Ministry with the Poor – Why Loving the Poor

Lies at the Heart of the Mission of the Church

~A Course of Study and Conversion~

By:

Michael J. Firmin

2310 Allen Avenue

Augusta, Georgia 30906

mjfirmin@gmail.com

November 12, 2022

“Blessed are the Poor” – How Loving the Poor

Lies at the Heart of the Mission of the Church

Outline

The Course follows this progressive schema: 1. God Initiates – Trinitarian Love Overflows; 2. The Individual’s Conversion – A Returning Love for God; 3. The Converted InThe Church – Loving Community; 4. The Church Reaches Out in Love to the World; 5. The Church as the new Israel Journeys in Hope under Grace Back to God in Love.

First Part. God’s Revelation of His Plan for Man. Key Themes: The Call to Intimacy with God = God’s plan

for each human life; the Love of God for Man and Man’sSinful Response; the Poverty of Man and the Covenants.

Second Part. Spiritual Theology. Key Themes: The uniqueness of Christianity; Contemplative

Life; Spiritual Disciplines

Third Part. Ecclesiology. Key Themes: The New Israel; The Kingdom of God.

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Fourth Part. Moral (Political and Social) Theology, The Saints, & The An- cient and Modern Prophets.

Key Themes: The Poor; Societal Sin; UngovernedEconomic Structures; Diverging Social Classes; Justice &Injustice.

Fifth Part. Eschatology, Christian Unity and the New Pentecost, “The New Evangelization” and “TheChurch of the Poor.”

Key Themes: The New Jerusalem; The Future in the NewMillennium; “The Final Age”; “Hastening the Return of Christthe King” (2 Pe 3:8-18).

Sixth Part. Christian Integrated Development. Key Themes: Overcoming the church’s schism in social

ministry

Seventh Part. Local Church Practice.

Bibliography.

Prologue

It is necessary to begin our reflection by provoking a self-examination. Such a self-examination may serve to clear theair of any pre-conceived notions about two things: ourselves(the Church) and the subjects of our discourse, the poor. St.Ignatius of Loyola counsels in The Spiritual Exercises that thefirst objective in the spiritual life is to know oneself.Socrates said the same centuries before. Acknowledging thetruth of our own reality must be the first step in seeking thetruth which lies outside of us – and especially for ourpurposes here, that specific truth about the poor and the

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Church’s relationship with the poor. And we will learn that,even as we appropriate the truth about the poor we will cometo know and love ourselves, and hence we will be able tobetter know, love and serve God.

To all outward appearances still vibrant, the Christiandenominations are not winning the culture. One essentialelement needed to forestall the decline of Christianity in theUnited States is a renewed openness to serve God in and withthe poor. The Church ignores the poor to its peril!

The late Pope John Paul II gave this speech to some PhilippineCatholic bishops:

“I shall address the first priority: the Church ofthe Poor. Being a Church of the poor echoes the firstBeatitude: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, fortheirs is the kingdom of heaven'. ... A Church of thepoor seeks to share time and resources in order toalleviate suffering, ... The Church of the poor is aChurch in which the poor are welcomed, listened toand actively involved. A Church of the poor can domuch to strengthen the family and to combat humanexploitation."

Today’s culture presents enormous challenges to the U.S.church, including the weakening of marriage and the family,the backbone of Christianity. An anti-Christian current maypossibly force the removal of tax-exempt status for churchproperty. If the faith of the people depends on the familiarmaterial comforts and advantages now accorded the typical U.S.congregation, such faith is indeed on shaky ground. TheProphet Jeremiah (Jer 26:2-9) spoke to a religious milieuquite similar to our own when he said:

“Thus says the Lord: stand in the court of the houseof the Lord and speak to the people of all the citiesof Judah who come to worship in the house of theLord… ‘Thus says the Lord: If you disobey me, not

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living according to the Law I placed before you andnot listening to the words of my servants theprophets, whom I send you constantly though you donot obey them, I will treat this house like Shiloh,and make the city which all the nations of the earthshall refer to when cursing another.’ … When Jeremiahfinished speaking all that the Lord bade him speak toall the people, the priests and prophets laid hold ofhim, crying ‘You must be put to death! Why do youprophesy in the name of the Lord: ‘This house shallbe desolate and deserted?’ And all the peoplegathered about Jeremiah in the house of the Lord.”

Judah’s people hadn’t abandoned the Temple; they were there,doing worship in a large crowd. They were contributing money. Yet God was not the Center of their way of life; they had marginalized God just as surely as they had marginalized the poor. They had created a society that thought only of money, commerce, and material comfort for the relatively few while the poor among them suffered. They worshipped other gods imported from the countries with whom they did business. Jeremiah and the other prophets told them that repentance could sway God, and turn away His wrath, make Him literally “change His Mind” about destroying them. The Prophet Ezechiel points out to the Jewish exiles in Babylon that their crimes exceeded those of the legendary Sodom precisely in how its

citizens ignored the poor:

And look at the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters were proud, sated with food, complacent in their prosperity, and they gave no

help to the poor and needy. Rather, they became haughty and committed abominable crimes in my presence; then, as you have seen, I removed them. (Ez 16:48-50)

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But in our present day the prophetic role of the U.S. Churchvis á vis society has been gradually compromised; the poor havebeen marginalized in the Church, and therefore the propheticrole which the poor should nurture in the church has beenmarginalized by institutional self-concern and the concerns ofwealth. Presenting a solid and thorough theological,historical, and biblical foundation for the call to “Be aChurch of the Poor” in the minds and hearts of the lay andordained leaders of the church through a course on ministrywith the poor is a necessary step in reestablishing theseverely compromised prophetic role of the church in theUnited States. It is my hope and prayer that this Course willserve in such a role.

The Vatican sponsored a symposium in Assisi, Italy toemphasize the Pope’s opinion that the state of the churchtoday is much like that in St. Francis’ time: in need ofthoroughgoing spiritual renewal. Archbishop Stanislaw Rylko,the Pope’s representative at the symposium, pointedly taughtthat the institutional and charismatic elements are “co-essential” in the life of the church and that the relationshipbetween the institution and the new movements is notdialectical, but comes from the same Holy Spirit Who does notoppose Himself. The new movements are, in other words,prophetic for the church today. Their relationship with theinstitutional element is complimentary and symbiotic. Eachelement is needed for the other to be fully alive. Each is avital charism for the building up of Christ’s Body, thechurch. (cf Kevin Murrell, monograph to Bishop Boland)

Taking on pastorates upon graduation from seminary, the newly-ordained minister or priest will immediately encounter thelayperson who is enthusiastic about mission: evangelism,campus outreach, prison ministry, outreach to the poor andhomeless, church-building or medical work in foreigncountries, etc. If the newly ordained has a self-understandingthat is grounded primarily in an “institutional” model ofchurch which excludes or sidelines the prophetic dimension,the minister will react rather than be proactive.

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So, when a young man quickly told Moses, “Eldad and

Medad are prophesying in the camp,” Joshua, son of Nun,who from his youth had been Moses’ aide, said, “Moses,

my lord, stop them.” But Moses answered him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the people of the LORD were prophets! Would that the LORD might bestow his spirit on them all!” (Nu 11:27-29)

Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophetic utterances. Test everything; retain what is good. (I Thess 5:19-21)

The ordained clergy are not to stifle the Holy Spirit, but actas orchestra leaders who keep each section of giftscoordinated with the rest. Rather than compete with thelaypersons, pastors complete the body of believers byrepresenting Christ Himself in both His authority and Hisservanthood. (cf 2Cor 5:15-18)

Yet the church’s pastors have generally not been taughtconcerning the prophetic role of the poor in God’s plan forthe salvation and sanctification of the world. The followingprinciples would underlie this teaching, and do underlie thisCourse: a) “preaching good news to the poor” is constitutiveof what it means to be the Church, necessary to the Church’smission of reconciling this world to the Father in Jesus; b)when the Church ignores or marginalizes the poor the Church’smission is imperiled; c) the poor have a “sacramental” roleto play in the life of the Church; they are a “means of grace”especially efficacious in restoring family and community tothe church and at the same time rescuing the Church from prideand materialism; d) the wealth of the Church in the UnitedStates can be its greatest enemy leading it to complacency andreticence in proclaiming the Gospel; e) engagement with thepoor and having them in our midst in a more intentional waycannot but keep us – the Church – more reflective of thePerson of Christ; f) in loving the poor we love Jesus

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Himself; and g) it is absolutely necessary for the church tobe engaged in welcoming the poor into its life. ~April 30, 2004

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First Part. God’s Revelation of His Plan for Man.“Veni, Creator Spiritus! Mentes tuorum visita, imple superna gratia quae tu creasti

pectora.” Come, Creator Spirit, visit the minds of those who are yours; fill with heavenly

grace the hearts that you have made.

Key Themes: The Call to Intimacy with God = God’s plan foreach human life; the Love of God for Man and Man’s SinfulResponse; the Poverty of Man and the Covenants.

We must begin by coming to terms with our own poverty. Each ofus is a microcosm of “Man” in that there is a fundamentaldissonance in our being on two levels: at the level of being,we are at odds with our End (God) by making our End Ourselves;and at the level of existence, we are at odds with ourselves,caught between the person we wish to be and the person wechoose to be. St Paul himself expresses this contradiction inhumanity’s (and every Christian’s) existence:

“For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate…The willing is ready at hand, but the doing the goodis not. For I do not do the good I want, but I do theevil I do not want…For I take delight in the law ofGod, in my inner self, but I see in my membersanother principle at war with the law of my mind,taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in mymembers.” (Rom 7:15, 18, 22-23)

God reveals the truth about Himself and this truth about Manfirst in the Book of Genesis. When asked for his opinionabout “where to start talking” about it being necessary forthe Christian to love the poor, the famous Mississippi civilrights activist, author, pastor and community development

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pioneer John Perkins answered without hesitation, “The Book ofGenesis. It is there that God teaches us that man is made inthe image of God (Gen 1:26-27).” Perkins understands wherethe common ground between human beings is established. Thereis something sacred about each and every human being,something which sets them apart and above (v. 28) every othercreature on earth. The second story of creation (Genesis 2:7)elaborates further upon the nature of man as imago Dei bytelling how God blew “…into his nostrils the breath of life…”God creates and imparts some of His very Self into Man. Godestablishes Man in a perfect garden and instruct him to use itand care for it. God cares for Man, Man cares for creation.Man has intimacy with God on one hand and with God’s creatureson the other.

Only later in the scriptures do we see the gradual revelationof the Divine Typology of the Trinity as Father, Son and HolySpirit. Beginning with the early Church Fathers, Christianityhas understood that man’s “original grace” was precisely hissharing in the Divine Intimacy of the Trinity. (cf Hahn,Scott. First Comes Love.) Therefore man’s disobedience toGod’s one command about stewardship of the garden is therevelation of the cause of the dissonance spoken of earlier,which Christian theology has called “original sin,” or thatstate of estrangement from the original intimacy of theTrinity and, by degree, of estrangement from other humanbeings and from the earth.

What does this “state of original sin,” the poverty of ouralienation from God and ourselves, require of God, and whatdoes it require of us human beings? Very simply put, it drivesGod to reveal Himself and it requires of humanity a journey infaith and to faith.

Yet there is a crisis of faith today in the world and in theChurch. “Hannah Arendt has written, ‘In modern thought andphilosophy, doubt occupies the same central position occupiedfor all the centuries before by the thaumazein of the Greeks[wonder, admiration], marvel at all that is in as much as itis… Modern philosophy…has consisted of the articulation and

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ramification of doubt’; in other words, of a non-acknowledgement and a non-acceptance of the attraction toreality… Doubt is what prevents any true knowledge and soprevents us from truly solving the problem of fragility andthe disarray of the ‘I’…” (Fr. Julián Carrón, quoted in thedevotional periodical, Magnificat, pp. 277-278) No Christian isimmune from the effects of this corruption of modern thought.How can we bridge the gap between unbelief and belief? Firstwe must pray along with the desperate father of the demon-possessed boy, “Lord I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mk 9:24)Along with that prayer, an indispensable help to renewedengagement with God’s plan for the world’s redemption must bea reflection on the great tool of God’s revelation, thecovenant.

You may be asking, “What does this discussion have to do withloving the poor?” The answer is, “Everything!” Understandingthe concept of covenant and its centrality in God’s plan willenable us to take proper responsibility for our relationshipto God and neighbor. The reality of covenant expresses ourtrue connectedness to every person – including the poor!

St. Paul says in 1 Tim 2:4-5, “...for He wants all men to besaved and come to know the truth. And the truth is this: ‘Godis one. One also is the mediator between God and men, the manChrist Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all.’” Godoffers to man nothing short of a restoration of what he lostby Adam’s sin. God, in effect, made a covenant with Adam.Adam’s obligations were to husband the Garden and itscreatures, and to keep away from the tree of the knowledge ofgood and evil. God’s obligation was to be in intimatefriendship with Man. The consequences of Man’s disobediencewas a loss of this garden with the tree of life, and thereforethe loss of fellowship with God and the certain eventuality ofthe loss of physical life (death). Man also lost fellowshipwith himself. So God’s promise in Jesus also means a healingof the enmity between men and men, between women and women andbetween men and women: in effect a restoration of humancommunity. “Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised

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and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, butChrist is all, and in all.” (Col 3:11; also cf. 1 Cor 12:13,Mk 7:26) Fellowship with the poor by materially comfortableChristians visibly witnesses the efficacy of the coming ofChrist into the world by demolishing class-consciousness andjudgementalism and makes the first steps towards justice andthe fruit of justice, peace. Very early in the history of thechurch, the Apostle St. James finds it necessary to correctsuch class consciousness as an enemy of the Christian witnessof God’s love:

“My brethren, show no partiality as you hold the faith

of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if aman with gold rings and in fine clothing comes intoyour assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also

comes in, and you pay attention to the one who wearsthe fine clothing and say, “Have a seat here, please,”while you say to the poor man, “Stand there,” or, “Sit

at my feet,” have you not made distinctions amongyourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?

Listen, my beloved brethren. Has not God chosen thosewho are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirsof the kingdom which he has promised to those who love

him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it notthe rich who oppress you, is it not they who drag you

into court? Is it not they who blaspheme that honorablename which was invoked over you?” (James 2:1-7)

To repeat again the question, “What does mankind’s breaking ofthe covenant and his resulting “state of original sin” requireof God, and what does it require of us human beings?” Itrequires of God that He be true to who He is: Glory, Peace,Truth and Justice (Ps. 85:9-14); Good and Compassionate, Holyand Faithful (Ps. 145:9,13). God is Creator of all, and

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therefore Father to all. God is love (Dt 7:13, 10:15, 23:5;2 Chr 9:8; Wis 7:28; Hos 11:1-11; Jn 3:16; Rom 5:5; 2 Cor 9:7,13:11; 1 Thess 4:9; 1 Jn 3:17, 4:8). God cannot not be who Heis. He by his very nature must be faithful to his creation, tohis “Image,” to Man. Therefore, immediately upon the ruptureof man’s love-covenant with God, in His very act of sentencingAdam and Eve for their grave sin, God held out hope to themeven as He addressed Satan: “I will put enmity between you andwoman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike atyour head, while you strike at his heel.” (Gen 3:15).

Beginning with the call of Abraham, God sets in motion therestitution of the covenant: the plan of mankind’s salvationthat he had foretold. The story of Abraham is the story of aman, a pagan who is chosen by God, who hears God’s word 1) asa word to him personally, not to “all”; 2) as coming from theGod; 3) as requiring faith in God; and 4) as requiringobedience to this God’s word.

Throughout our lives as Christians we will be challenged to doall these things that Abraham did as he encountered the wordof God. We will be called by our God to deeper and deeperconversion. St. Paul implicitly confirms that everyChristian’s faith is in fact an Abrahamic Faith, based onfaith leading to righteousness (Rom 5:20-22). But there iseven more to Abraham’s story. Abraham’s righteousness(justification) established for him a relationship with Godthat was unique and unprecedented since Adam and Eve. Genesis24:12-50 tells of Abraham’s servant’s prayer to God forguidance on a special journey to which Abraham had sent him.Remarkably, God honored the prayer! God entered again into acovenant relationship with man (mediated through Abraham andhis descendants) which was so intimate that even Abraham’sservant could “ride Abraham’s coattails,” so to speak. A poorman, a slave, had been so welcomed into Abraham’s household offaith (“the Church), that he, too, shared in the trusting loveof the covenant and enjoyed as well great intimacy with God(prayer)!

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We usually think of two covenants, the “Old” and the “New,” the first being through Abraham and the second one through Christ. If we focus on the nature of covenant, as a agreement which establishes both obligations and intimacy, we can designate God’s creation of man as the first covenant, God’s call of Abraham as the second covenant, and the third covenantas the birth, death and resurrection of his Son “in this, the final age” (Heb 1:2). God is determined, or as we have said before, “required,” to see this mankind project through to itscompletion. “If we are unfaithful, he will still remain faithful, for he cannot deny himself.” (2Tim 2:13) In absolute reality, all can be considered one covenant of participation in the overflowing of the Trinitarian Communion,the Mystery of Three Persons in One God. The Abrahamic Covenant, “fulfilled” or “filled out” by the “New Covenant” ofthe Son of Man in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, will result in the restoration of those men and women made perfect in faith to the original intimacy with God known by Adam and Eve. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallestletter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until everything has been fulfilled.” (Mt 5:17-19) This is God’s initiative, and this final restoration is His (in theSon Incarnate, Jesus Christ) Work: “But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is at work until now, so I am at work.” (Jn 5:17)

Man had persisted in “making” gods and abandoning the TrueGod; now, in the age of the Church, the “final age” of theworld, Jesus has made a sacred place for the Holy Spirit todwell in each believer: a “Temple of the Holy Spirit.” Thework of the Spirit in those “chosen” to be saved is thatcovenant work of bringing each believer, and the Body ofBelievers, the Church, into intimacy with the Most HolyTrinity, or as St. Ignatius calls Him in The Spiritual Exercises, “TheDivine Majesty.”

God is literally making us who call Jesus Christ our Lord, into His very own sons and daughters! Today we talk about

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homes, bodies and faces getting “makeovers.” This of course deals only with the façade, the outward appearance. The work of the New Covenant is the gigantic makeover, from the within of their very beings, of those of the human race who have come to belief. They are made into new creatures – but the creatures they had always been meant to be – by the action of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. “Behold, I make all things new!”(Rev 21:5); “By one offering he has forever perfected those who are being sanctified.” (He 10:14). We truly are his

handiwork! “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Eph 2:10)

Now to the second part of the question: What is required ofus, of mankind? What are the “duties,” the responsibilitiesassociated with being covenanted with God? In other words,what follows conversion? One way to find out is to look atwhat got man into trouble with the first two covenants. Whatwas it that man did or failed to do which broke the covenantwith His Creator? What mistakes were made by man?

