Hahn speaks on Bible, new evangelization

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BY CAROL BAASS SOWA
TODAY’S CATHOLIC

SAN ANTONIO • The opening keynote address at the Archdiocese of San Antonio’s Assembly 2015 on Nov. 7, was given by popular speaker and best-selling author Scott Hahn, Ph.D., who spoke on “Consuming the Word: The Bible, the Eucharist and the New Evangelization.” Hahn holds the Father Michael Scanlan Chair of Biblical Theology and the New Evangelization at Franciscan University of Steubenville, where he has taught since 1990. Originally ordained in the Presbyterian Church in 1982, he converted to Catholicism in 1986.

Hahn noted Pope Francis’ Jubilee Year of Mercy, which begins Dec. 8, marks the 50th anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council. The issues it addressed were similar to those of Vatican I in 1870, but with increased emphasis on evangelization.

Pope Paul VI became pope halfway through the Second Vatican Council and appropriately chose the name of St. Paul, intending like him to be an apostle to the gentiles. He became the first pontiff in history to make apostolic journeys to other continents and, in 1974, called a synod of bishops to address proclaiming the Good News of Jesus in the modern world. His apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi emphasized evangelization as the reason for the church’s existence, connecting this with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Following in his footsteps, Pope St. John Paul II logged more than 100 apostolic journeys and coined the term “new evangelization” in an unscripted moment during a speech in his native Poland in 1979. The church had never stopped evangelizing, he told his fellow Poles, but what was needed now was “re-evangelizing the de-Christianized, post-Christian world” to combat the ravages of secularism. It was, said Hahn, this releasing of the Holy Spirit into the world and unleashing of the Gospel’s grace in his homeland, which eventually led to the peaceful fall of the “Iron Curtain.”

Pope St. John Paul II later remarked how fitting it would be to launch the new evangelization in 1992, the 500th anniversary of the founding of the Americas. Notably, the most populous Catholic countries in 1492 were Spain, Italy, France and Portugal. Today, Brazil, Mexico and the United States hold that title, while the European countries which evangelized them are struggling to recover the legacy of Catholic faith that once defined them.

His Redemptoris Missio, written in 1990, is known as “the Magna Carta of the new evangelization,” said Hahn. In this encyclical, Pope St. John Paul II stated, “No believer in Christ, no institution of the church can avoid this supreme duty: to proclaim Christ to all peoples.”

However, the 1990s proved to be what the pope referred to as “the Advent of the new evangelization.” Pope Benedict XVI, who ascended to the chair of St. Peter in 2005, took up the task of moving the new evangelization forward by establishing a department in the Roman Curia to oversee this initiative. Now, with Pope Francis, said Hahn, “it is almost as though God has sent us a man who defines the new evangelization,” a pope who is keenly aware we are living in a post-Christian world and is dealing with this in a striking way.

The state of things today is evident in a recent study by the Pew Research Center, which found that only 30 percent of Catholics in America who were raised Catholic are still practicing, meaning they attended Mass at least once monthly. Thirty-eight percent call themselves “cultural Catholics,” while 32 percent no longer consider themselves Catholics.

“We often tend to think that ‘evangelical Catholic’ is an oxymoron,” said Hahn, but it is not. Jesus did not suffer and die only for Catholics, he reminded the audience, but so all people could come into the fullness of faith in the family of God, the Catholic Church. Having a personal relationship with Jesus and leading a good life as witness to this is not enough for us as Catholics. Ours is a covenant relationship with God — not a contract, with conversion an ongoing process in which we are catechized, baptized and then sacramentalized.

“Every time we go to Mass,” he pointed out, “we are, in effect, being re-evangelized.”
Our friendships with neighbors, co-workers and family members can lead them into friendship with Christ. “The only homily they might ever hear,” said Hahn, “is your life, your friendship, the way that you share your life with them.” Joy in our faith is key to this, as Pope Francis reminded us in Evangelii Guadium, saying evangelization will only take place as a result of contagious joy. Even if we cannot explain every church document or answer all objections, added Hahn, “we can start enjoying being Catholic.”

Part of the joy we can share with others is the joy of receiving the Eucharist, as emphasized by Pope St. John Paul II in his last encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, in which he affirmed “the Eucharist must be the source and the summit of all evangelization, and especially the new evangelization.”

Hahn then told of running into a friend at the airport whom he had not seen since high school. The man proudly confided he was no longer a Catholic, but had come to believe what Hahn had tried to convince him of as a teenager and was now an “evangelical, Bible-believing, New Testament Christian!” Needless to say, he was shocked to learn Hahn had become a Catholic and he began lobbing Hahn’s old points refuting Catholicism back at him. The two continued in friendly discussion in several phone calls, with Hahn sending him a box of books he had written on the faith.

At first, the friend scoffed at Catholics believing Christ’s sacrifice is in the Mass. The Eucharist was “just a meal,” he contended and Calvary was the sacrifice. Hahn then explained to him that while Calvary was the sacrifice, it began at the Last Supper, the Lord’s Supper, which was more than just a meal. It was where Jesus broke the bread, declaring it his body, “given up for you,” and raised the chalice, calling it the cup of his blood, “the blood of the new and eternal covenant.” In the Greek, Hahn noted, the words “covenant” and “testament” are interchangeable.

Hahn further observed that, as devout Jews, the disciples would have called the crucifixion at Calvary an execution, not a sacrifice. For them, a sacrifice could only take place in the Temple of Jerusalem with a Levite priest. However, initiating the Eucharist at the Last Supper on Passover changed that. After studying the church fathers, Hahn had come to realize Jesus’ celebration of Passover was the key.

If the Eucharist is the Passover of the new covenant, he told his friend, it can’t be “just a meal.” Instead, it is a sacrifice that was initiated at the Last Supper and consummated at Calvary. Christ did not lose his life on Good Friday, for he had already freely laid it down as a gift of love on Holy Thursday when he instituted the Eucharist. Thus, he was not the victim of a Roman execution, as much as he was the victim of self-giving love — divine mercy.

Hahn went on to explain that, in reading the New Testament, the phrase “New Testament” is found only a few times and the only time Jesus employs it is at the institution of the Eucharist. “The New Testament shows us in Luke 22:20,” said Hahn, “that the New Testament was a sacrament long before it started to become a document.” Jesus, he observed, did not say: “Write this in memory of me,” but “do this in memory of me,” and that is what the disciples did.

It was years before the Gospels were written and decades before the New Testament was started. They were not even gathered together until the next century. However, throughout the first century, every time the phrase “New Testament” is used, it refers to the sacrament of the Eucharist.

Hahn sent the friend some of his books, but did not hear from him again for months. When he did, it was with the joyful news the man and his wife were returning from receiving the sacrament of penance for the first time in 30 years and the following day would be receiving the Eucharist, from which they had also been absent for decades.
It was then Hahn realized the new evangelization was more than something abstract and that our friendships were the key to bringing in the lost sheep.

At the end of every Mass, we are commissioned to go out as missionaries, said Hahn. “In our family, through our friendships, we can share the joy of the Gospel and bring people back — not to a contract, but to a covenant; not to a factory, but to a family where we are loved by God in a way that exceeds our wildest dreams.”