting to be discovered and read. I, personally, have a few of his titles in my reading queue.
What I am most amazed and hopeful about, though, is how Pope Francis will be continuing Pope Benedict's work on New Evangelization. Even though I have just heard the term less than a month ago, I have been passionately and almost obsessively intrigued by the topic.
Pope Benedict started this Year of Faith back in October with a Synod of Bishops in Rome on the theme of "The New Evangelization and the Transmission of the Christian Faith." The United States Conference of Bishops has since presented a strategic pastoral plan for evangelizing which can accessed on their webpage. Then there are all the publications on the topic which are finally coming out into the public domain to be read. I, for one, have already devoured Cardinal Donald Weurl's New Evangelization: Passing on the Catholic Faith Today, which came out just this past January. This is a short little gem which serves as a good introduction to the topic. Currently, I am in the middle of Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st Century Church, by the Letters to a Young Catholic author George Weigel. Weigel's book invites Catholics to look at both how our recent history as a church has led us to this point, for both good and for ill, as well as presents a steady solution in our evangelizing styles. His work is both scholarly and easy to follow, as well as makes me feel glad to be a part of the Catholic Family. Like any good bookworm, I enjoy these titles, its actually the Video-Internet based ministry of Fr. Robert Barron, of Word on Fire, that I find most intriguing.
I discovered Fr. Barron's Youtube channel just months before my wedding, when I was recovering from my tonsillectomy at my parent's house. Reading was difficult, so I surfed the web instead. Earlier that week my father had read an article by Fr. Barron which was republished in the local diocesan newspaper. I decided to Google this fascinating author, and was pleasantly surprised by his Youtube commentaries on our contemporary culture. I had already been aware of the extent that the Protestant churches had been using technology: twitter, youtube and vlogs, to spread the gospel message, but I still had this over arching idea that my own church was kitch in its visual approach and behind the times. This man proved that bias wrong. The first people I followed on Twitter were of this Protestant persuasion.....after all, I did marry a Protestant. However, since then it feels like my own Catholic family has been catching up in leaps and bounds. Word on Fire ministries, and Fr. Robert Barron, have gone on to complete their now amazing video series: Catholicism, and are currently working on a video series on New Evangelism, which I am wonderfully anticipating.
You see, I am a child of the information age. I have been blogging in some form or another since I was in high school. I was connected on Myspace when it was the cool thing to do; now I am on Facebook and Twitter. I have used Skype to keep in contact with my husband during his overseas deployments. And I even adore Pinterest. This stuff is second nature to me, but it isn't second nature to everyone I know. I have a hard time convincing my father than sometimes text messaging is more polite than a phone call (time and place, ya know?). So, of course I am drawn to New Evangelization, and it excites me that my social media presence means something during these weeks when we have gained a new Pope. You cannot underestimate how connected to the world it can feel like when we are ALL Tweeting about one major event together, with all these people at St. Peter's Square. It's mind blowing. Thanks to new media, this is truly a magical time to be a part of the faith.
Here I am, just a housewife in St. Louis, who tries to make it to church every week, someone tiny and insignificant, and probably not even a good Catholic....but I am part of something far greater than myself. I am part of a Universal Catholic Church.
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