The First Covenant. Adam listened to an unfamiliar voice of aperson he was unacquainted with, and believed him. He gave hisattention over to someone with whom he had no friendship,someone unproven but brazen nonetheless. Next, Adam wasflattered by this person who spoke to him like he was far moreimportant than he thought he was, or that God had ever toldhim he was. Thirdly, he forgot all the goodness God hadshowered upon him. He let go of his past. Finally, Adambelieved in a power other than God, i.e. his own. He decidedto control his own destiny.

Through Adam’s tragic choice, recorded for us in the veryfirst book of Bible, Genesis, we can learn four spiritual laws,or principles about how God thinks and therefore whatunderlies authentic human life. First, intellectual humility.Subject any personal conclusions to God’s revelation. Second,self-knowledge/realism. Understand our willfulness and

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rebelliousness, and our need to humbly seek direction fromGod’s People. Third, keep the collective memory. Know theroots of our faith and the history of our relationship withGod and His People. Fourth, family, people and organism aboveorganization. Value relationships and unity, givingforgiveness, not assuming power over self and others.

The Second Covenant. The Hebrew People, the “Israelites,”were the descendants of Abraham. God gradually revealed moreand more of Himself to them through acting powerfully in theevents of their Patriarchs’ lives; this revelation waspreserved first in the oral tradition passed down fromgeneration to generation. Then their sojourn in Egypt for 400years immersed them in a highly developed culture which had awritten language, organized civil society, skilled artisansand agriculture, and a developed theology in its religion. Godchose Moses, a Hebrew reared in Pharoah’s palace, to led hispeople out of slavery and attested his leadership of themultitude of Hebrews with many prodigies. Moses, the Lawgiver,is revered as the source of the Pentateuch, which details thespecifics of the renewed covenant God desires with His People.Moses becomes a new Abraham, the new founder of the People ofGod, and also like Abraham experiences a unique intimacy withGod. Moses had to veil his face because it glowed with God’sglory after he prayed and “met with God.”

The Scriptures’ prophetic books both before and after theExile chronicle on-going revelation of God as the Lover of HisPeople and as the Rejected Lover through the Israelites’idolatry and social sin, God’s punishment, and His restorationof a remnant. Most importantly, the Prophets foretold clearlythat a Messiah would come who would usher in a new andwonderful era of faithfulness to God. The Wisdom Literature,especially the Psalms, are a textbook of how to stay in rightrelationship to God and one’s fellow human beings, and reapthe benefits of living with love of God and neighbor. The lastof the Abrahamic covenant’s prophets was John the Baptist, whotold the people that “the axe was being laid to the root.” (Lk3:9) This was not a new message, but one consistent with allthe Prophets, who proclaimed that the People had 1) forsaken

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the true God for the worship of false gods; and 2) forsakeneach other by the practice of injustice. Sin against God andMan, especially the poor, earns God’s wrath, because both areinseparable in the one covenant.

The historical books give the story of the People’s repeatedstraying from the Mosaic covenant; and as with Adam and Eve,shows how presumption about their own divinely favored statusmade them arrogant. First, the Northern Tribes forgot howtheir kinsmen across the Jordan were carried off inpunishment: “However they offended the God of their fathers bylusting after the gods of the natives of the land….Thereforethe God of Israel incited against them the anger of Pul, kingof Assyria, and of Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, whodeported the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe ofManasseh and brought them to Halah….where they remain to thisday.” (1 Chr 5:25-26). Their self-deception led them todivorce their religion from their daily lives and build bothreligious and governmental structures which oppressed andmarginalized the poor.

The people of Judah chose to ignore the fact that God had notspared the Northern ten tribes of His Chosen People for theirsins; they overlooked in their hubris how the earth swallowedup those of the Hebrews who rebelled against Moses (Nu 16:32).Ezechiel taught the Exiles from Judah and Jerusalem inBabylon, explaining that each man is responsible for his ownactions for or against God (Ez 3). Yet by the time of Johnthe Baptist and Jesus, the Jews had again slipped into the oldarrogance. They ignored their Psalms’ telling of thebeliever’s intimacy with his God (cf Psalm 83); their leaderstaught the people to expect a Messiah who would bring nationalpride and political freedom (get rid of the Romans), eventhough many Jews lived in the Diaspora and would never beaffected by such “liberation.” Their leaders never taught the peopleto expect that God desired an intimate friendship with each one of them, as hehad had with so many of their ancestors, and that their Messiah would lead allhumanity into fellowship with their Creator. And without that intimacy,religion becomes ideology – a belief system to be obeyed rather than arelationship with God and people which is to be lived. They in effect

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became a law unto themselves, having “the pretense of religionbut denying the power of it.” (2 Tim 3:5). Religion thatbecomes an ideology necessarily turns inward and self-serving;therefore the numbers of the poor grow and always suffer asthe populace grows more materialistic and selfish.

Several places in the Old and New Testaments have very clearexplanations of God’s expectations: Dt 5:6-21 gives the TenCommandments; Dt 6:4-5 gives Creed of Judaism, “Hear, OIsrael! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! Therefore, youshall love the lord, your God, with all your heart, and withall your soul, and with all your strength.”; Mi 6:8, “You havebeen told, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires ofyou: Only to do the right and to love goodness, and to walkhumbly with your God.”; Mt 22:37-38, “Jesus said to him, ‘Youshould love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with yourwhole soul, and with your whole mind. This is the greatest andfirst commandment. The second is like it: You shall love yourneighbor as yourself.’”; and finally Js 1:27, “Religion thatis pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: tovisit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keeponeself unspotted from the world.” Loving God and lovingothers are inseparable; the scriptures go so far as to saythat loving others, especially the poor, authenticates our lovefor God. Conversely, where there is oppression of the poor andtolerance for injustice, God visits his wrath because there islikewise idolatry. Throughout the Bible, idolatry (theworship of false gods) is associated with there beingunwillingness to ease the burden carried by the poor.

Tragically, no amount of wrath poured out from God and noamount of teaching from His messengers seemed to be able totouch the “stony hearts” of the People so that they wouldremain faithful to their Creator and to themselves. God hadpromised to Abraham that through him “all nations would beblessed.” (Gen 12:3) While organizing their holy books duringthe last two centuries before Jesus’ birth, the Jews’collection had ended with the Prophet Malachi; but the lastline, “lest I come and strike the land with doom,” (Mal 3:24)proved so disconcerting to their scribes that they added

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another line to prevent their scriptures’ ending with such aprediction of tragedy. But no amount of window-dressing couldalter the reality that God’s plan of salvation through Israelhad reached a dead end. Man on his own power and in thepoverty of his sin could not redeem himself, and the long-awaited Messiah’s time arrived.

“They are Israelites; theirs the adoption, the glory,the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and

the promises; theirs the patriarchs, and from them,according to the flesh, is the Messiah. God who is

over all be blessed forever. Amen. But it is not thatthe word of God has failed. For not all who are of

Israel are Israel, nor are they all children ofAbraham because they are his descendants; but “It is

through Isaac that descendants shall bear your name.” This means that it is not the children of the fleshwho are the children of God, but the children of thepromise are counted as descendants.” Rom 9:4-8

The Third, or “New Covenant” . It is now time to contemplatethe inauguration of a New Covenant. Just as St. Mark iscommonly understood to have been St. Peter’s secretary and hisGospel is thus “Peter’s Gospel.” Likewise St. Luke, while anassociate of St. Paul’s and certainly influenced by him, canbe said to be the Virgin Mother Mary’s secretary, and hisGospel can be received as “Mary’s Gospel.” Mary “kept allthese things in her heart.” (Lk 2:51) Having been married nowfor over 30 years, it has been my experience that it is mywife who “remembers the details.” Based on my own experienceas husband and father, I find it not at all difficult tobelieve that Mary could be the primary source for the materialof St. Luke’s Gospel. St. Luke is nevertheless an inspiredtheologian, and his composition of Mary’s Canticle (Lk 1:46-

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55) known by its first Latin word, “Magnificat,” proclaimsthe early Church’s understanding of the significance of theIncarnation. Mary is the Type of Humanity, a humanityimpoverished by its distance from its God. God graciouslyintervenes into human history by impregnating a Jewish virginof low estate. The Magnificat is Mary’s praise of Godproclaimed to her cousin Elizabeth for taking her poverty and givingher riches beyond imagining. Mary, indeed any poor Jew of her time,can hardly take in the truth of God’s gift to her. Conferringhis Presence on her ran counter to everything about which hermind and her culture had prepared her. The journey to visitElizabeth gave Mary some time to process the enormity of theGift she had received, and the Magnificat is the fruit of herreflection on the Mystery of the Incarnation. We do well tomeditate on it. Here are some of the truths given to us inMary’s canticle:

1. God chose the poor instead of the rich. God passes upthe chance to deal with the rich and prefers the poor.There is something about the poor that more perfectlyaligns with God’s purposes; if not, He would havecertainly chosen quite differently, assuming that Godmakes no mistakes. “Yet this….is not God’s arbitraryattempt to level the playing field, but an offer of hopeto those who have been denied hope and a challenge totrust to those who have not been forced to trust.”(“Mary’s Merciful Song of Justice” by Jan Johnson inPrism, November-December, 2004.)

2. It is clearly God’s Work. There is no doubt about “whois doing the work” when marvelous things happen to thepoor. The rich seem to obscure the Source of Good.

3. “All generations….” This phrase indicates that thereality of the world will forever be changed….and pointsto the eschatological or timelessness of God’s definitiveaction . Mary could claim nothing on her part that she’daccomplished.

4. “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones…” God isredefining power. He is also forcing the powers of the worldto take note by causing things to happen through agents

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totally unexpected. God is re-writing the “rules” abouthow things are supposed to work, e.g. filling the hungry,while the rich are empty! “True justice has mercy as itssource. In God’s economy, justice and mercy often appearin tandem: ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: Render truejudgments, show kindness and mercy to one another’ (Zec7:9). Jesus scolded the carefully righteous, spice-racktithing Pharisees for neglecting the ‘weightier mattersof the law: justice and mercy and faith’ (Matt. 23:23).Mercy and justice make natural companions in the personof Jesus Christ, who is described as ‘full of grace(mercy) and truth (justice)’ (John 1:14).

5. “for He has remembered his promise of mercy…” God’slovingkindness flowing from his Mercy Seat above the Arkof the Covenant is evoked in this passage. Mary is theArk the New Covenant, carrying within her the Fulfillmentof the Law and the Prophets, the Son of Man and Son ofGod. “Mercy is,” as newly canonized St. FaustinaKawolska, God’s Apostle of Mercy in the 20th century hassaid, “…God’s primary attribute.” Mercy sums up Who GodIs. Kawolska’s insight, also proclaimed in Pope John PaulII’s most theological and profound encyclical Dives inMisericordia (Rich in Mercy), is that it is man’s verypoverty that calls forth, or activates, God’s mercy.

6. “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and haslifted up the lowly.” “The Almighty” has given authorityunto the lowly while stripping it from those on thrones.This is meant to be revolutionary not in a politicalsense but in the spiritual sense: ask yourself thisquestion, “What authority have I allowed the poor to haveover me?”

7. Mary doesn’t say that God fills the poor with goodthings. Rather He fills “the hungry.” Those alreadyfilled (“the rich”) He sends away empty. Empty of what?They were filled with…themselves, with the answers, withbitterness, with anger, or with righteousness. So whenthey got in line to “get more from God” they were turned

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away. God seems to demand in the New Covenant a self-disclosure of the truth of the poverty of our being.

“The Bible calls ‘Pharisees’ those who try toevade the depth of their innate poverty throughclinging to the ‘Law.’ They are ‘rich in spirit’and the most dangerous opponents of poverty, andhence of Jesus, because they vaunt their ownbrand of piety and seek to set up God as anopponent of poverty.” (Metz, Johannes. Poverty ofSpirit, p. 30)

The Pharisees’ God is in a real sense a “False God,”an idol. It seems like those in line for the “goodthings” from the Divine Welfare Office don’t meetthe eligibility requirements necessary to receivewhat God is giving. They present themselves withhidden assets – but He who searches hearts is ableto separate those in truth, “hungry,” from those whoare rich.

8. “He has come to the help…” The Almighty saw Israelstruggling, and in His overflowing compassionate love“mercy” is given!!

9. “…to Abraham and his children forever” is anothereschatological statement. This New Covenant of Mercy willnever be revoked; it will take hold of us (God’s “lowlyservants”) and carry us into eternity.

We have now begun to see who we are and who God is. We haveseen that God’s ways are not our ways. They are not our waysessentially nor are they our ways existentially. We havebegun to see that we can count ourselves among the poor, andthat to love the poor is to love ourselves and God Himself. Weourselves are in truth and in the end, the poor.

Second Part. Spiritual Theology.“Qui Paracletus diceris; donum Dei altissimi; fons vivus, ignis, caritas et spiritalis

unctio.”You who are named the Paraclete, gift of God most high; living fountain, fire,

love and anointing for the soul.

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Key Themes: The uniqueness of Christianity; ContemplativeLife; Spiritual Disciplines

St. Paul calls it a “secret,” or “mystery.” The Great Secretof Christianity, the “Good News” is that Jesus Christ bringsus back to intimacy with God by removing the artificialbarrier between the chosen people and the rest of humanity.The Hebrews’ election as the “chosen people” was never meantto be the totality of God’s action--only a preparation for anda conduit of God’s great work of redemption for all mankind.Isaiah clearly teaches this in Chapter 40:6, “I will make youa light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to theends of the earth.” St. Paul teaches a Gospel ofReconciliation, giving a vision of true communion in the humanfamily:

“That is why to me, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus onbehalf of you Gentiles, God’s secret plan as I havebriefly described it was revealed….You will realize thatI know what I am talking about in speaking of themystery of Christ , unknown to men in former ages butnow revealed by the Spirit to the holy apostles andprophets.” (Eph 3:1-5)

“You Gentiles were strangers to the covenant and itspromise; you were without hope and without God in theworld. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far offhave been brought near through the blood of Christ. Itis he who is our peace, and who made the two of usone….reconciling both of us to God in one body throughhis cross.” Eph 2:12-14

“To me, the least of all believers, was given the graceto preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches ofChrist and to enlighten all men on the mysterious designwhich for ages was hidden in God, the Creator of all.Now, therefore through the church, God’s manifold wisdomis made known to the principalities and powers of

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heaven, in accord with his age-old purpose, carried outin Christ Jesus our Lord. In Christ and through faith inhim we can speak freely to God, drawing near him withconfidence.” Eph 3:8-12.

John Paul II said to the Austrian Catholic bishops, “Yourfirst duty as pastors is not projects and organizations, butto lead your people to a deep intimacy with the Trinity.” ThePope is not belittling projects but is calling to mind 1Pe5:1-5. He is telling the pastors of the church to be anexample that the flock can follow, be men of deep prayer, andteach this intimacy with the Trinity to the faithful. Pastorshave a duty to draw people to holiness. (cf 1 John 4:8)

Conversion Communion Solidarity

The Kerygma, or core message of the Apostles and the earlyChurch, was that of Jesus: “Repent and believe the Good News!The Kingdom of God is at hand!” The Church began proclaiming,“All of you who had given up on pursuing goodness because itwas getting you nowhere – now repentance will take you to GodHimself. His forgiveness is now available. There is now hopewhere there was no hope! Your lives now count for somethingin God’s sight!” Many of us have been reared in an atmosphereof hope: but we should never assume that this was the way ofsociety in Jesus’ time and in fact we should not assume thatit is so today. Many people in our world have been sosecularized by the nihilism of our age that they, too, arewithout true hope. They live as practical atheists if notprofessing ones, living as though God does not exist or doesnot care. These would include many who do call themselvesChristians. These would also include many who are ordainedministers, practical atheists who go through the motions andoutward appearances of religion, but who truly lack belief.“But understand this, that in the last days there will cometimes of stress. For men will be lovers of self, lovers ofmoney, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents,

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ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers,

profligates, fierce, haters of good, treacherous, reckless,swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of

God, holding the form of religion but denying the power of it”

(2 Tim 3:1-5)

Therefore, before we can hope to have an authenticallyChristian outreach to and love of the poor, we must first cometo terms with our own self-authenticity. We should emulate St. Paulwhen he says, “Thus I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight as

if I were shadowboxing. No, I drive my body and train it, forfear that, after having preached to others, I myself should bedisqualified.” (1 Cor 9:26-27)

Consider the famous Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous:

1. Admit that there are many aspects of life over whichwe have no control;

2. Acknowledge that God does have the power to renewand heal us and others;

3. Surrender our will and our lives over to God andaccept Jesus as Lord of our life;

4. Make a searching and fearless moral inventory ofourselves;

5. Admit to God, to ourselves and to another humanbeing the exact nature of our wrongs;

6. Be entirely ready to have God remove all thesedefects of character;

7. Humbly ask Him to remove our shortcomings;8. Make a list of all persons we had harmed, and become

willing to make amends to them all;9. Make direct amends to such people wherever possible,

except when to do so would injure them or others;10. Continue to take personal inventory and when we

are wrong promptly admit it;

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11. Seek through prayer and meditation to improveour conscious contact with God, praying only forknowledge of His will for us and the power to carrythat out;

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the resultof these steps, we try to carry this message toothers and to practice these principles in all ouraffairs.

One reason I have given these steps here is because someChristians or those who believe themselves called to serve thepoor, and even students for the ministry think that they havemade it, that they are somehow “above” the use of such toolsof self-examination and on-going conversion, or that they havelittle in common with “alcoholics” or other addicts. Acareful reading should make them realize that the Steps are adistillation of the best of the spiritual tradition ofChristianity, and represent a modern (1930’s) Holy Spirit-revelation of the truth needed to cure the sick and addictedage that is our own. Each person’s personal journey of faith,if it is to be authentic, must face the truth of his need forGod, and personally decide to let God be the God of his life,placing faith in His Providence, come what may.

