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THE SECULAR WORLD dashes about frenetically searching for
a solution to the millennium bug on its computers or ponders
the pressing subject of where and how to celebrate New
Year's Eve, 1999, we Christians have been issued a very
different sort of challenge for the next century, to join
the Church in its re-evangelization of the world.
 For
us as the would-be evangelizers doesn't this seem like an
overwhelming, well nigh impossible, expectation? We see all
around us a society lured by, even committed to, life styles
that are in direct contradiction to the teachings of Christ.
In our Church attendance is shrinking, with fewer priests
and lay people do to its important work. In our smaller
world many of those we love the most either ignore or openly
reject this Christ who is everything to us.
Where
to begin this mammoth task? Not to worry, says our God, for
there is among you just the right person to lead the way.
Our Holy Father, John Paul II, has articulated again and
again a clear vision of the Church in the Third Millennium,
the new springtime of Christianity, when all believers will
be reunited before the cross of Christ. He is providing
example and leadership as he travels around the world,
despite his age and his deteriorating health, inspiring
fellow Christians and dialoguing with leaders of many
faiths.
Pope
John Paul reminds us in his popular book Crossing The
Threshold Of Hope that "against the spirit of the world,
the Church takes up anew each day a struggle that is none
other than the struggle for the world's soul." He urges us
to model ourselves after the holy stubbornness of
St. Paul as he set about evangelizing the then-known world,
grounded in the profound truth that
however great the number of sins
committed, grace was even greater (Rm 5:20). "As the
year 2000 approaches our world feels an urgent need for the
Gospel," His Holiness insists, and it is incumbent upon us
as believers to enter into the new evangelization in which
the Gospel will be proclaimed to the ends of the earth.
He
calls upon the young people in particular to carry on the
pilgrimage of faith that they began at such awesome
gatherings as the World Youth Day in Denver in 1993, which
so many of Manitoba's finest attended. And it is the
responsibility of the rest of us to "walk alongside the
younger generation," to encourage and support them in their
mission to make a better world, one which is truly reborn,
where the authentic values of the Gospel will flourish.
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