Towards New Evangelization

The Call for a Culture of Encounter

   The clergy in the Diocese is responding to the call of Pope Francis to proclaim the Gospel and promote a culture of encounter in their pastoral works. Such call requires a new approach to make all things new.

A New Pastoral Orientation

A new way of doing pastoral works in the parishes is being proposed by no less than than the chairman on Pastoral Ministry, Msgr. Pedro C. Frac. In a schema above, basic ecclesial communities (BEC) take central prominence suggesting a movement originating from the bottom struggling to live up to the promises of a new heaven and a new earth. The movement is focused on new catechism as a new way of doing evangelization.

A New Catechism

  The monsignor has pioneered in the Diocese of Kalibo a community-owned school-based catechetical program. The program, like a mustard seed, is silently thriving and gaining strong support among small communities in the whole municipality of Batan. Without wishing to, it is fast becoming part of the mainstream society that policy makers are giving it a second look. It started small. The parish priest and his coadjutors simply and consistently celebrated the Eucharist in the barrio chapels monthly. Then slowly, they encouraged parents and ordinary teachers to hear masses in schools too. Soon enough the team of three priests finds themselves busy saying masses and attending community and PTA meetings.  At present, each of them has more or less 13 masses a week.

    The communities became articulate. They demanded that the local schools afford their children their right to religious instruction as provided for in the Philippine Constitution. Equally, the ordinary government teachers heeded the call and volunteered themselves as instant catechists. Thus begin the community-initiated school-based catechetical program that the Diocese is now gearing up to replicate in other parishes. At present, the teachers who responded to the call number to about 200 more or less. They have received specialized training from the Institute of Religion of the University of Sto. Tomas (UST-IR) and had been certified by it as professional catechists. They catechized their pupils and students voluntarily as their token of gratitude to the community that have supported them all along and as a response to the call they heard on the "Road to Damascus." 

Its Core Values

• Christ-centric - Jesus of Nazareth inspires us to lead a life of encounter with our fellow human being, giving preference to the least among us. He is our Way, our Truth and our Life. We give witness to his life-message in our day-to-day encounters by constantly reflecting on the Word and meeting him in the market place of life by bearing with one another. BEC is a way of life, our theology of life (cf. Fr. Tito's) where in our brotherhood with Christ Jesus, we encounter each other in our sinfulness and godliness.
• Process oriented - While we hope and pray for a successful implementation of the program, we always maintained that the dynamics of Christian encounter cannot be shortcut. The various ministries are relevant in sustaining the struggles and strengthening the resolve of the members of Ecclesial communities either personally or collectively towards witnessing their vocations. Their pastoral care thus become life-giving, indeed, a sacrament of life initiated both to heal or sustain and to set the human person in service of communion to give witness to the Gospel in the society at large. 
• Community-owned - When communities start owning the things that rightly theirs by the grace of God, the little that we have can be transformed into ordinary yet wonderful miracles of bread multiplying a hundredfold. Generosity flows, that pastors will be comfortable receiving "offerings" or "pledges" from the faithful instead of the typical commercial-like Arancel system of old. The communities pray that God the Father will give them their daily bread and are thankful for receiving such. In return, they open up to be God's instrument in the continuance of his works. 

Seduced to be God

This piece is also posted in my other blog, "Our Restless Journey"

Pope Francis' commentary on Mark 9:38-40 last Wednesday, May 22, 2013 during the Feast of St. Rita de Casia, OSA, the patron of impossible things, draws much attention in a society that is fast becoming secular. His words were headlines and the next most shared item in social media. Why is that? Sermo humilis? 

The other day, he was talking about the possibility of all men of goodwill entering the Kingdom of God, and he means, "all" including even those who refuse to believe in the existence of God. Yes, my friend! Even if you're an atheist or an agnostic, you can inherit New Heaven and New Earth. The proviso is simple. Do good works. Be good and shun evil. 

Now, this reminds me of a youthful desire brought by an "entanglement" with Sartrean Existentialism. Human reality desires to be God. To Sartre, this is bad faith. Man is deluded to believe that he can be happy in the afterlife. He refused to accept the fact that he is thrown into a world bereft of meaning. Ours, Sartre asserted, is an absurd world, and our existence a nauseating facticity. 

Sartre's Ontological Dilemma

Man is invited to return to freedom. He is asked to be responsible for himself, not to desire to be God but to accept that he is his own god. He must be honest to see things as they are. They are nauseating because they are "de trop", superfluous and meaningless.When, after undergoing "existential psychoanalysis", he starts his journey as a forlorn being-for-itself, man gains lucidity and assume a "positive existence". He now creates meaning where originally there was none. He begins to be responsible for himself, for his actions. He begins to be good, to be his god. 

Such was the seduction Sartre was offering man as an alternative. Yet as a young man, how can he carry the responsibility of being his own god? How can he endure the loneliness of worshiping himself without a community to belong to? How can he meet others and start doing good together? 

The Possibility of Good in Sartrean Philosophy

Atheism is always a lonely path, reserved for the strong and the courageous who care less to be deviant. The believers on the other hand are the lowly, the weak, the fearful, the marginalized, the humble, the contrite of heart, the common man who choose to walk along with his fellowman in the hope of returning home together to the House of the Father. Redemption is indeed offered to all at the cost of the blood of the Lamb. But even then, each and all is asked to choose to inherit Heaven or to be condemned into Hell, be it existential or otherwise. By our standards, this seems impossible. Precisely that Pope Francis prays for the impossible things to happen:

"Today is [the feast of] Santa Rita, Patron Saint of impossible things – but this seems impossible: let us ask of her this grace, this grace that all, all, all people would do good and that we would encounter one another in this work, which is a work of creation, like the creation of the Father. A work of the family, because we are all children of God, all of us, all of us! And God loves us, all of us! May Santa Rita grant us this grace, which seems almost impossible. Amen.”