“I assure you, if you had faith the size of a mustard seed,you would be able to say to this mountain, ‘move from here tothere,’ and it would move.” (Mt 17:20) This faith must firstbe used interiorly before we bring it to bear on situations andmaterial needs that we or others (the poor) may have. Why?Because the biggest mountain of all lies within us. St.Teresa of Avila teaches that the three essentials of theChristian life are humility, detachment from the cravings ofour self, and evangelical love. If we in faith tell thatbiggest mountain of all – our own Self – to move out of theway of God’s design on our lives, we will experience themiracle of a growing selfless love of others. We willexperience the miracle of personal hurts being healed. We willexperience the joy of spiritual freedom. We will see ourfears evaporate. We will be open to God’s grace operating

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unimpeded through us to others. Our frail faith will growstronger and stronger as we with just a very “little” seedfaith move past our self-attachments to living “not forourselves but for Him.” (2 Cor 5:15)

And so, dearly-beloved, let that come to pass of whichS. Paul speaks, “that they that live, shouldhenceforth not live to themselves but to Him who diedfor all and rose again18 .” And because the old thingshave passed away and all things are become new, letnone remain in his old carnal life, but let us all berenewed by daily progress and growth in piety. Forhowever much a man be justified, yet so long as heremains in this life, he can always be more approvedand better. And he that is not advancing is goingback, and he that is gaining nothing is losingsomething. Let us run, then, with the steps of faith,by the works of mercy, in the love of righteousness,that keeping the day of our redemption spiritually,“not in the old leaven of malice and wickedness, butin the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth19 ,” wemay deserve to be partakers of Christ’s resurrection,Who with the Father and the Holy Ghost liveth andreigneth for ever and ever. Amen. Sermon LIX. (on thePassion, VIII.: on Wednesday in Holy Week.)1

The Key to Deep Conversion: Deep Prayer

Prayer. I want to quote from a Catholic spiritual classic, TheSoul of The Apostolate by Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard. Herepeats the following saying, “If the priest is a saint, thepeople will be fervent; if the priest is fervent, the people18 2 Cor. v. 15.19 1 Cor. v. 8.1Schaff, P. 1997. The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Second Series Vol. XII. Leo the Great, Gregory the Great. Logos Research Systems: Oak Harbor

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will be pious; if the priest is pious, the people will atleast be decent. But if the priest is only decent, the peoplewill be godless.” (page 39) Dom Chautard wrote his book tourge on the pastors of the church the absolute necessity of alife rooted in prayer and therefore in an interior life ofintimacy with God. So-called good actions done without prayerare, essentially, done without love. They are then as St.Paul writes merely “noisy gongs, or clanging cymbals.” (1 Cor13:1)

Conversion and deep prayer are OUR DECISIONS to embrace God,to become His sons and daughters. “You shall love the Lordyour God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with allyour strength.” (Luke 10:27) “One thing I ask of the Lord,this I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days ofmy life, that I may gaze on the loveliness of the Lord andcontemplate his temple.” (Ps 27:4) God does not and will notforce His love upon us.

Conversion and the life of prayer are sustained byfaithfulness to the disciplines of prayer, fasting andalmsgiving. “But to the wicked man God says, ‘Why do yourecite my statutes, and profess my covenant with your mouth,though you hate discipline and cast my words behind you?’” (Ps50:16-17) Prayer is communing with God, a give-and-take, awaiting and listening; it is an attending to the Beloved’svoice; it is the persistent cry of the desperate heart;prayer, because it is love, “…bears all things, believes allthings, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Cor 13:7)But while prayer is certainly affective, involving ofnecessity one’s emotions, it is not sentimental. Nor is prayerpurely intellectual, simply an idea game played out in themind. Prayer is practiced, and it is lived. Prayer is adiscipline and prayer is the fruit of a disciplined life.

“The Church puts before us prayer, fasting, andalmsgiving. These are gifts not to break us down butrather build us up. Prayer opens our hearts to receiveGod’s wisdom, love, and strength. Almsgiving extends

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that love to our neighbor. Fasting stands between thesetwo. By dying to eating as means of pleasure, we becomefree to eat in order to give us life—life to ourbodies, hearts, minds and souls.” (from a sermon by Fr.Gerard Gross, OCSO, on Thursday, February 10, 2005 atthe Abbey of the Holy Spirit, Conyers, GA, USA)

The interior penance of the Christian can be expressedin many and various ways. Scripture and the Fathersinsist above all on three forms, fasting, prayer, andalmsgiving, which express conversion in relation tooneself, to God, and to others. Alongside the radicalpurification brought about by Baptism or martyrdom theycite as means of obtaining forgiveness of sins: effortat reconciliation with one’s neighbor, tears ofrepentance, concern for the salvation of one’sneighbor, the intercession of the saints, and thepractice of charity “which covers a multitude of sins.”(Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1434)

Prayer is work, and by “work” is meant hard labor. If aChristian, much less a pastor, does not fall into bed at nightexhausted from the work of prayer, he has not been prayingenough. Look at what Jesus Himself had to say about work:“’You should not be working for perishable food but for foodthat remains unto life eternal, food which the Son of Man willgive; it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.’ Atthis they said to him, ‘What must we do to perform the worksof God?’ Jesus replied: ‘This is the work of God: have faithin the One whom he sent.’” (John 6:27-29) Prayer is this “workof faith.” All of the saints testified to the great labor theyexpended in prayer; and they likewise testify as to theincredible fruit of their labor of prayer.

John Wesley, the Anglican priest-reformer who foundedMethodism, directly related the amount of activity that hecould accomplish in a given day to the number of hours hespent in the “labor of prayer.”

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Lest we be fooled into self-satisfaction about our ownaccomplishments in prayer, I quote again from J-B Chautard(pages 27): “…the life of prayer is…a source of activity beyondcompare. Nothing could be more false than to consider it as asort of oasis, offering itself as a refuge to those who wantto let their life flow by in tranquil ease. The mere fact thatit is the shortest road to the Kingdom of Heaven means thatthe text: ‘The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and theviolent bear it away,’ is applicable in a most special manner,to the life of prayer.” Prayer is not only an engaging andintentional work in itself (Moses’, Elijah’s and Jesus’ forty dayson the mountain and in the desert; Jesus “spending the nightin prayer,” and “Moses, his chosen one, withstood him in thebreach to turn back his destructive wrath.” [Ps 106:23]),prayer is the only source of authentic spiritual and material works in the Church.This is true because prayer is the great faucet that opens upthe action of the Holy Spirit. Anything not done in prayer isof the flesh and merely human effort, and the work ofunbelief. This is the kind of life the practically-atheistChristian pastor leads. A comment by the new rector-general ofthe Pallotines, a Catholic order of priests, quoted in theMarch 17, 2005 e-issue of Zenit Newsletter starkly illustratesthe crisis of faith currently affecting many clergy and laityof the church in America:

"many religious people, including priests who carryout a certain function -- I myself included -- mustask ourselves if we believe that God is really present inour midst and in our lives. What we can do is tolook at ourselves, at our life, and ask ourselves howwe live our vocation. Am I really living as a man offaith? Is our experience one of a true community, or ofliving in a kind of hotel, in which we share the sameroof but do not experience communion, and we don'teven know one another profoundly?" the priest asked."This is a double aspect in which we must grow and

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give witness. People want to see witnesses, personsof faith and communion.”

This crisis of faith is rooted in a crisis of prayer. Allaction, no depth. Ceremonies, and no power. Organizationwithout organism. Truth without love. Programs, not family.Congregation without community. And most importantly for ourconsideration: social action but no evangelization, charitywithout invitation, ministry to the poor rather than love ofand with the poor. Only with the faithful, consistentpersonal private prayer of its members can the Church love thepoor with the love of God, out of the Holy Spirit, rather than out of the flesh.Jesus came and loved the poor with the love of the Father, andonly in loving the poor with the love of God will the Churchbe “doing the will of Him who sent Me” (cf. Jn 6:38); thenwill the church be at one with Jesus’ mission of reconcilingthis world to the Father.

Fasting. We have established that the habit of prayer, “prayperseveringly, be attentive to prayer, and pray in a spirit ofthanksgiving.” (Col 4:2) is the daily exercise regimen ofevery Christian who is serious about serving the poor. Butbeyond prayer, there are other disciplines which increase thestrength of the will to resist the Devil and his works(including poverty) and serve to heighten the desire forreconciling everything with God in Christ. Regular fasting isfirst among these. Fasting deprives us of some pleasurablething for a certain period of time and becomes an offering toGod, demonstrating to ourselves and to Him our sincerity forwhat we ask (it’s costing us something dear) and purifies ourmotives by curbing the desires of the flesh. Fasting teachesus that there is no such thing as “cheap grace.” Self-denialof sensual pleasure has the effect of pointing us toward TrueNorth, as it were. Society surrounds us with solicitationsand opportunities for self-gratification (the opposite ofself-denial) at every turn. The economic system under whichthe world lives is driven by, not needs, but wants. Ourconsumption is based less on objective fact (need) as on

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subjective inclinations (desires). As more and more membersof the Church rush to accept the modern religion ofconsumerism, making mere desires Priority Number One, therewill be fewer resources available for the Kingdom of God andfor the poor.

Fasting is a way of purifying ourselves of the foothold thatthe false religion of consumerism has taken over our spirituallives. “Who may climb the mountain of the Lord; or who maystand in His Holy Place? He whose hands are sinless, whoseheart is clean, who desires not what is vain” (Ps 24:3-4, myemphasis) Fasting frees us from the delusion of subjectivedesire, and helps us live intentionally in the truth of who wereally are and want to be. The falsehood of consumerism andits pervasiveness in the Church is made abundantly clear if welook at it through the lens of addiction. Remember the TwelveSteps? An addiction is used to “medicate” our feelings, asan attempt to avoid dealing openly and honestly with ourissues. Many people eat or shop or play computer games orwatch TV to gain fleeting moments of pleasure and to avoidfacing the unpleasant and boring reality of their essentiallyself-centered lives.

Fasting helps the servant of the poor avoid the trap ofconsumerism and sensual addictions. Fasting is also a form ofprayer. It works in tandem with prayer; it is a form of prayerand a preparation for prayer. Fasting makes us experiencehunger, and then pray that there be a greater hunger for God.Fasting is a way of putting ourselves in touch with ourpoverty, our need for God. God, in His turn, wants to satisfyour hunger, and will satisfy our hunger. “If you who aresinners know how to give good things to your children, howmuch more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit tothose who ask Him!” (Lk 11:13) Fasting and the actualexperience of hunger brings our need for God down from ourhead to our stomach. As long as we let our true povertyreside only between our two ears – as an idea in our minds –we all too quickly let our pride discount the deep reality ofour poverty, and of our utter need for God. Fasting therefore

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is key to humbly welcoming the poor as our equals, of being withthem rather than doing for or to them. Without fasting we too quicklysuccumb to the temptation to love according to the fleshrather than the Spirit.

Because fasting works directly against pride, fasting alsoaids in discernment. Who among us isn’t often in a quandaryin deciding what is best in a situation, or deciding where Godwishes us to go? Fasting can bring clarity, and enable God’swisdom to shed light on difficult situations.

Dallas Willard in The Spirit of the Disciplines: UnderstandingHow God Changes Lives (HarperCollins, 1991) gives aphilosophical and theological statement from the Protestantperspective 1) that the vast majority of Christians have norelationship with God, and their Christianity impacts verylittle of their own everyday lives and still less of thecontexts in which they live; 2) that there are two necessarythings for Christianity to succeed in our era: first, “it musttake the need for human transformation as seriously as domodern revolutionary movements”; and second, “it needs toclarify and exemplify realistic methods of humantransformation. It must show how the ordinary individuals whomake up the human race today can become, through the grace ofChrist, a joy-filled, effective, and powerful community.” (p.ix)

The book illustrates the methods of imitating Christ andliving not as disembodied spirits, as practicing Cartesians,but by actualizing in our bodies in concrete ways by thedisciplines of solitude, simplicity, prayer, study,contemplation and service. He lays the philosophicalgroundwork first by explaining that faith vs. works is a falsedilemma. It is the whole person which must be renewed andtransformed, and only the whole person can reflect the truthabout Jesus Christ. In fact, he says that the Christian’sgoal is to become “…enmeshed” with God “in such a way that,progressively – and, eventually, totally – he or she can ‘puton incorruption.’ (1 Cor 15:54) (pp. 88-9) The true

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fulfillment and “completing” of man only occurs with unionwith God. He quotes Archbishop Temple, “we only know what manis when God dwells in him.” (p.78)

Willard proposes a new ethic of asceticism for today’sChristian, which he calls “Kingdom living.” Focusing on thetheology of the Kingdom of God, where each Christian istrained, disciplined, loving, selfless. It’s an exhortationto be one in body and in mind, and wholly conformed to Christ.

Almsgiving. Almsgiving is also a form of both prayer andfasting. Giving your money to the poor and voluntarily – evengenerously - divesting yourself of your hard-earned cash takesyour grand ideas about how virtuous and generous you are andactualizes them. Many of us view giving to the poor withabout the same feelings as paying for a speeding ticket! Atotal waste of money, throwing away our resources to no goodend whatsoever. (We hardly dare admit these secret attitudesto ourselves, much less to others. We’re too “good” for that!)

Almsgiving helps us face the reality of our selfishness.Almsgiving begins to restore the balance between what we’vereceived from God and what we have/have not given back to Him,and therefore is an act of justice. Almsgiving expresses our faiththrough love. (cf Gal 5:6)

“While the Hebrew Scriptures have much to say about theobligation to care for those in need, we would be hardpressed to find an explicit command to give money to thepoor. This is understandable. Money in the form ofminted coins did not come into use until after thereturn from exile – after most of the books of theHebrew Scriptures were written….Previously such helptook the more direct forms of providing food orclothing, or letting the landless glean in one’s fields(Lev 19:-10; 23:22).”

“The connection between the Old Testament’s teaching onmercy and the New Testament’s concept of almsgiving is

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clear from the Greek word itself. The specific NewTestament usage of eleēmosynē, meaning money given to thepoor, comes from the late Old Testament era. This usageis evidenced in writings such as Tobit and Sirach.Christians of different traditions disagree aboutwhether these are inspired writings. But whatever theirinspiration, they shaped Jewish thought and practice atthe time of Jesus.”

“In Tobit eleēmosynē is used with the same meaning it willhave in the New Testament: ‘Give alms from yourpossessions. Do not turn your face away from any of thepoor, and God’s face will not be turned away from you.(Tobit 4:7ff)”

This sets the precise background for the Sermon on theMount. There Jesus teaches how one should properly givealms, pray, and fast.” (selections from Mercy in Action byGeorge A. Martin in Faith and Renewal, Vol. XV, No. 5,p. 4.)

Almsgiving was practiced by Jesus and the Apostles. The Gospel(Jn 13:29) recounts matter-of-factly that when Judas left theUpper Room abruptly, some present reasoned that he’d been sent– as keeper of the purse – to give alms to the poor. The earlyChurch was noted for holding its members accountable foralmsgiving primarily to the needy members of the Church.Cyprian wrote a whole treatise on the subject, De opere eteleemosynis, in which he points out that almsgiving is a form ofprayer.(cf Giordani, The Social Message of the Early ChurchFathers, in a footnote on p. 303). Almsgiving was also seenas a way to obtain remission of sin, coming right afterBaptism and martyrdom (Origen, In Lev., hom. II, 4). Almsgivingwas considered absolutely vital for the mission and the lifeof the early church and was the “face” of the church to thesurrounding society. Indeed, the caring alternate societywhich the early Christians created, with services and monies

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being organized by the deacons under the bishop’s supervision,was a great evangelizing tool to the pagan culture.

The spiritual fruits of almsgiving in the discipline of theChristian’s life are clear from the New Testament, and arelinked with hospitality, as if to say, “Be ready to open yourhome and your purse!”: “Above all, let your love for oneanother be constant, for love covers a multitude of sins. Bemutually hospitable without complaining.” (1 Pe 4:8-9)Almsgiving brings about greater spiritual freedom, bydetaching ourselves from the love of money and giving overourselves to the love of neighbor.

Almsgiving for today’s Christian must however recover a muchlarger spiritual function and impact than simply as anindividualistic, personal response to needs of the poor.Almsgiving in the early church helped to begin and constantlyto nourish solidarity, or community, within the Body ofChrist.

“The word almsgiving, taken loosely as it is today,smacks a little of disparagement from any social pointof view, for in common parlance it means the few penniesthe richer man throws to the poor now and then. But itis clear that in the thought of the Fathers, as in thatof the Apostles, the amount implied by alms is muchgreater indeed. It means a substantial and importanttransfer of one’s own income, of one’s own property,sufficient to enable the poor man to live withoutsuffering any want or degradation. When the Fathersbegin to complain that the charity of early times hasgrown lukewarm, this transfer is fixed at one-tenth ofone’s income, which is a handsome tithe; it is an agentin the redistribution of wealth, an effort toward themore equitable distribution of goods. In short, it isnot alms or ‘charity’ as these words are commonly usedtoday, for it represents a substantial cut in the meansof one man to compensate the indigence of another…It isa revolutionary phenomenon that takes place peacefully

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in a thousand little hidden ways, the word itself(έλεημοσΰνη: compassion) originally meant the feelingfrom which it spring; for Christian compassion is whatinspires this community of goods, the ordinaryexpression of which is almsgiving. Since the Christiansare taught at the same time that it is their duty tolabor, this transfer of means, intended to remedy thesocial injustices generated by original sin, by greed,the passions, violence, etc., does not meanimpoverishment for the rich but rather enrichment forthe poor. And it tends to put the latter in a positionto surmount the depressing crisis of poverty so thatthey may be able to use their own energies again, towork harder and better and thus produce in the turn. Therelative value assigned to wealth does not nullify it assuch but causes it to circulate more easily and freely.And this is the more true the more the bourgeois, thefreedman and the rich can be weaned from his habit offreezing his capital in precious objects or in hismoney-bags.” (Giordani, The Social Message of the EarlyChurch Fathers, pp. 316-317)

The Beatitudes

The Sermon on the Mount found in Matt. 5:1 - 7:29 and in Luke6:20-46 contains the core of the Gospel, and represents Jesus’clear teaching about the believer’s obligations in His newly-proclaimed Kingdom. As if there should be no doubt aboutJesus’ priorities, the very first line of the Beatitudessays, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is thekingdom of heaven,” (Mt 5:3); and again, “Blessed are youpoor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” (Lk 6:20) How couldthe early Church – from whose preaching the Gospels werewritten – have possibly persisted in proclaiming suchobviously contradictory beliefs? It simply doesn’t make senseto anyone in our day much less in the affluent Roman Empire ofearly Christianity that anyone who is poor could be happy! Therest of the Beatitudes only get the doctrine of Christ deeper

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in troubling irrationality: “Blessed are those who sorrow,who are hungry, who are meek.” “Give me a break!” we wouldsay, were we not conditioned to be publicly reverent towardsthe Scriptures. But privately, so many Christians today donot take these important passages of Jesus’ teachingsseriously. However, were they in fact actually impossible topractice, along with being unreasonable, Jesus would neverhave taught them.

