Bishop Robert Barron reflected on Pope John Paul II’s speech in Port-au-Prince in 1983, when the pope characterized the New Evangelization this way: it’s the same old evangelization if you want (proclamation of Jesus Christ as risen from the dead), but we need new ardor, new expression, new method. He took this triple ‘newness’ as organizing principles in proclaiming the Good News to the world. Let’s for instance take ‘new method’. Barron took this to mean ‘media presence’ or the spreading and sowing of the seminae Verbi (‘seeds of the Word’) in the world. It talks about the range quality and the networking aspect of evangelization. New media is the contemporary sowing of the seeds. How will the kids find their way to the church is a key question for our times. Barron suggests that in the virtual world, the seeds of God’s Word find their way to the kids’ hearts and lead the kids back to a faith experience. It is like the exciting Guttenberg time which enabled the Church to reach cultures.
26
Apr