Brothers and Sisters, in my last pastoral note, on Ash Wednesday, I wrote of “Our Apostolic Moment,” this unique “change of eras” in which we find ourselves as Christendom ends and a new apostolic age dawns.
As I outlined there, in this new apostolic age, our Church no longer benefits from carrying out its life and mission in a Christendom culture. One which, while imperfect in its own ways, had an imaginative vision for reality that arose from and largely aligned with Christian beliefs.
Instead, we find ourselves as Christians today living in a missionary context, like that experienced by the apostles, where we find ourselves increasingly at odds with the broader society. This context presents both new challenges and opportunities for us in advancing our local Church’s mission, which is that “in Jesus Christ all might be rescued and have abundant life, for the glory of the Father.”
Given both the difficulties and opportunities of our cultural landscape, we must respond with more than tweaks to our tactics. To build the kingdom of God in a time of apostolic mission invites our institutions and each of us to embark on an even greater “missionary conversion” (Evangelii Gaudium 30). This is not to say that everything we have been doing to date is wrong; it is simply to acknowledge that the cultural sands have shifted under our feet and that we have to respond.
If we are to boldly and compellingly preach and witness to Jesus Christ in this new apostolic time, we must move from a mode of operating that is more suited to a Christendom context to one that is apostolic.
Where must this change, this conversion, begin?
I am writing this pastoral note to propose that the first change Christ is calling us to, as an archdiocese, is not found in what we do, but in how we see.