We are compelled, as Christians seeking to embrace the poor,to embrace and practice Jesus’ message of salvation as it iscontained in the first Beatitude. In so doing, we willdiscover the glowing core and the magnetic center ofChristianity. “Blessed” is the operative word used in thispowerful prologue of the Sermon on the Mount. It is the firstword of the Prologue, which is itself the “first word” orsynopsis of the whole Sermon and indeed of the whole Gospel ofJesus Christ. It is the word from which the word “Gospel”derives its meaning: the good news of happiness. St.Augustine bases his whole commentary on the Sermon with theinsight that Man is oriented to happiness. His inner natureand entire being seeks happiness. Man will always seek his ownhappiness. Jesus therefore is meeting his audience right attheir hearts’ desires. He seeks to show them clearly in hisSermon that which will make them happy. He tells them the GoodNews that God desires their happiness, ready to help themtransform all their struggles into a royal road to union withHim. As Jesus names the various groupings of persons who maybe “blessed,” there is no doubt that by the time He finishesHe has touched at least one reality within every one of Hishearers. These are the universal issues of humanity. Jesusshows that each of our issues, which seem to be the veryantitheses of happiness, can be in fact the royal road to thedeep love and joy sought by everyone who has ever lived, andin the grace that Jesus brings “…nothing is impossible withGod.” (Lk 1:3) This explains why Mary is the Mother of theChurch (all Believers), because she chose (before any of ushad to choose) to be acted upon by grace and enter into the

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New Covenant. She believed as Abraham believed and as theBeatitudes ask us to believe….and to live.

“The poor man is affected in his basic need for food,clothing, housing, work, a future… He is at the mercyof the unexpected, and all of this is oftenaccompanied by sickness, loneliness…It has to beendured over long stretches, since there is no end inview. It keeps the poor man in obscurity, an object ofmisunderstanding, lack of consideration, scorn andinjustice on the part of the powerful and well-off. Iteven jeopardizes his honor. Poverty causes profoundpsychological wounds that mark a man for life, becauseit attacks his self-esteem and drains his strength.”

“Can we truly accept to be poor? When we encounter thetrial of poverty, Christ mysteriously draws near tous, asking the decisive question, ‘Do you or do younot believe?’ This is where faith and love are formed,or rebellion and refusal.”

“The truly poor love justice as much as they lovepoverty. The poor man is freer than anyone else tofight for justice and truth….While the rebel is almostinevitably trapped in a circle of violence becauseviolence dwells within him, the man who is poor in theGospel sense longs above all to render justice toothers.” (Pinckaers, Servais. Trans. Mary ThomasNoble. The Pursuit of Happiness – God’s Way: Livingthe Beatitudes. Pp. 42-43, 54)

The person in poverty who is poor in spirit has receivedriches even as he has been tempted to despair. Hisdesperation has made him dependent on the only One who cansatisfy his deepest needs. Those oppressed by social andeconomic systems who are poor in spirit do not desire to takethe places of those with power and wealth. They see tooclearly what price these exact on the perpetrators. Ourmodern heroes such as Cesar Chavez, Dr. Martin Luther King,

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Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Dorothy Day and Mother Teresa allembraced their poverty while wanting their oppressors to befree of their slavery to hate and wealth at the expense of thepowerless. Moses, the great liberator of the Hebrew people, ischaracterized by the Bible as “the meekest man who everlived.” (Nu 12:3)

“Remembering the poor is a vital part of our individualcalling in Christ. The Lord has claimed us in ourBaptism. By His grace He summons and empowers us tolive as His followers in our different situations. Heplaces us in families, homes, neighborhoods…He assignsus jobs and careers, daily work and responsibilities…Weshare a common identity and purpose: ‘Love yourneighbor as yourself’ (Lev 19:18 quoted in Mt 5:43, Lk10:27 and Rom 13:9). This calling applies to everyChristian, Martin Luther noted, in his ‘Table ofDuties.’”

“The Greek philosopher Aristides, a convert to thefaith, wrote that Christians ‘love one another. They donot overlook the widow, and they save the orphan. Hewho has ministers ungrudgingly to him who does nothave. When they see strangers, they take him undertheir own roof and rejoice over him as a true brother…Pray that the Lord will open doors for His people tosee poverty in our midst and to be ‘openhanded’ in ourresponse. I like Paul’s attitude: ‘It’s the very thingI was eager to do!’ (Gal 2:10)” (Rev. Kenneth C.Wagener, Remember the Poor in The Lutheran Witness, Vol.24, No. 3, March 2005, Official Periodical of TheLutheran Church-Missouri Synod)

Pastors

Why should the pastor of a contemporary U.S. congregation feelconstrained to make loving the poor an activity at the centerof the life of his congregation, as a frequent theme of his

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sermons, as the beneficiary of a significant dollar allocationin the church’s annual budget? Prior to talking in the nextchapter about the Church (ecclesiology), it is important tocome to an understanding of the person of the pastor. Thepastor (the Latin, “pastor,” meaning “shepherd”) stands inPersona Christi, that is, in the person of Christ, the GoodShepherd.

Let’s look first at relevant scriptures about shepherds, thenat Jesus’ own way of characterizing his ministry. The firstuse of the word shepherd in the Bible is in Genesis 48:15,when Jacob describes God Himself as “my Shepherd from my birthto this day.” King David calls God his Shepherd in thetwenty-third Psalm. God calls King Cyrus of Persia, “myShepherd,” in Isaiah 44:28, because “he fulfills My everywish.” Ezechiel 34 & 37 expands Isaiah’s notion of shepherd bynoting the failure of the leaders of Israel to be goodshepherds of God’s people, and predicting God’s sending of thePerfect Shepherd. Then the prophet Micah makes the famousprediction of the Messiah:

“But you, Bethlehem-Ephrathah, too small to be amongthe clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for meone who is to be ruler in Israel; whose origin is fromof old, from ancient times…..He shall stand firm andshepherd his flock by the strength of the Lord, in themajestic name of the Lord, his God; and they shallremain, for now his greatness shall reach to the endsof the earth; he shall be peace.” (Micah 5:1-3)

The Gospel of Matthew recounts this prophecy as King Herodattempts to ascertain from the chief priests and scribes thehallmarks of the long-anticipated King, and anticipates theaction of the leaders of the people in causing Jesus’ death byseeking to destroy the child-king. But finally, it is John’sGospel in chapter ten that summarizes the full understandingof the church about Jesus the Messiah as the Good Shepherd,who restores God’s just rule to a People made worthy by hisown blood “On that day there shall be open to the house of

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David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, a fountain topurify from sin and uncleanness.” (Zec 13:1) Jesus boldlyproclaims that he is the Good Shepherd, the One who sets thestandard for all future pastoring: “I am the good shepherd;the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep,” (10:11)and “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep knowme in the same way that the Father knows me and I know theFather; for these sheep I will give my life.” (10:14-15)

How much richer can a teaching be for pastors in Christ’sChurch? Yet there is more. Isaiah describes the attributes ofthe Messianic King to come:

“The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because theLORD has anointed me; He has sent me to bring gladtidings to the lowly, to heal the brokenhearted, toproclaim liberty to the captives and release to theprisoners, to announce a year of favor from the LORDand a day of vindication by our God, to comfort all whomourn; to place on those who mourn in Zion a diademinstead of ashes, to give them oil of gladness in placeof mourning, a glorious mantle instead of a listlessspirit.” (Is 61:1-3)

Jesus uses this passage on two occasions, as a way todeliberately authenticate his mission as that of the Messiah,the promised redeeming King sent by God. The first occasionwas in Nazareth, and the townspeople repudiated him – theywere incapable of believing that the familiar “carpenter’sson” could possibly be their Messiah. The second occasion istold in Mt 11:4-5 and Luke 7:22. Jesus pointed out the works Hewas doing, the results of his preaching, the fruits of his ministryto the emissaries of John the Baptist. John, the last of theOld Testament prophets, without doubt understood Jesus’implicit reference to Isaiah. Jesus knew John needed nofurther explanation.

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All those called to be pastors of God’s flock (defined asthose both in the church already and those still in “thehighways and byways”) can do no less than model their ownministry upon that of Jesus. So go the pastors, so goes theChurch. Here, from Luke, is what Jesus does: “The blindrecover their sight, cripples walk, lepers are cured, the deafhear, dead men are raised to life, and the poor have theGospel preached to them.” Has anyone in the Seminaryseriously suggested that you students could actually emulateJesus? Have you ever wondered why such a passage would evenbe included by the Church as part of the Gospel? The HolySpirit has certainly used many saints in the history of theChurch to perform miracles. Jesus even predicted that hisfollowers would perform even greater works than He! (cf Jn 14:12)

Imagining pastoral ministry from the passage above, itsuddenly seems that seeking out and ministering to the pooris, of all the works of Jesus, the one by far the easiest toaccomplish! Those miracles require something (faith?) wedon’t yet possess! But we do have the poor right “at hand.”Remember, Jesus says “The kingdom of God is at hand,” in thevery persons of the poor! Ministry with the poor can actuallytake a pastor of the hook, so to speak, of not having toexpect of himself that he should or could pray for miracles!The poor, we see now, are the pathway to the greater andgreater effectiveness of our proclamation of the Kingdom ofGod, beyond them to all people, and to the City and theCulture today.

Once we decide to make loving and welcoming the poor apriority through the exercise of just the tiny bit of faith“the size of a mustard seed” needed to move the mountain ofSelf, we will discover that our faith will be restored to agreater and greater degree in our ministry, and make possible,perhaps, even the greater miracles such as the healings anddeliverance that our people also desperately need!

This need of faith by the pastor and the rest of acongregation to walk in Jesus’ footsteps is why we have dwelt

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so much on faith up to this point! The Gospel says (Mk 6:5)“He could work no miracle there, apart from curing a few whowere sick by laying hands on them, so much did their lack offaith distress Him.” So, knowing our lack of faith, we mustseek to model pastoral ministry on Jesus’ own ministry withthe poor; and trust the rest to God. Jesus said of Himself,“learn from Me for I am meek and humble of heart.” (Mt 11:29)As we do so, we will also discover that we will actually meetJesus Himself in the persons of the poor. (cf Mt 25:35-40) Pastors’intentionality toward the poor is actually touted by St. Paulas an evangelical strategy:

“Consider your situation. Not many of you are wise,as men account wisdom; not many are influential; andsurely not many are well-born. God singled out theweak of this world to shame the strong. He chose theworld’s lowborn and despised, those who count fornothing, to reduce to nothing those who weresomething; so that mankind can do no boasting beforeGod.” (1 Cor 1:26-29)

Pastors sometimes jump to the conclusion that once they’vemade a profession of faith and been ordained, that it’s timeto “get on with the program.” Conquer the world for Christ!Preach! Teach! The Devil likewise constantly inflates theiregos by feeding them the lie that they’ve got the energy(youth), knowledge (remember, you’ve got a Master ofDivinity!) and position (ordination). Satan tells them, “Goget ‘em, Tiger!” ….all the while, scriptural truths likethese tend to be forgotten: “…in my inmost being you teach mewisdom” (Ps 51:8); “but with the humble is wisdom” (Pv 11:2);“knowledge puffs up; love builds up.” (1 Cor 8:1)

We have come full circle, back to conversion through prayerthat is deepened only by fasting and almsgiving, and bywelcoming in the person of the poor the real Jesus; then as wemeet Him as He is, we grow to like Him, and then to love Him.You see, one reason we tend to cling to superficialChristianity (unconverted Christianity) is that we really

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don’t like God’s ways at all. We think them archaic,impractical and certainly inefficient! The Scriptures evenbluntly acknowledge this when it is said, “My ways are notyour ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts…” (Isaiah 55:8-9)We keep thinking we can somehow retain our fleshly ways ofthinking and acting, and then our pretense and outwardgestures will be pleasing enough for God. “To the one whowins the victory, who keeps to my ways until the end, I willgive authority over the nations…” (Rev 2:26) The Holy Spiritteaches God’s ways to each believer, and holds themaccountable. St. Paul acts as a model of God’s ways: “This iswhy I have sent you Timothy…He will remind you of my ways inChrist, just as I teach them in all the churches.” (1 Cor4:17) Whole-hearted conformity to the person of Jesus Christin His ways of thinking and acting is for St. Paul the essenceof the New Covenant. This is conversion.

Third Part. Ecclesiology. “Tu septiformis munere; dexterae Dei tu digitus; tu rite promissum Patris sermone

ditans guttura.” You are sevenfold in your gifts, you are finger of God’s right hand, you the

Father’s solemn promise, putting words upon our lips.

Key Themes: The New Israel; The Kingdom of God “The Kingdom ofGod is among you” (Lk 17:21).

The revolutionary nature of Jesus Christ and the work of theredemption He inaugurated is shown clearly in, by and throughTHE HOLY SPIRIT. “The first gift we give to someone we love islove itself, which makes us long for the good of that person.Thus it is that love itself is the primary gift, in thestrength of which we offer all other gifts that we are able togive. And so it is that from the moment the Holy Spiritproceeds as love, he proceeds as the primary gift.” ThomasAquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 38, a. 2.

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Because the Holy Spirit is Jesus’ Gift to the Believer, theChurch is the Holy Spirit’s Gift to the Believer. The HolySpirit is the divine reality subsisting in and amongChristians. They don’t make Him be; He makes them be!!Raniero Cantalamessa writes, “From all of this it follows thatthe Holy Spirit, by pouring the love of God into our hearts,infuses into us not only a virtue, even though it is thegreatest of all virtues, but pours his very own self into us.The gift of God is the Giver himself. We love God by means ofGod himself in us….Grace is nothing other than the Holy Spiritwho, given to us as gift, is the ‘new law’ written on livinghearts, the principle of the new life in us.” (Come, CreatorSpirit, p. 83) Also see St. Thomas Aquinas’ definition of theNew Law in Summa Theologiae, Ia, IIae, q. 106-108.

Repentance followed by belief begins the personal conversionof the Christian and his pastor. He embarks on a journey ofintimacy with God that opens him up to true intimacy withothers – he discovers that there are many on the same journey,sinners becoming perfected under the influence of God’s grace;that is, he discovers the family of God, the Church. Hediscovers that he can know, love and serve God alone only bynot being alone. His conversion has incorporated (literally,embodied) him into the Church. Only those grounded in theirown poverty (need for God), converted by the healing love ofGod, and planted within the body of believers can convincinglypresent the Gospel to the poor. Otherwise, as the saying goes,“One man’s opinion is as good as another’s,” and the oldphilosophical axiom is operative: “ Things gratuitouslyasserted can be gratuitously denied..” The Christian LoneRanger doesn’t exist because God, as we have seen, doesn’t doHis business outside of a covenant. God’s present, and final,covenant is with Jesus His Son and with His Church. It is theChurch that bears witness to Jesus’ Kingdom. Christians in andthrough the Church are driven by their personal experience ofthe Truth to testify to the Truth. Imitating the Trinity,their love must overflow to others and they must be forothers.

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Converted Christians don’t lament the fact that much ofsociety does not know of Christ; rather, they rejoice at theopportunity which our world now presents for the Church andthey relish the chance to present the Gospel! People who arenot programmed by a watered-down Christianity can be taughtthe Gospel afresh, not as religion but as a way of life; acounter-cultural, distinctive and unique way of living thatheralds the life of the world to come. The Church, as theBody of Christ and Communion of Believers, is the mid-point ofour own journey of faith in this progression: Conversion(Personal) Communion (the Church) Solidarity (going outto the World).

Who makes the “Communion of Believers” work? While the Pastoris indispensable (not the person, but the office, isindispensable), who is it that really forms the people of atypical congregation or parish into the love and compassion ofJesus Christ? None other than the Holy Spirit! The pastor canput the pieces in place: powerful preaching, good liturgy,choosing those with leadership gifts, giving encouragement,counseling, and teaching. But unless the Holy Spirit moveshearts to be willing to actualize God’s saving grace day byday, over and over, there will remain a mere collection ofhuman beings and programs. A shell – but not a real Body. TheHoly Spirit builds the Body of Christ; He makes the Church. TheHoly Spirit brings to fruition what Jesus Christ has sown.

“And so it is with the Holy Spirit in the body ofChrist which is the Church. The Spirit is to theChurch what the human soul is to the human body. TheSpirit is the principle that moves and inspires thewhole. What then would be the conclusive sign thatone has received the Holy Spirit? To speak intongues? To work miracles? No, not those, but to lovethe unity, and to know that you are firmly committedto living in union with the Church: ‘If, thereforeyou want to live by the Holy Spirit, remain steadfastin love…you have the Holy Spirit when you adhere tothe unity by the sincerity of your love.’ (Augustine,

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Sermons, PL38.1231& PL 38.1236)” (Cantalamessa, Raniero.Come, Creator Spirit, p. 140).

Cantalamessa forthrightly identifies the “sad divorce” whichtook place between the Holy Spirit and the Church followingthe Protestant Reformation. Catholics took great pains topreserve the institutional nature of the Church but in doingso let legalism identify the Church as organization andclerical rather than personal and of all the faithful.Protestants so emphasized the invisible, hidden inward realityof the Church that the Spirit came to be identified with anindividual’s self-awareness. Karl Barth was the first on theProtestant side to propose a move toward identifiable bodyparts in the Church; and Pope Pius XII’s Encyclical, “TheMystical Body of Christ” broke the first new ground forCatholics. There are two facets of the same Holy Spirit:

If Pentecost consists in this – a vital andtransforming experience of the love of God – why issuch an experience a thing still unknown to themajority of believers? How can it be made availableto them? Let me suggest a way that never fails. Thislove of God that is poured into our hearts by theHoly Spirit has two sides; it is the love with whichGod loves us and the love with which God makes itpossible for us to love him and our neighbor (cfThomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Letter to the Romans,chap. V, reflection 1, n. 392)…We need to follow theexample of the widow of Zarepath. Elijah the prophetcame to her house and asked for some water and alittle bread. She answered that all she had was ahandful of flour and a drop or two of oil; …theProphet insisted, ‘Use all you have to make me alittle loaf first, and then make something foryourself and your son.’ Does that not seem anunreasonable request? The widow was herself in asituation of extreme need…and the prophet was askingher to give away all the little that she had. But‘the jar of meal was not spent, nor the jug of oil

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emptied.’ God does the same with us. We ask of God alittle love, and He asks us first to give God, andour neighbor, all the little love we have.” (Ibid.,p. 148)

Our jar will never empty as we “empty ourselves” and build upGod’s Church in love. This divesting of self and theattachments to the world (cf 1 Jn 2:15-17) makes room for theHoly Spirit’s action. “Have no love for the world” means tohave made room and capacity for love of God and His people,His Kingdom, the Church. It is in the Last Discourse of Jesus(cf Jn 13-17) that the doctrine of the sacrifice of one’s self“for his friends” discloses Jesus’ understanding of thetransformation by the Holy Spirit of the human family intoGod’s family. The sealing, as it were, of this last will andtestament of Jesus was done by his very blood, the cross beingthe seal which is pressed into the soft wax of open hearts.

As the Holy Spirit builds the Church as a Communion ofBelievers, the poor play a key and indeed indispensable rolein this “divine economy” of discipling and evangelizing. Thepoor exact from those in the Body of Christ who are “rich inthis world’s goods” the kind of self-emptying thatcharacterizes Jesus Himself (cf. 1Tim 6:17-18). And the self-emptying of those poor brothers and sisters in thecongregation consists in the letting go of jealousy, anger andbitterness towards others often engendered by the privationsthey suffer.

“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us;

and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But if any one has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s

love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth.” (1 Jn 3:16-18)

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This purifying and cleansing action is really what “Revival”is about in the Church. When we pray for a “new Pentecost” orthat the Lord “Revive Us Again,” we are praying that we cansuffer the loss of our self-love through embracing the poor.This is God’s way, not man’s. Man prefers simply some kind ofemotional sweep of enthusiasm, extraordinary preaching, andnumbers of converts (Church Growth!). God wants “fruit thatwill last” and wishes his Word sown into “the good soil whichyields thirty, sixty and a hundred-fold.”

God’s ways are in fact so counter-cultural and so un-likeman’s ways that it is only the sovereign action of His HolySpirit that breathes true life into the Church: “And this hopewill not leave us disappointed, because the love of God hasbeen poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who hasbeen given to us.” (Rom 5:5) Welcoming the poor, divestingourselves of security, going on mission, being fearless tospeak the truth in our neo-pagan society – all these actionsare not what our flesh, our emotions, first embrace. We seekthe comfortable; we desire the well-managed; we prefer theslick program to the Xeroxed song sheet! God however isimpressed with only one result from His Church: that “theylove each other.”

The new society which is built by the Holy Spirit is theChurch; it is God’s Family, modeled on the Trinity, andcoursing through it is the purifying fire and the living waterof the Gift of God’s Love. Today’s Christianity is organizedas “parish” or “congregation,” with each headed by one or more“Pastors.” We must take a look at the local community ofbelievers called First Baptist Church or St. Augustine’sParish and see what the typical church is meant to be and isnot meant to be in the light of the necessity of making“Loving the Poor the Heart of the Mission of the Church.” Wehave taken great pains to gain the understanding of why lovingthe poor is essential to the Church’s mission: because it isessential to its interior life. We cannot disciple our ownnor can we evangelize others without converted hearts whichhave come to love God and neighbor above self. Jesus is our

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way, truth and life; Jesus was poor, “without a place to layhis head”; Jesus comes to us in the persons of the poor. Inopening the door when He knocks (cf Rev 3:20) we become allthat God has always meant us to be and all that He originallycreated us to be: his very sons and daughters. This is the“mysterious design, which for ages was hidden,” that only theChurch reveals as “the unfathomable riches of Christ.” (Eph3:8-9)

This is St. Paul’s image of the local church. Through the HolySpirit, we see the believers “speaking freely to God, drawingnear him with confidence”, experiencing the “bread and lengthand height and depth of Christ’s love,” and making “charitythe root and foundation” of their lives (cf Eph 3:8-18). Thisarchetype of the local church shows a people praying and doinggood works. Contemplation and action make the “compleatChristian.” But in the modern parish such a balance is oftenlost. One may protest, “How can that be? We pray bycelebrating the liturgy, having prayer meeting on Sunday andWednesday nights, and we schedule both traditional andcontemporary worship services. And action? Why we’ve justbuilt a new family life center with a gym and exercise room.There’s Mothers Day Out. Volunteers staff a food pantry forneedy in the church and even strangers can get help there!Our singles ministry travels to Romania on a mission tripevery year. What more could we possibly do to be balancedbetween prayer and action?”

The list above is probably an accurate characterization of thetypical American congregation. So what is wrong with thispicture? Frankly, it is a laundry list of “preaching to thechoir” and padding the pews. Even the outreach of the foodpantry and mission trips keep the poor at a safe distance. Howdoes a pastor get his flock to the point where the pooroccupy, not a peripheral after-thought, but a central place intheir lives? Notice that in asking the question, it wasn’tsaid, “a central place in the church” or “a central place intheir faith lives.” The poor must begin to be welcomed in thechurch by the pastor and be welcomed into the people’s hearts,

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homes and lives (remember the spiritual discipline ofalmsgiving and hospitality?). Pretty soon, faith will livevibrantly not only within the walls of the church sanctuaryand fellowship hall but also in the streets of the town, inthe mobile home parks, in the inner city slums and even “overthere across the tracks.”

What then is the role of the Pastor in effecting such atransformation of his church? We have already seen that inintimate prayer he has asked the Holy Spirit to come andinflame hearts. He next must model what he hears God saying.If he is convinced that “loving the poor lies at the heart ofthe mission of his church,” he fulfils his prophetic role ofdramatizing the new ground which is a “road less traveled.” Hemust also realize that his roles as teacher, preacher, prophetand leader mean that he is a discerner of callings. The pastorpaints the vision of the Holy Spirit for that particular bodyof Christ, and then calls forth the gifts from the congregationnecessary for the fulfillment of the vision. For example, thepastor begins to preach and lay out the vision of welcomingthe poor. He quotes St. Paul, “Be imitators of God as his dearchildren. Follow the way of love, even as Christ loved you. Hegave himself for us as an offering to God, a gift of pleasingfragrance.” (Eph 5:1-2) He urges the congregation, saying, “Offering yourself to God doesn’t just mean saying in your mindduring prayer, ‘Jesus I offer myself to you.’ It meansdeciding on some action that expresses the offering bycarrying you out of your comfort zone. It could mean beingpresent to your wife and children by deciding to not watch theevening news. It could mean doing the yard work for a sickelderly person down the street. It could mean volunteering atthe soup kitchen downtown every Thursday noon and skippinglunch that day.”

The pastor must stand in the sure knowledge that God neverasks for something which He doesn’t give the gifts with whichto accomplish it. Therefore he will know that ministry withthe poor is constituent of what it means to “be church”; andbeing convinced that God always supplies the means for the

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demands He makes, the pastor will know that there are personsin every congregation that have an anointing from God, who arechosen to undertake ministry with the poor. Some know theircalling and some do not. Having that faith, the Pastor willface two scenarios: first, some of the members of the churchsense a calling to serve the poor and are wanting to offertheir service or to offer ideas in starting some new outreach.In many cases all they need is…a call from the pastor! Thepastor’s responsibility is to make an explicit and clearinvitation to such as know their calling or attraction to thepoor. He will undertake with them to devise the strategiesand structures of ministry to the poor for his church. Second,there may be some in the church who have a call to serve thepoor, but don’t know it. Preaching and painting a vision forwelcoming the poor will serve as the invitation to those inhis congregation who might be called into ministry with thepoor, and offering practical ideas will begin to light theirspark. It becomes the pastor’s job to ask God to show him whoin the congregation has the calling. He must seek God forknowledge of those in his congregation who do not yet know oftheir calling to serve the poor. As God points these personsout to him, the pastor must go to them to issue an invitationto join in the church’s service to the poor.

The pastor’s role is to open the doors of the church and makesspace in the church for any new winds of the Holy Spirit; heis to discern what presents itself as of the Spirit or not,discern what gifts are authentic and which are actuallyemotion and therefore of the flesh. The pastor is like asymphony conductor: he holds auditions and try-outs; he workswith each section so that it serves the purposes of the whole;he can tell when there are sour notes and knows when toreplace an instrument that’s out of tune. The pastor, however,is not the church. He and the people and the Holy Spiritcomprise the local church. The pastor consequently doesn’t doeverything – but he is responsible for the unity that resultsin a faithful witness to Jesus Christ. Even though everychurch is unique, there is “but one body and one Spirit…there

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is one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of allwho is over all and works through all and is in all.” (Eph4:4) God is consistent; He is Truth and therefore He doesn’tcontradict Himself. Everywhere in the Church today, God isdrawing individual hearts into deep intimacy with himincluding mystical experiences; and out of the fountain ofthat unspeakable love, He is quickening many in the Church tolay down their lives in his service.

The pastor will need all those who are called because “thefields are white with the harvest” (Jn 4:35) and “the harvestis great, but the laborers are few.” (Lk 10:2) The pastorcannot expect the workers to give (to the poor) what theythemselves lack. If therefore, a ministry is set up, and helpis given but no attention is paid to building the solidarityof the group called to that ministry with the poor, then thefaith of the workers will slowly erode. Their joy willsubside, and they will turn into “volunteers” not disciples.The pastor’s duty is to facilitate the formation of communitywithin the small groups comprising the various programs of thecongregation. Solidarity in these groups is created by thecentrality of prayer and praise together, and of helping meetone another’s needs. It is this giving of mutual love thatwill then spill over to the poor, whether it’s the homeless,those coming out of prison or still in prison, the needy,substance abusers, AIDS sufferers, etc. Without the formation,then, of small faith communities within the church, the pastorwill have a very shallow reservoir of converted, love-filledand sacrificially-giving people on which to draw.

Laity

What exactly is the role of the laity in the local church? Bysimply contrasting it with that of the ordained minister, itis obvious that the pastor ministers primarily within theflock itself. This means that the laity’s primary call isoutward, to bring the light of Jesus Christ into theworkplaces of the world. We find this stirring passage in the

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Second Vatican Council’s decree On the Apostolate of the Laity(Apostolicam Actuositatem):

“The laity must take up the renewal of the temporalorder as their own special obligation. Led by thelight of the Gospel and the mind of Church andmotivated by Christian charity, they must act directlyand in a definite way in the temporal sphere. Ascitizens they must cooperate with other citizens withtheir own particular skill and on their ownresponsibility. Everywhere and in all things they mustseek the justice of God’s kingdom. The temporal ordermust be renewed in such a way that, without detrimentto its own proper laws, it may be brought intoconformity with the higher principles of the Christianlife and adapted to the shifting circumstances oftime, place and peoples. Preeminent among the works ofthis type of apostolate is that of Christian socialaction which the sacred synod desires to see extendedto the whole temporal sphere, including culture.” (§7)

Picture this: the Sunday services of the local church led bythe pastor (orchestra conductor) are the weekly touchstonewherein everyone in the congregation experiences the unity ofthe believers and feels a part even of the universal Body ofChrist. Every small group within the church is in attendance,hearing about and affirming the charisms operative in theirbrothers and sisters which are building up the whole Body ofChrist. (cf Eph 4:12) They know firsthand that they are a part ofa great movement, a way of life that sets them apart from theworld while on fire with a love for the world. They see thatthey are a part, and not the whole. They come on Sunday tocelebrate the power of God they’ve seen manifest in their ownlives and in others’. They become so filled with the love ofGod and the joy of the Holy Spirit on Sunday that they arehelped to believe even more deeply in “the resurrection of thedead and the life of the world to come.” (end of the NiceneCreed) The Sunday services become a true celebration of theEaster Resurrection and a foretaste of the life of Heaven.

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Do we not believe that God wants this kind of weeklyexperience for His Church? God is Almighty, and He has givenus to drink of His Holy Spirit. Only our lack of faith willso distress Jesus that He could not work miracles among us!The miracle of unity, the noticeable joy and the genuineness(truthfulness) of the people of the church can convert ourneighborhoods, towns and cities. Even in the 21st Century! Buttalk is cheap. That is why practical human actions showing lovemust be central to the life of the church.

The analogy of the pastor as a orchestra leader is not at allsufficient to accurately describe the charism of who thepastor as the local shepherd of Christ’s flock truly must be.He must model the life of Christ Himself in his personal wayof living. Father Thomas Dubay says that “If pastors have adeep intimacy with God, they will concerned for the poor, andthey themselves will live materially simple lifestyles.”(Quote from Fr. Thomas Dubay, author of Happy Are You Poor, inan interview with Michael Firmin, February 14, 2005) We willsee later in the section on the saints and on modern prophetshow the experts and leaders did it!

Suffice it to say that with the pastor of the church asservant leader, modeling the humility, poverty and self-sacrifice of Christ Himself, the stage is set for the HolySpirit to begin to take these small groups of church members(“laity”) assembled through the discernment of the pastor andto build them into small communities. Jesus created His Churchbecause the knowledge and practice of the love of God cannotbe discipled in only one dimension. There is no such thing asa Me God Christianity. But even further, the typical 150- 2000 member American church cannot be a school of DivineLove either. That is expecting of the church something whichit cannot deliver. However, just as God wills to give Himselfin intimate friendship with each believer, so does He will togive that intimacy in the context of the human relationshipsof the small group faith community.

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First among these is obviously the Christian family, definedas husband and wife and children, or through death orseparation or divorce, as a single parent with children. Asthe Catholic liturgy says, “Marriage is the one blessing notforfeited by man after the Flood.” (cf Roman Catholicmarriage service) The Christian family may also be grandmotherand grandfather (one or the other or both) and child andgrandchildren. The family is the primary building-block ofthe Christian Society we call Church (not to mention secularsociety).

Loving the poor and welcoming them into the heart of theChurch means in a real sense welcoming the poor into thefamily, and into the small committed faith group to which sucha family belongs. For example, if there is a prison ministryin the Church, the families engaged in the ministryparticipate in the connection with the inmate and with theinmate’s relatives. Yes, you can guess who’s coming to dinner.

The small faith community can be made up of several familiesand singles. Jesus created the Church because He created US!“Through him all things came into being, and apart from himnothing came into being.” (Jn 1:3) Jesus knows us, and Heknows we could never be faithful to our calling as a Christiannuclear family without the support of the Church. Husbandsand wives could never be faithful in a monogamous chastemarriage without the encouragement of fellow believers callingthem on and holding them accountable. They could never agreeto accept the children God wishes to send them, and to rearthem well, without the on-going committed support of a livingbody of believers. Neither could a family safely andgenerously offer hospitality to the homeless or a singlemother without such a context of sharing of material andspiritual goods. Because of small committed faith communitieswhere praying, witnessing and sharing are practiced andpracticed, the whole congregation then becomes a true unity of“one faith and one baptism,” and a “light set on a lamp stand”(cf Lk 11:33) for our towns and cities and world to see.

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The pastor is to foster the growth of these small faithcommunities, train the leaders, and be the point of unity,especially at the Sunday services – always painting the bigpicture, showing the vision, interpreting the signs of thetimes, listening and reporting on what the Holy Spirit (whonever contradicts Himself) is saying to the whole Body. Butthere is one more vitally important element to the successfulformation of these small groups or communities to which thepastor must pay particular attention. Remember that God’sordinary way of dealing with His people is through covenants?The only way to make these small communities stable andfruitful is to set before them the goal of building committedrelationships through a type of “covenant” or agreement thateach group has within it for its members. Such covenantsclearly spell out in writing the expectations that each grouphas of its members; the length of time (6 mos., one year,etc.) for which the participants expect their commitment tolast or the longest for which everyone is willing to commit toat one time. Once the group agrees to the elements of acovenant for the families and singles involved, the pastor candevelop a simple ceremony at which he meets with the group and“ratifies” the covenant in the name of the church. These“covenant communities” will begin to build in the church awhole series of committed relationships, relationships whichby the very nature of “covenant” mean that when the going getsrough, the group will stick it out and not “opt out.”

Imagine a church that is actually filled with persons, withwhole families in committed relationships beyond just sittingin the adjacent pew on Sunday mornings! The “sacred place”wherein dwells the Holy One then becomes the hearts and soulsand minds of the members of the Body of Christ! Some will nodoubt fail through an inability to “bear with one another… forthe sake of peace”(Eph 4:3-4), through unforgiveness, throughan overbearing leader, etc. etc. But that’s where the pastor,as a good shepherd, can be available to guide, heal, repair,correct, and affirm. Then with God’s ever-present grace, someof the communities will renew their covenants after the initialtime period expires! A church made up of such communities is

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built on rock, not on sand; it is built on the truth of realrelationships in Jesus, not solely on ritual or social custom.This parish or church will be alive because its members,rooted and planted firmly in faith, hope and love, canactually give what they now possess. They can serve the poorout of the “unfathomable riches of Christ.” (Eph 3:6) They canbring “good news” to the brokenhearted, the destitute, thelonely, the hungry, the sick, the prisoner, the failure, thedespairing, the abused and the abuser, the lame and the blind,the addicted. “All you who are thirsty, come to the water!”(cf Is 55:1ff)

Creating effective apostles ready to welcome the poor willfrequently create another problem: as soon as word gets outthat your church is a “helping church,” the poor will beat apath to the door. However many will not come seeking exactlywhat the church will have to give. They will have been quitewell schooled in the worldly ways of being treated as“clients” or “cases” rather than like family. They will belike the crowds who begged Jesus to stay, not because of themessage of repentance and righteousness that He was preaching,but because “they had eaten their fill of the bread.” (Jn6:26) They will come for a rent payment, not for the “wordsof eternal life.” (Jn 6:68) When the numbers of the poorcoming for material assistance are great, there is a greattemptation to give short-shrift to spiritual ministry becausethe sheer numbers with physical needs are so overwhelming thatthere appears to be little time for prayer and counseling.

The church’s role is unique, because the Church is institutedby God. The Church is the only organism that has the “rightequipment” to meet the needs of the whole person, that is,both the spiritual and material needs. It is only to theChurch that God has given both the material and spiritualgifts to make people whole again! Therefore, should a churchsuccumb to the temptation to “turn stones into bread” (cf Lk4:3) and not feed people in poverty with the Word of God, thatchurch turns its back on its true calling. Moreover, thatchurch violates the rights of the poor! How? Since every human

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being has a fundamental right to hear the Good News of Jesus,anytime we bar the way to the Word of God by neglecting toshare the Good News, and neglecting to offer to pray withanyone, we frustrate God’s plan for that person. Every humanbeing has a right to hear the truth, especially the truthabout their own Creator and Lover.

“The apostolate in the social milieu, that is, theeffort to infuse a Christian spirit into thementality, customs, laws and structure of thecommunity in which one lives, is so much the duty andresponsibility of the laity that it can never beperformed properly by others….True apostles, howeverare not content with this activity alone but endeavorto announce Christ to their neighbors by means of thespoken word as well.” (Second Vatican Council’s decreeon the Apostolate of the Laity, Apostolicam Actuositatem,§13) (Boldface added for emphasis)

Isaiah 55:1-11 articulates clearly God’s “universal call toholiness,” which the Second Vatican Council’s document LumenGentium (Constitution on the Church) beautifully articulates inChapter Five, and the modern prophets such as St. Thérèse ofLisieux and Mother Teresa of Calcutta, both “missionarysaints” who embraced poverty , so clearly proclaim.

“The followers of Christ are called by God, notbecause of their works, but according to his ownpurpose and grace. They are justified in the LordJesus, because in the Baptism of faith they trulybecome sons of God and sharers in the divine nature.In this way, they are really made holy. Then too, byGod’s gift, they must hold onto and complete in theirlives this holiness they have received. They arewarned by the Apostle to live ‘as becomes saints’ (Eph5:3), and to put on ‘as God’s chosen ones, holy andbeloved, a heart of mercy, kindness, humility,meekness, patience’ (Col 3:12), and to possess thefruit of the Spirit in holiness (cf Gal 5:22; Rm

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6:22). Since truly we all offend in many things (cfJas 3:2), we all need God’s mercies continually and weall must daily pray: ‘Forgive us our debts’ (Mt6:12).”

“Thus it is evident to everyone that all the faithfulof Christ, of whatever rank or status, are called tothe fullness of the Christian life and to theperfection of charity; by this holiness as such a morehuman manner of living is promoted in this earthlysociety…They must use their strength accordingly asthey have received it, as a gift from Christ. Theymust follow in his footsteps and conform themselves tohis image, seeking the will of the Father in allthings. They must devote themselves with all theirbeing to the glory of God and the service of theirneighbor. In this way, the holiness of the People ofGod will grow into an abundant harvest of good, as isadmirably shown by the life of so many saints inChurch history.” (Lumen Gentium, §40).

If the Church today ignores the poor, shrinks back fromwelcoming the poor or marginalizes the poor, it clearlyignores the will of God for our age. Another significantVatican Council II document, Gaudium et Spes (The Church in the ModernWorld) further spelled out the implications:

“Gaudium et Spes created a stance of both responsibilityand service. “Christians cannot yearn for anythingmore ardently than to serve the people of the modernworld ever more generously and effectively’ [93]. Thedocument put the Church squarely at the service ofhumanity. Catholicism broke out of the sanctuary,chancery, and parish to stand squarely in the heart ofthe polis; and in so doing it brought the griefs andanxieties of humanity into the heart of the Church andits mission…

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This ecclesiological foundation (emphasis mine) did morethan bring the social concern of the preconciliarpopes to the center of the Church. In the process itseeded the Church’s own gradual transformation,planted its own freedom from enslaving ties to thepowerful and privileged, and cultivated a widespreadand passionate commitment to the poor.” (Kammer, Fred.Doing Faithjustice. Paulist Press, 2004. p. 97)

Love of the poor and the universal call to holiness (the invitation to intimacy with God) are inexorably linked in God’s “economy” of salvation: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.” (Is 55:8)Therefore, to the degree that money drives the Church more than love of the poor, it will lack authentic witness to the truth and this age will have been preached a false gospel! “No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the oneand love the other or be attentive to one and despise the other. You cannot give yourself to God and money.” (Lk 16:13) Welcoming the poor, on the contrary, will constantly reveal tothe Church areas of its own failure to fully live the Gospelof Jesus, and as it repents and conforms herself anew inconversion to the love of Christ, it will be empowered in theHoly Spirit to bring life and light to “those dwelling indarkness and the shadow of death,” (Lk 1:79) which is such anaccurate description of the poverty of our times. It willforsake the gods of this age (money and those perceived to berich/powerful) to begin services honoring the Living God.Conformity to the love and compassion of Jesus is what willserve to make the Church effective in today’s culture. Followingthe counsel of Jesus, the Church remembers as it welcomes thepoor that “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,’ willenter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of myFather who is in heaven.” (Mt 7:21)

The proper role of the pastor in the church is to conductservices on Sunday which reinforce the collective memory ofthe entire community concerning the life, death, resurrection,

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ascension and coming again in glory of Jesus Christ, the Sonof God. Services on Sunday dispel the clouds of the week’stoil in the fields sown with tares by the Enemy with theexperience of the glory of the Church triumphant bytransporting the congregation to a foretaste of heaven, byworship in the Holy Spirit. The pastor spends the rest of theweek “tending the sheep” by working to maintain the integrityof the body through “correcting and reproving,” and by leavingthe ninety-nine who are well to find the one who has wanderedoff.

Engaging the world with the service of love and doing the workof justice is the proper role of the unordained, or “laity” ofthe Church. They are the ninety-nine who are called to beimitators of Jesus in their daily lives and witness theradical love of Jesus in the world. Their ordinary milieuwill not normally be affirming of their values. They will bein daily combat, in spiritual battle with the Devil. Theywill speak the Name of God to those who have no use for thesacred. They “lift up their eyes to the mountains” and cry,“when will help come to me?” For they will be walking byfaith, not by sight. They will suffer for the sake of theName.

Fourth Part. Moral Theology: The Saints, & TheAncient and Modern Prophets.

“Accende lumen sensibus, infunde amorem cordibus, informa nostri corporisvirtute firmans perpeti.”

Kindle a light in our senses, pour love into our hearts, infirmities of this bodyof ours overcoming with strength secure.

The Old Testament: Exodus; The Prophets; Psalms

Exodus. “Remembering His covenant with Abraham,” Goddelivered his People from Egypt. God so dramatized thismiraculous deliverance that the story could be forever toldand thereby the power of this deliverance could be transferred

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into the consciousness and experience of each succeedinggeneration of the Israelites. Essentially, God took pity on animpoverished and enslaved people and gave them freedom. Thisfreedom conferred upon them a new identity articulated by theLaw and the Prophets of not only the Children of Israel (i.e.descendents of their common ancestor Jacob) but also asChildren of God Himself. The Decalogue codified the NaturalLaw implanted in every human heart. But beyond establishingthe basic norms of justice among individuals, the Law alsoincluded many prescriptions dealing with poor Israelites andwith the non-Israelites. They were commanded not to “oppressan alien; you well know how it feels to be an alien, since youwere once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.” (Ex 23:9)There were in the law specific commands about feeding thepoor: “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall notbe so thorough that you reap the field to its very edge, norshall you glean the stray ears of grain. Likewise, you shallnot pick your vineyard bare, nor gather up the grapes thathave fallen. These things you shall leave for the poor and thealien. I, the LORD, am your God.” (Lv 19:9,10)

The People of Israel suffered injustice at the hands ofSamuel’s sons (cf 1 Sam 8:1-5), and true to human history, theinjustice provoked a revolution, and the establishment of anew order of the Hebrew society which radically altered itsmoral framework. God reluctantly granted His People’s wish fora King (“as other nations have” (1 Sam 8:5), and only afterwarning them of the dangers posed by such a radical change inthe social system. It was Israel’s second king, David, whoinvaded and captured Jerusalem, making it the capital andfocal point of the whole People of Israel. The city becomesthe paradigm of the ideal “successful” life. Money andnobility grew to determine the importance of a person ratherthan their inherent dignity as a member of “the People.” TheKing became in the popular consciousness the true Father ofthe People, rather than God. The one social class of mostlyfarmers or artisans where the primary grouping was the clanwas supplanted by three social classes: the nobility (a hugegroup of privileged due to the many wives taken by the king,

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his sons, etc., etc.); the priests; and the commoners. Notsurprisingly, where the King and his family held both economicand political power (consolidated over time in both Israel andJudah), social structures developed under the tutelage of theLaw gave way to the necessities of serving the growth ofwealth. Practices (and the gods) of the neighboring kingdomswere imported into the Hebrews’ social fabric. Abandoning Godand His Law resulted in rampant corruption, poverty andinjustice. The Temple worship became state-supported andbureaucratic, and the province of the upper classes which paidit only lip-service. The common people became more and moreignorant of the specifics of God’s Law and its realities soonpassed from memory (the generational “handing-down” was brokenin whole families and clans) and thus the “power of thisdeliverance” (see above paragraph) ceased to have an activeeffect on individuals’ ethos and mores.

The Prophets. This downward spiral toward unbelief (soundingfamiliar?) is the situation God attempted to correct bysending the Prophets. The prophets were direct messengers(Thus says the LORD…) whom God used to re-introduce Himself asa loving Father who wished to restore a personal relationshipwith His Children. The Prophets spoke of the value to God offulfilling not just the outward religious prescriptions ofritual and purification, but of the inward disposition of each persontoward the good. The Prophets portrayed God as the source of allgoodness, and therefore seeking His face (true worship) meansthe doing of the good and the avoidance of evil.

Isaiah wastes no time in getting to the point: “Washyourselves clean! Put your misdeeds from before my eyes; ceasedoing evil; learn to do good. Make justice your aim: redressthe wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow. Comenow, let us set things right, says the Lord: though your sinsbe like scarlet, they may become white as snow; though they becrimson red, they may become white as wool. If you arewilling, and obey, you shall eat the good things of the land;but if you refuse and resist, the sword shall consume you: forthe mouth of the Lord has spoken!” (1:16-20) Isaiah is saying

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in effect, “Don’t let sin define your lives as believers! Theworld and the Devil would have us accept our fallen selves andour fallen society as ‘normal’; what is actually real, trueand ‘normative’ of the human condition is God’s plan and Hisvision for us His children and for all creation. When we flowin this plan, we are normal – and when we don’t (throughpersonal sin and by tolerating evil structures and laws in oursociety) we are abnormal, and reap the unfavorable results ofthis dysfunctionality.

Isaiah 58-59 contains what is perhaps the quintessentialpassages outlining God’s own notion of true religion, based onthe doctrine that the “face” of God is in fact the face ofevery human being. Matthew 25 brings this doctrine to the NewCovenant through Jesus the God-Man’s identification with thepoor; and John the Evangelist makes this doctrine crystal-clear when he says “If anyone says, ‘My love is fixed on God,’yet hates his brother, he is a liar. One who has no love forthe brother whom he has seen cannot love the God whom he hasnot seen.” (1 Jn 4:20)

“This, rather, is the fasting that I wish: releasingthose bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke;setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke;sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering theoppressed and the homeless; clothing the naked whenyour see them, and not turning your back on your own.”(Is. 58:6-7) and

“Lo, the hand of the Lord is not too short to save,nor his ear too dull to hear. Rather it is your crimesthat separate you from your God, it is your sins thatmake him hide his face so that he will not hear you.”(Is. 59:1-2)

To be fair, it is important to note that even as the Prophetscall out in the name of God to the People for reform andrepentance, each of them is realistic in that they know thePeople will not change. Their prophecies therefore also

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contain predictions of the consequences of persisting in thesins against the love of God and man. They then go evenfurther in giving a vision for a future, holding out the hopethat there will come a Messiah who will make a remnant of theHebrews into a new People of God who will always carry thelove of God in their hearts and not depart from His ways.

“You have been told, O Man, what is good, and what theLord requires of you: only to do the right and to lovegoodness, and to walk humbly with your God. Hark! TheLord cries to the city. (It is wisdom to fear youname!) Hear, O tribe and city council, you whose richmen are full of violence, whose inhabitants speakfalsehood with deceitful tongues in their heads! Am Ito bear any longer criminal hoarding and the meagerephah that is accursed? Shall I acquit criminalbalances, bags of false weights? Rather I will beginto strike you with devastation because of your sins.”(Micah 6:8-13)

Jeremiah teaches about true devotion or piety (the virtue ofpiety, one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit enumerated inIs 11:1-2) in this beautiful passage about true glory:

“Thus says the Lord: let not the wise man glory in hiswisdom, nor the strong man glory in his strength, northe rich man glory in his riches; but rather, let himwho glories, glory in this, that in his prudence heknows me, knows that I, the Lord, bring aboutkindness, justice and uprightness on the earth; forwith such am I pleased, says the Lord.” (Jr 9:22-23)

God used Jeremiah to show the priests and people that there is adifference between sentimentality and true devotion to God. When one istruly devoted to God one seeks to please Him in every way, andis quick to repent of wrongdoing and thus repair therelationship. Religion for the Prophets is primarily a personalrelationship with God. Thus Ezechiel can issue his famous teachingon sin as personal responsibility. (cf Ez 33:10-20) The

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prophet Daniel, in his awesome prayer of repentance, takespersonal responsibility for the sins of the whole people ofIsrael that led to the Babylonian Exile (Dn 9:3-19). Theprophets model the true devotion to God that they preach! Thepreaching of the prophets was directed at the king, the rulingclasses, and the priests and guild prophets. As we mentionedearlier, they had the power. They set the moral tone of theNation. The historical books of the Bible tell story afterstory of the ups and downs of the faith of the people,determined always by that of each particular king. Scriptureis quite explicit in labeling the kings as either “doinggood” or “evil in the Lord’s sight.” Therefore, teaching howGod desires his worship to be a personal relationship witheach believer begins a long process of freeing the commonpeople and the poor from being “on the outside looking in” atthe household of God. The Pharisees of Jesus’ time persistedin their interpretation of God’s revelation as a two-tieredsystem of the “perfect” and the “sinners.” They grosslyviolated the teaching of the prophets, which is why they couldnot recognize Jesus as “the Prophet who is to come” – afterall, he came from Galilee, was poor and had no education!

The Catechism of the Catholic Church has this to say of “popularpiety” or the simple faith and devotion of the common people:

“At its core the piety of the people is a storehouseof values that offers answers of Christian wisdom tothe great questions of life….For the people thiswisdom is also a principle of discernment and anevangelical instinct through which they spontaneouslysense when the Gospel is served in the Church and whenit is emptied of its content and stifled by otherinterests.” ( §1676)

The prophets challenge the religious elite, the nobles and thepriests as well as the ordinary folk to deep conversion. Theydo so by teaching a doctrine of God’s immediacy and Hisaccessibility to the faithful which leaps over thebureaucratic and artificial barriers of prejudice, education,

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wealth and social class. They do so with a personalism whichpresages Jesus Christ and His Church. (cf Jer 17:5-10)

The prophets startlingly reveal God’s actual preference forthe poor: “My hand made all these things when all of them cameto be, says the LORD. This is the one whom I approve: thelowly and afflicted man who trembles at my word” (Is 66:2); “Because he dispensed justice to the weak and the poor, itwent well with him. Is this not true knowledge of me? says theLORD” (Jer 22:16); and “But I will leave as a remnant in yourmidst a people humble and lowly, Who shall take refuge in thename of the LORD.” (Zeph 3:12) There are some in the Churchtoday who reject this teaching outright in order to justifytheir own positions of excessive accumulation of wealth and tomaintain certain political ideologies. The Prophets wereopposed in their day by just such types of people. Yet, as wehave already noted, the very beginning of the Gospels directlyrefer to the prophets’ message in Mary’s Canticle, theMagnificat.

The prophets echo the mission of the promised redeemer ofIsrael, who will reconcile all the Chosen People to God andeven open the gates of heaven to the entire human race (cf Is49:6) because he took on the poverty of man by coming in theflesh. The emphasis of the Prophets on practicing justice forthe poor and loving the poor attempts to prepare the hearts ofthe People to be able to accept the Poor One who is to come:“Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion, shout for joy, O daughterJerusalem! See, your king shall come to you; a just savior ishe, meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of anass.” (Zec 9:9) The Prophets therefore teach the Church todaythat only in embracing the poor can the Church be the trueicon of this Poor One who has come, suffered, died, rose fromthe dead, ascended into heaven, and “who is at the right handof God and who intercedes for us.” (Rm 8:34) Jesus, the long-hoped-for Messiah, embodies in his very person, as must HisChurch embody, the “joys and hopes, the griefs and anxietiesof the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in

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any way afflicted…” (Second Vatican Council, PastoralConstitution on the Church in the Modern World, § 1)

Psalms. As we have seen, the Law failed to convert the heartsof God’s people. They began to model their society andreligion on those of their pagan neighbors, beginning withSolomon. The Prophets predicted that the Kingdom of God wouldbe the work of the Holy Spirit. King David himself was aprophet and his psalms uniquely model the ideal relationshipof the believer to his God. The poor not surprisingly are animportant theme in the Psalms.

“The People of the ‘poor’ – those who, humble andmeek, rely solely on their God’s mysterious plans, whoawait the justice, not of men but of the Messiah – arein the end the great achievement of the Holy Spirit’shidden mission during the time of the promises thatprepare for Christ’s coming. It is this quality ofheart, purified and enlightened by the Spirit, whichis expressed in the Psalms. In these poor, the Spiritis making ready ‘a people prepared for the Lord.’ (Lk1:17)” (The Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 716)

Psalm 10:2 - Arrogant scoundrels pursue the poor; they trap them by their cunning schemes.Psalm 37:11 - But the poor will possess the land, will delightin great prosperity.Psalm 40:18 - Though I am afflicted and poor, the Lord keeps

me in mind. You are my help and deliverer; my God, do not delay!

Psalm 41:2 - Happy those concerned for the lowly and poor; when misfortune strikes, the LORD delivers them.

Psalm 49:3 - You of lowly birth or high estate, rich and poor alike.Psalm 68:11 - your people settled there. There you poured

abundant rains, God, graciously given to the poor intheir need.

Psalm 69:33 - See, you lowly ones, and be glad; you who seek God, take heart!

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Psalm 72:4 - That he may defend the oppressed among the people, save the poor and crush the oppressor.

Psalm 112:9 - Lavishly they give to the poor; their prosperityshall endure forever; their horn shall be exalted inhonor.

Psalm 138:6 - The LORD is on high, but cares for the lowly andknows the proud from afar.Psalm 147:6 - The LORD sustains the poor, but casts the wickedto the ground.Psalm 149:4 - For the LORD takes delight in his people, honorsthe poor with victory.

The New Testament: The History of the Church is the historyof the saints who put the teachings of JesusChrist into practice. Their writings (some ofthe earliest saints wrote what we now call TheNew Testament) and theology reflect the HolySpirit’s on-going word to the Church, as Jesuspromised the Spirit would do:

“This much I have told you while I was stillwith you; the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit whomthe Father will send in my name, will instructyou in everything, and remind you of all thatI told you.” (Jn 14:25-26) “I have much moreto tell you, but you cannot bear it now. Whenhe comes, however, being the Spirit of truthhe will guide you to all truth. He will notspeak on his own, but will speak only what hehears, and will announce to you the things tocome.” (Jn 16:12-13)

The Ministry of Jesus, the Age of the Holy Spirit and theMartyrs in the Early Church: A.D. 30-500

1. Jesus’ Gospel of Love

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“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love yourneighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you Love yourenemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that youmay be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makeshis sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rainon the just and the unjust. For if you love those who loveyou, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectorsdo the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what isso praiseworthy about that? Do not pagans do as much? Youtherefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father isperfect.” (Mt 5:43-48) Jesus in this passage first repeatsthe radicality of Lv 19:2: “Be holy, for I, the Lord, yourGod, am holy,” and then extends the force of it beyond theteaching of Lv 19:18 which limits the radicality only tothe sphere of the fellow Israelite, “Take no revenge andcherish no grudge against your fellow countrymen. Youshall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.”After the Beatitudes, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount continuesto elaborate the details of the practice of the NewCovenant. Jesus is announcing a way of life which demandsthat even “ordinary believers” (those hitherto excludedfrom “perfection” as regards The Law because their povertymade it impossible to keep all the rules of ritual purity)live prophetically. Just as God commanded Jeremiah and Hoseato model particular behaviors in front of the people inorder to dramatize His messages to them in a graphic andunmistakable fashion, so Jesus demands behavior of theChristian that is prophetic (read, if you will, evangelical!).The Gospel of Jesus Christ teaches a New Law where everybeliever can receive the Holy Spirit and be fully acceptedinto the Body of the People of God, then enter into theHoly of Holies with Him by taking and keep ONE Spouse forLIFE, giving God one-hundred percent of one’s goods ratherthan a minimum of ten percent, sharing with the poor aswith God Himself, forgiving seventy-times-seven-times!”

“But ‘if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he isthirsty, give him something to drink; by doing this youwill heap burning coals upon his head.’ Do not be

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conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good.” (Rom12:20-21) St. Paul quotes Pv 25:21 to exhort newChristians to be radical in their loving witness duringopposition. Do our parishioners respond to their enemieswith this same love? Have we bought into the contemporaryideology that regards the poor as enemies and worthlessbums, or do we still believe in the spiritual power ofacts of love to work change? Have we grown to toleratenegative humor (constant sarcasm and put-downs) in ourfamilies or with co-workers or do we use our tongues tobless and speak well of others? The Christian way ispreached in the New Testament as world-transforming. Jesusis believed to be the way to unleash the Power of God, to“renew the face of the earth.” (Ps 104:30)

“Jesus said to him: ‘You shall love the Lord, your God,with your whole heart, with your whole soul, and with allyour mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment.The second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor asyourself.’ On these two commandments the whole law isbased, and the prophets as well.” (Mt 22:37-40) Jesusclaims to be the successor of the law and the prophets,and to fulfill their teaching. Jesus is transfigured onthe mountain in the company of Moses and Elijah, whopersonify the law and the prophets, and confer with Jesusin the sight of the three Apostles. The Father speaks fromthe cloud a verbal testimony to the legitimacy of Jesus’succession as Lawgiver and Prophet to all revelation thathad gone before, beckoning to the Apostles and to us,“This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” (Mk 9:7)

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hasanointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. Hehas sent me to proclaim liberty to captives andrecovery of sight to the blind, to let the

oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable

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to the Lord.” Rolling up the scroll, he handed itback to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of

all in the synagogue looked intently at him. Hesaid to them, “Today this scripture passage isfulfilled in your hearing.” (Lk 4:18-19)

“As this incident develops, Jesus is portrayed as aprophet whose ministry is compared to that of theprophets Elijah and Elisha. Prophetic anointingsare known in first-century Palestinian Judaism fromthe Qumran literature that speaks of prophets asGod’s anointed ones. To bring glad tidings to thepoor: more than any other gospel writer Luke isconcerned with Jesus’ attitude toward theeconomically and socially poor…. At times, the poorin Luke’s gospel are associated with thedowntrodden, the oppressed and afflicted, theforgotten and the neglected (Luke 4:18; 6:20–22;7:22; 14:12–14), and it is they who accept Jesus’message of salvation.” (footnote in The NewAmerican Bible)

The uniqueness of Christianity lies precisely here! Jesusis not only Emanuel “God With Us,” but He proposes to passon to His followers His own Spirit indwelling in them aswell! As we have pointed out elsewhere in the Course, thisincident in Nazareth is a turning-point in Jesus’ mission.Jesus is claiming the “prophetic mantle” much like thatliterally assumed by Elisha upon the ascent of Elijah intoheaven. The Gospels, in recounting and exhorting theChurch to the same prophetic ministry as Jesus, areclaiming that Jesus has passed on his anointing by the Spirit tothe members of the Church. Jesus revolutionary doctrine(vis à vis the Jews) was that He was anointed (as is HisChurch in succeeding Him) to be a prophet to all theworld. This is why his own townspeople ended up trying tocast him over the side of the cliff on which their townwas built! Jesus was asserting not only that He had the

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prophetic authority and anointing, but that He was carryingthe healing and deliverance which always accompanies anointing, to thenon-Hebrew peoples as well. The baptismal ritual of theCatholic Church, for example, today embodies this truth inits prayers during the anointings with holy oils, vividlycarrying out Jesus’ intentions.

It is this embodiment and carrying out, in Jesus’ Name, ofGod’s healing and deliverance (the healing balm of thenations) that is Good News, or Gospel. The extraordinaryacts of love performed by Christians were to be the bellsringing in the advent of the Kingdom of God throughout allthe earth. St. John and St. Paul set this love as thehighest standard in the Kingdom:

“I give you a new commandment: love one another.Such as my love has been for you, so must your lovebe for each other. This is how all will know youfor my disciples: by your love for one another.”(Jn 13:34-35)

“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.Live on in my love. You will live in my love if youkeep my commandments, even as I have kept myFather’s commandments, and live in his love. Allthis I tell you that my joy may be yours and yourjoy may be complete. This is my commandment: loveone another as I have loved you. There is nogreater love than this: to lay down one’s life forone’s friends. You are my friends if you do what Icommand you. I no longer speak of you as slaves,for a slave does not know what his master is about.Instead, I call you friends, since I have madeknown to you all that I heard from my Father. Itwas not you who chose me, it was I who chose you togo forth and bear fruit. Your fruit must endure, sothat all you ask the Father in my name he will giveyou. The command I give you is this, that you loveone another. (Jn 15:9-17)

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The radicality of the love of God as a way of life takeninto town and marketplace as “personal evangelism” findsno better concrete expression than in Mt 25:31-46, whenbefore His Ascension into heaven, Jesus exhorts hisfollowers with vivid images of the final judgment ofmankind. First century Christians believed in theimminent return of Christ and fanned out over the worldproclaiming to all the message that Peter firstproclaimed on the Day of Pentecost, “Save yourselves fromthis generation which has gone astray.” (Ac 2:40)Matthew brings the Old Testament notion of the purity ofintention and receptivity to God of the anawim (the lowly,or poor, of the land) into his Gospel by identifying thePoor One with the lowly masses of poor who thronged thecities of the Roman Empire, and who comprised the vastmajority of the early Church. Matthew identifies the pooras the principal targets of the new Christians’evangelistic fervor – and ties it to the Believerspersonal devotion to Christ Himself. In fact, we findJesus doing much the same kind of identification betweenHimself and the Father: “Whoever looks on me, is seeinghim who sent me.” (Jn 12:45) The Gospels taken togetherdemonstrate a coherency in the early Church’sunderstanding that there is no disjunction betweenknowing God, Father Son and Holy Spirit, and a life ofloving and sacrificial love of others.

2. Early Church Fathers.

Didache. Shepherd of Hermas. Justin Martyr. The earliestwritings of the infant Church are replete with thisunitative understanding of Christianity as a way of life.Becoming Christian meant breaking with the idolatry ofthe society around them and serving the true God. TheChurch taught the basic Old Testament morality along withthe Christian revelation of faith in Jesus, grace andlife in the Holy Spirit. Not only did a new Christian

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stop cheating on his taxes to the Emperor, lying in hisbusiness dealings, being cruel to his slaves, “exposing”his unwanted children, visiting temple prostitutes andoffering sacrifice to the gods, attending the ribaldtheatre and the bloody gladiatorial combats in the arena,committing adultery and incest and fornication, andattending orgiastic parties and banquets; the Christiansrather ate and drank moderately, became faithful spousesand builders of family, shared their goods among thebrethren, took in exposed children, were hardworking andhonest, lived quiet lives, and were faithful to fastingand prayer, and especially to the Sunday eucharist. Asnew communities of Christians spread, the members clungto one another for mutual support in material and well asspiritual things.

And thus do we also, since our persuasion by the Word, stand aloof from them (i.e., the demons), and follow the only unbegotten God through His Son—we who formerly delighted in fornication, butnow embrace chastity alone; we who formerly used magical arts, dedicate ourselves to the good and unbegotten God; we who valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into a common stock, and communicate to every one in need; we who hated and destroyed one another, and on account of

their different manners would not live16 with men of a different tribe, now, since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them, and pray for our enemies, and endeavour to persuade those who hate us unjustly to live comformably to the good precepts of Christ, to the end that they may become partakers with us of the same joyful hope of a reward from God the ruler of all. (Justin, IApol., XIV, 2-3)

1

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“the Didache also commands the Christians…to loveothers more than their own persons; and itrecommends generosity to the point of sharingtheir possessions in common with theirbrothers…’Do not turn away the poor man, butshare everything in common with your brotherwithout saying that it is yours; for if you havein common what is undying, how much more what iscorruptible?’ (XIX, 8)” (Giordani, The SocialMessage of the Early Church Fathers, p.315)

Christians are reminded that the poor suffercruelly, lack basic necessities, and frequentlyhave family members languishing in prison.Poverty is likened to a prison, and can leadsthose trapped in it to despair. (cf Hermas, Sim.,X, 4, 2-3)

“Do good, and, of the proceeds of your labors,granted you by God, give to all the needy, with asimple heart, without making distinctions betweenone person and another when you give: give toeveryone, since God wills that all his gifts bedistributed among all men.” (Hermas, Mand., II, 4)

3. Late Roman Empire: A.D. 312-500

Following the Edict of Milan by Emperor Constantine whichofficially tolerated the Christian religion, the Churchwas allowed to be a legal corporate entity in its ownright and to own property. Others were allowed to give orbequeath property to the Church. It therefore began toorganize formal parishes in the major cities. Churchrules specified the division of Church income into fourparts: for the Bishop, other clergy, church building, andrelief of the poor. The deteriorating economy of theempire and incessant warfare added increasing numbers of

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poor to the population. Hospitals were established forthe sick poor; and several other institutions weredeveloped: “the diaconiae, great store-houses near thechurch, where the poor daily enjoyed meals in common; thehenodochiae , for strangers; the nosocomiae for the sick;the orphanotrophiae and brephotrophiae for orphans andfoundlings; the gerontocomiae for the aged…..At the end ofthe sixth century hospitals and poorhouses existed ingreat numbers in all the divisions of the ecclesiasticalterritories…the sick were nursed by deaconesses, widows,and attendants under them.” (The Catholic Encyclopedia,Volume XII) Robert Appleton, 191., pp. 238-239, § “Poor”)

Each Christian community was expected to provide for itsown needs; but when disaster struck, they did nothesitate to dispatch messengers beseeching help. Yet thefamiliar society was falling apart in the West; theEmpire divided itself into East and West, with the centerof wealth shifting eastward. Western emperors wereincompetent to stem the tide of economic decay; and thenthe barbarians struck in successive waves, leaving citieswith their bishops and Christian communities isolatedfrom one another, and forced to fend for themselves. Yeteven in the East the Muslims conquered the vastterritories of Egypt and north Africa, Palestine andSyria, and much of Asia Minor and these therefore werelost to Christian control and polity by the year 700.

The Middle Ages: A.D. 500 -1300

St. Benedict of Nursia is credited with the founding ofWestern Monasticism. The Rule of St. Benedict (circa. 486) is amodel of building common life by a certain level of ordereddetachment – celibacy, confinement within a monastery complex,a regular daily schedule of work, study and prayer, andcommitment to a brotherhood. It so happened that just as thecentral government deteriorated and clerical discipline indioceses declined, the intrepid faith and courage of the

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Benedictines leap-frogged their civilizing influence, foundingone monastery after another throughout Europe. The abbeys wereindependent and self-sustaining and cloned “daughter houses”when one grew too large. The monks were expert in farming andanimal husbandry techniques, and built irrigation works.Monasteries were frequently fortified and were a refuge forthe neighboring people from attack.

After Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604), there was an attempt toextend the Roman model of the parish system of helping thepoor throughout the Christian lands. The Council of Tours in567 also mandated that parishes maintain the poor at their owncost, so that they would not wander into other communities.Charlemagne also created an organization that was in placethroughout his empire (modern France and the Rhineland), andstrictly forbade vagabondage (806). The monasteries were givenmore and more responsibility for managing lands, farming, anddeveloping industry (forges, mills, markets, schools andhospitals). Monasteries both provided work for some of thepopulace in their region; they also had designated “almoners,”or monks whose duty, each day, was to give food to thosegathered for it at the gate of the abbey. The Rule alsospecified that each monastery should always have availablespace for hospitality. Guests were, of course, expected torise at the customary hours of the early morning for prayerwith the monks. Successive reforms occurred over thesecenturies which served to restore active faith in the monks,spearheaded by fiery converted men and women. The Cluniacreform of monasteries, followed by the Cistercian reform (St.Bernard) are examples. With every renewal in the Church,usually spearheaded by a saint, the poor benefited.

Feudalism, Absolute Monarchy and Materialism: A.D. 900-1800

The institution of feudalism stratified society into nobles,knights, clergy & monks, and serfs. The church (practicallyidentical with the monasteries and with local government sincethe fall the Roman Empire) began to lose its independence in

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two ways. The prosperity brought by the re-civilizing ofEurope resulted in wealth for the monasteries and lack ofmorality in clergy and laity. The poor became victims of asystem which keep them in servitude, and often beset by hungerand want. . If one was born a serf, he was always bound tothe soil, deprived of education. There was no hope for thepoor to better their condition other than through the goodwill of their lord. If he managed his estates well, and stayedout of warfare, they prospered. If he didn’t, they languished.The top tiers of society enjoyed the fruits of the serfs’labor. However, feudalism gradually concentrated wealthand power into the hands of the nobility and coalesced intothe formalized absolute monarchy. Monarchs began to claim theright to appoint their own relatives to the role of abbot,rather than allow the abbot to be elected by the monksthemselves. They appointed bishops who were relatives. Theleaders of both church and state had no concern for the poor.

“The doctrine that all superfluous wealth ought to beemployed for the benefit of the poor was as clearlyproclaimed, at least by the great Christian teacherssuch as Bede and Alcuin, as it ever had been; but itwas not preached so generally nor observed sofaithfully. After the death of Charlemagne hisorganization of charity fell rapidly into decay.Feudalism, all-powerful, haughty, belligerent,unscrupulous, acknowledging no claims but those ofmight, demoralized both ecclesiastical and civilorder. The spiritual leaders of the people were to avery great extent incompetent, worldly and avaricious.Clerics as well as nobles exploited their serfs andneglected the poor. From the middle of the ninth tothe beginning of the twelfth century these deplorableconditions were general throughout Europe.” (TheCatholic Encyclopedia, Volume III. Robert Appleton,1908. pp. 597-598, § “Charity”)

This neglect and oppression of the poor, true to theprinciples stated in earlier chapters, inevitably began a

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spiritual decline of the Church in general. The parish priestwas hired by the wealthy lord to “service” a church. Whollydependent upon the lord for his sustenance, rare was thepriest willing to be an advocate for the poor in his district.The successive spiritual renewals led by saints (Francis,Dominic and others) had little effect on the organization orstructure of society (dominated as it was by money and privilege).By preaching radical poverty and giving all up for the sake ofthe Heavenly Kingdom, thousands of men and women joined thereligious orders, and they effected a temporary renewal ofreligious fervor in the general populace.

A great flowering of mysticism began in the 1300’s, withpeople forming new religious communities to foster it. Laysocieties to help the poor such as the Calenderii in Germany andthe Humiliati in Italy were formed. New religious orders to servethe poor such as the Alexians and the Trinitarians began. Thelatter’s mission was the redemption of Christians taken inslavery by the Muslims. Religious faith and art blossomed. Theflowering of the Renaissance began the growth of cities,commerce, industry and banking and the cities began to takeresponsibility for care of the poor, especially the sick. Thecity of Dijon in France, capital of the fabulously wealthyDukes of Burgundy, built an architectural masterpiece calledthe “Hotel Dieu,” meaning "God’s Hospice," to care for thesick. Such was repeatedly the case throughout the newly-growing European cities in the late Middle Ages.

“Municipal poor-relief…had been quite general in thefifteenth century…It underwent important developmentsin the cities of Belgium, beginning with Ypres (1524).The new ordinances of this city were, it seems,chiefly due to the ideas of the Spanish theologian andhumanist, Vives. His work, De Subventione Pauperum…waspublished at Bruges in 1526…It was soon translatedinto Spanish, Italian and French….Vives declares thatit is the duty of the civic authorities to care forthe needy and lays down provisions by which the workcan best be accomplished: that a census be taken of

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the indigent; that all who are able be compelled towork; that the authorities, if necessary, provideemployment; and that begging be prohibited…In 1531 theproposals of Vives were embodied in a general law ofthe Emperor Charles V.” (The Catholic Encyclopedia,Volume III. Robert Appleton, 1908. p. 602, §“Charity”)

Reformation, Rationalism, Skepticism & Secularization: A.D.1500-1900

The Reformation burst upon Europe and along with theRationalism of the Cartesian revolution re-made the fabric ofEuropean civilization. The Protestant-dominated countriesimmediately destroyed the monasteries, and thereby theprincipal system in place to assist the poor in thecountryside. The secular State filled the gap left by themonasteries by setting up government-sponsored and tax-fundedcharity for the poor. Queen Elizabeth of England’s Poor Law of1601 is a prime example. Where parishes had been expected tocare for the poor in their territory, “poor houses” were setup at state expense. The bishops in Catholic-dominatedcountries were guided by the new norms of the Council ofTrent, which attempted to re-invigorate and reorganize theCatholic Church in a movement called the “Counter-Reformation,” and included specific guidance in helping thepoor. In the places where the norms were implemented, thegross neglect of the poorer classes, especially in thecountryside, began to be corrected.

“The Council of Trent laid down minute regulationsconcerning the administration of hospitals andhospital funds, and reaffirmed the duty of thebishops…to oversee all measures for the relief of thepoor…these ordinances soon bore considerable fruitespecially in connection with the re-establishment ofthe system of parish relief. The greatest name

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identified with this work is that of St. CharlesBorromeo, Archbishop of Milan.” (The CatholicEncyclopedia, Volume III. Robert Appleton, 1908. p.602, § “Charity”)

Lamentably, however much the ecclesiastical polity may havebeen altered, and however much there was “reformation” or“counter-reformation,” the basic lot of the poor changedlittle for the better. The Catholics’ new moral theology wasdominated by the didactic method and what was a Christian’sduty in any given circumstance, deriving from the law of God.Palliative care for the poor was always the province of thisor that religious order formed for that purpose. The ordinaryCatholic believer was expected to give alms directly to thepoor or contribute to the orders which served the poor. It wasa minimalist and individualistic approach to the Christianlife.

The Protestants, on the other hand, were imbued with a ferventdesire to obey God directly without the mediation of priests,and establish a relationship with God solely through theBible. Each believer was empowered to read the Bible in hisown language and interpret as he will. The state undertookcare for the poor, and the Protestants supported the Statewhich was the guarantor of the new religious freedom. TheProtestants soon lost their cohesion and fragmented intoseveral branches, and besides being preoccupied with refutingCatholic teachings, spent much energy debating amongthemselves. Thus there never was developed a specificallyProtestant ethic concerning the poor, other than the Calvinistunderstanding of divine election and the emphasis on hard workand thrift to seal such election.

Unfortunately for the poor, neither side used the opportunityto make headway against the predominant European structure ofroyal absolutism, and the nobility and merchant oligarchywhich maintained power and wealth at the expense of the lowerclasses. The incessant religious wars lasting 150 years alsoravaged much of central Europe’s countryside, with the poor

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most often being made homeless and famine-striken. Luther’ssupport of the nobles in their brutal repression of thepeasants in Germany is a classic example of the Christianreligion’s maintenance of the status quo with regard to therights of the poor. So too the Catholic clergy’s persistentluxurious lifestyle and neglect of their flock’s spiritualneeds.

No sooner than the Wars of Religion had ended, Rationalism andits Enlightenment philosophers in England and on theContinent directly attacked the existence of God, denied thepossibility of the truth lying in anything beyond the materialsenses, and in essence made Man the Center of and Meaning ofthe Universe. The theology of Protestantism, save among thesects of Puritans and Pietists, suffered direct attacks on thevalidity of the Bible, characterizing it as simply one of aset of possible ethical systems. Rationalism virtuallydestroyed the “obedience of faith” of the majority of theCatholic clergy and the educated upper classes in France;hence there was nothing to stop the institutional violenceagainst the poor there. The seeds of violence throughcontinued exploitation and oppression of the lower classeshaving been sown, the French Revolution convulsed theContinent. When one visits the Palace of Versailles, one canunderstand why the Revolution happened. This revolution andthe Napoleonic conquests would continue as a class struggleright through the end of World War II. The European kingdoms,not realizing their ultimate demise, meanwhile extended theirabsolutist system over the rest of the world throughcolonialism. It was not finally repudiated until 1960’s. Allthis in a supposedly Christian civilization!

Christianity in Europe, both Protestant and Catholic,subsidized and subservient to the overpowering State, became achurch without any vision of 1) the justice proclaimed by theProphets; 2) the responsibility of believers for the commongood; and 3) the example of Jesus washing His apostles’ feetas a servant. It became an essentially inward and

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individualistic religion unable to affect the polity of itsculture.

There were, of course, stirrings here and there by “prophets,”both Protestant and Catholic. These “Saints,” persons raisedup by the Holy Spirit who gave a witness different than thatof most of the Church, were modern prophets who calledChristians’ attention to the poor, and even to structureswhich oppressed the poor. They were shining lights in anotherwise bleak period of Christian witness. Find belowseveral brief accounts of such “saints of the poor” who wereactive between 1500 and 1900. There were many more, but theseare well-known in their respective denominational circles andbeyond. Moreover they share some key similarities. First,they acknowledged and brought to their church’s attention thesuffering and needs of the growing underclass of the poor.Second, they all tried to grapple intelligently with the issueof, in giving charitable assistance, achieving a balancebetween providing means for the necessities of life andencouraging proper personal responsibility. Third, they alllimited assistance to the poor to “charity.” Fourth, they allhad a personal encounter with poverty which sparked in them apersonal conversion. Fifth, they all attempted at some pointto change unjust laws or structures of society by engagingpolitical leaders, with uneven success. Sixth, more oftenthan not, their church’s leaders were fearful of the loss ofprivilege or persecution should they advocate for the poor,and therefore kept “the saints sidelined” and attributed theirconcerns for the needs of the poor to sentimentality. Seventh,achievement of justice for the poor was seen as the provinceof the State, not of the Church.

Protestant Saints: John Wesley, William Wilberforce, ThomasChalmers, William Booth

John Wesley (1703-1791)

In 1735, John Wesley, with his brother Charles and twofriends, all four later ordained priests of the Church of

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England, left for the Colony of Georgia where they intended toevangelize the Indians. This enterprise was the outcome of thepious meetings organized in the year 1720 by Wesley atChristchurch, Oxford, where he was a student. In reactionagainst the slackness and immorality of his fellow-students,even those studying for the ministry, he had been sincerelypious, but somewhat rigid in his piety, which consisted ofexternal practices rather than an inspired and living reality.However, in a Moravian assembly on May 24, 1738, he tells usthat on hearing someone describe how God transforms maninteriorly by faith in Christ, he 'felt his heart strangelywarmed'. He had an assurance that 'Christ had taken away allhis sins, and saved him'.

Wesley has earned a place in history comparable to that of thesixteenth-century Reformers. His life was marked by constantitinerant ministry. In the eighteenth century, when allclasses of society were so profoundly de-Christianized,Wesley, the contemporary of the Industrial Revolution thatstarted in England, instinctively took himself to the workerswhose miserable condition had turned them into neo-pagans.

“He was, perhaps, the first Christian to grasp the newproblem set before the Church, that of the infidelcommunity newly created within a de-vitalizedChristendom by the birth of a proletariat. His work,carried on at first within the Church of England whoseminister he was, and which he never wanted to disown,and then, in spite of him, more and more apart fromit, not only preserved England from a decline intomaterialism, but developed there a popularChristianity such as it had never before known, atleast since the Middle Ages.”

“More penetrating than any of his predecessors, hecriticized Luther's opposition of faith to works as asophistry. As early as the year 1739, when he startedon his new course of action, he denounced what hecalled Luther's 'mania of solifideism'. Luther'scommentary on the epistle to the Galatians, with its

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unbalanced depreciation of the divine Law, was in hisview more likely to be pernicious than beneficial inits results. His reason was that the holiness ofChrist should by no means be opposed to the holinessaccessible to the Christian, but, rather, berepresented as its unique source. Far from admitting,therefore, that the epistle of St. James deserved tobe called an 'epistle of straw', he called it 'thegreat antidote against the poison' of a justificationwhich required no moral change in the Christian.”

“He went still further. His fellow-worker, Whitefield,like many of the popular Protestant mystics whoreacted against the sixteenth century formulas withoutbeing able to escape from them, admitted certainlythat grace ought to change the one 'converted'; but heassumed that this change, if it was to be gratuitous,had to be instantaneous, as if miraculous, and thatthe individual should contribute nothing. Wesley, onthe other hand, taught more and more clearly thatsince the great effect of conversion was theregeneration by grace of the human will, the humanwill ought to work for its own salvation, and makedaily progress, otherwise, even if the conversion wasreal in the beginning, it would become ineffective,through want of perseverance.” (from Bouyer, Louis.The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism)

Wesley’s theology opened Christianity up for the common manand his stress on the necessary fruitfulness of the Christianlife laid the groundwork for later outreaches to the poor suchas those of William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, whowas an authorized Methodist minister in the slums of East End,London and then later formed his own separate denomination.

“Though many social commentators miss the point, itwas in these groups that the reformation of Englandcame to pass. As spiritual conversion flowered intomaturity under the watchful eye of lay leaders, tensof thousands of believers stopped beating their

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spouses, ceased drinking gin, became dependableemployees, raised families with a knowledge of God,and generally saw their lives take a turn for thebetter.

Unleashing charity. Although Wesley influenced Englishsociety through his tireless evangelism and emphasison discipleship, Wesley’s Methodists also left alasting mark because of their spirit of charity. Asmen and women embraced faith through Wesley’spreaching and the subsequent society-class-bandstructures, they also came to embrace the highestvirtue found in Scripture: love. Breaking out of theirown selfish concerns, Methodists opened their heartsand minds to the needs of their neighbors, villages,towns, and cities.

In a class meeting, someone might ask for prayer forthe elderly woman down the road struggling to repair abroken roof. Such prayer would be met with action.Members of the class would go and interview the woman,fix the roof within the week, seek to meet her otherneeds, and invite the grateful recipient to join thegroup at the next gathering. This frontline Wesleyanapproach of “neighborly care” generally encompassedwhat Marvin Olasky has described as three marks ofauthentic compassion: personal attention to anindividual’s need (as opposed to a bureaucratic one-size-fits-all approach), challenging help (as opposedto indiscriminate handouts), and a spiritual dimension(as opposed to merely secular assistance).

Wesley and the Methodists also took the social issuesof their day seriously. They focused on much-neededprison reform, education for the poor, and theabolition of the slave trade—which was, according tothe evangelist, the ‘execrable sum of all thevillainies.’ (John Wesley’s Enduring Legacy By MattFriedeman in Good News Magazine, Sept/Oct 2003)

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William Wilberforce (1759-1833)

William Wilberforce is perhaps the best known of theabolitionists. He came from a prosperous merchant family ofKingston-upon-Hull, a North Sea port. A sudden conversion toevangelical Christianity in 1785 made him approach politicsfrom a position of strict Christian morality. In 1786 hecarried through the House of Commons a bill for amendingcriminal law which failed to pass the Lords, a pattern whichwas to be repeated during his abolitionist career. Thefollowing year he founded the Proclamation Society which hadas its aim the suppression of vice and the reformation ofpublic manners.

Wilberforce looked over the evidence against the slave trade.As he did so he became genuinely horrified and resolved togive the abolition movement his support. Later in 1787 hebecame the parliamentary leader of the abolition movement. Hepresented evidence to a committee of the Privy Council during1788. This episode did not go as planned. Some of the keywitnesses against the trade, apparently bribed or intimidated,changed their story and testified in favour. In the country atlarge abolitionist sentiment was growing rapidly. Wilberforceprepared to present his Abolition Bill before the House ofCommons. His speech was subsequently praised in the newspapersas being one of the most eloquent ever to have been heard inthe house. His persistence eventually paid off in England’seventual banning all slave trade in its empire.

Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847)

Thomas was born on March 17, 1780. Following his 30th birthdayhe experienced an evangelical conversion and the change in hisconversation and preaching attracted attention. He grewconcerned that his middle-class congregation was not touchingurban poverty. When the Glasgow City Council erected the newparish of St John’s, he negotiated to take it on as a self-contained area in which he could demonstrate his social

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theories. Rev. Chalmers believed that England’s system ofwelfare payments to the poor generated expectations whichalways outstripped whatever funds the governments of the townsand cities made available. He therefore developed a philosophyof a church-based community welfare system. His holisticapproach to mission was reproduced by his students who becamemissionaries, educationalists and church leaders around theworld.

“His answer to middle-class fears of an aggressive,immoral, and irreligious underclass was to recreate anidealized rural parish community in defiance ofpopulation growth, mobility and structuralunemployment. With a sense of urgency and a remarkableteam, Chalmers energetically set about buildingschools, meeting with elders, putting social work inthe hands of deacons, and introducing information onmission overseas to stimulate mission at home.” (“TheLegacy of Thomas Chalmers” by John Roxborogh inInternational Bulletin of Missionary Research, 23(4) October1999, 173-176.)

Chalmers, his elders, deacons and Sunday Schoolteachers, visited homes and set up local SundaySchools. The deacons were careful with the aid theydistributed, with each situation being investigatedand the possibilities of help from families andfriends explored. Charity was held to be aresponsibility of relatives, before it became that ofthe church. Chalmers believed in poor-relief beingsomething based on relationships and the churchchanneling the funds of its well-to-do members, ratherthan an impersonal “right.”

“The “St. John’s Experiment” had considerable merits.He did grow a church. He did help peopleeducationally, spiritually, and socially. He did makethe mission of the church much more than the activityof its minister, however much people were initiallyattracted by his fame as a preacher. His development

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of a “case-work” approach laid the groundwork for thesocial work profession. He inspired other churches toface the challenge of poverty out of a process ofvisitation and social investigation. He was noarmchair theorist. At the same time, many of hisclaims were simply wrong. His notion of the economicindependence of the city parish was never realistic.Parish boundaries were meaningless other than fordetermining areas of responsibility. Visiting deaconsand their investigations were more personal thanofficial handouts, but they were still not therelationships of an intimate rural parish. Despitehis best efforts, the Sunday congregation came largely

from outside the parish itself.” (edited selectionsfrom “The Legacy of Thomas Chalmers” by John Roxboroghin International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 23(4) October1999, 173-176.)

William Booth (1829-1912)

William Booth, the son of a builder, was born in Nottingham in1829. At the age of fifteen he was converted to Christianity and became a Methodist revivalist preacher. Booth developed strong views on the role of church ministers believing they should be loosing the chains of injustice, freeing the captiveand oppressed, sharing food and home, clothing the naked and sharing family responsibilities. In 1855 Booth married Catherine Mumford. In 1865 William and Catherine founded the Whitechapel Christian Mission in London's East End to help feed and house the poor. They left Methodism, and the mission was reorganized in 1878 as The Salvation Army, with the preachers known as officers and Booth as the general.

William Booth and his followers actively evangelized the poor among whom they worked and sought to bring into the worship services an informal atmosphere that would encourage new converts. Joyous singing, instrumental music, clapping of

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hands and an invitation to repent characterized Salvation Armymeetings.

William and Catherine Booth were also active in the campaign to improving the working conditions of women working at the Bryant & May factory in the East End. Not only were these women only earning 1s. 4d. for a sixteen hour day, they were also risking their health when they dipped their match-heads in the yellow phosphorus supplied by manufacturers such as Bryant & May. A large number of these women suffered from 'Phossy Jaw' (necrosis of the bone) caused by the toxic fumes of the yellow phosphorus. The whole side of the face turned green and then black, discharging foul-smelling pus and finally death.

Booth pointed out that most other European countries producedmatches tipped with harmless red phosphorus. Bryant & Mayresponded that these matches were more expensive and thatpeople would be unwilling to pay these higher prices. In 1891 the Salvation Army opened its own match-factory in OldFord, East London. Only using harmless red phosphorus, theworkers were soon producing six million boxes a year! WhereasBryant & May paid their workers just over twopence a gross,the Salvation Army paid their employees twice this amount.

Booth organized tours of his model factory; and even broughtmembers of Parliament into the homes of those workers who wereworking eleven and twelve hours a day producing matches forcompanies like Bryant & May. The bad publicity that thecompany received forced the company to reconsider its actions.In 1901, the managing director of Bryant & May announced ithad stopped using yellow phosphorus.

The Salvation Army operates world-wide in preaching the gospeland in giving relief to the poor. Membership totals over 2million people. As of 1999, the Salvation Army operated 600kindergartens, 950 primary and middle schools, 100 secondaryschools, 50 trade schools, 25 teacher training schools, oneBible college and one university. The institutions operated bymembers in the United States include adult rehabilitation

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centers that enroll homeless people in a program of work andrehabilitation, children's camps, general hospitals, maternityhomes and hospitals, children's homes and foster-care centers,safe homes for battered women, residences for senior citizensand young working women, and centers for residential treatmentof substance abusers.

Catholic Saints: St. Vincent DePaul , St. John Bosco, BlessedFrédéric Ozanam.

St. Vincent DePaul (1581-1660)

Born of a peasant family, Vincent undertook theologicalstudies at Toulouse, France, where he graduated in theology.Ordained a priest in 1600, he was once traveling by sea in1605 when Turkish pirates captured him and took him to Tunis.He was sold as a slave, but converted his master and escapedin 1607. On returning to France he went to Paris and becamethe spiritual director of Mme de Gondi. With her assistance hebegan preaching missions (in contemporary Protestant terms,“preaching revivals”) on her estates and founded the first“conference of charity” for the assistance of the poor.Several learned Paris priests joined him. The good wroughteverywhere by his preaching convinced Vincent to found areligious order vowed to the evangelization of countrypeople--the Congregation of Priests of the Mission.

Vincent de Paul also established the Daughters of Charity andthe Ladies of Charity. Among the works, which their co-operation enabled him to undertake, that of the care offoundlings was one of the most important. Some of thefoundlings at this period were deliberately deformed bymiscreants anxious to exploit public pity. Others werereceived into a municipal asylum called "la couche", but oftenthey were ill-treated or allowed to die of hunger. The Ladiesof Charity began by purchasing twelve children drawn by lot.who were installed in a special house confided to theDaughters of Charity and four nurses. Thus years later thenumber of children reached 4000. Vincent then inspired thebuilding of what has been called one of the greatest works of

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charity of the seventeenth century, the sheltering of 40,000poor in an asylum where they would be given a useful work.

Under Cardinal Mazarin, when Paris revolted at the time of theFronde (1649) against the Regent, Anne of Austria, Vincentbraved all dangers to go and implore her clemency in behalf ofthe people of Paris and boldly advised her to sacrifice theminister in order to avoid the evils which the war threatenedto bring on the people. He also remonstrated with Mazarinhimself. His advice was not listened to. Through his care soupwas distributed daily to 15,000 refugees and poor; 900 youngwomen were sheltered; and in the single parish of St. Paul theSisters of Charity made and distributed soup every day to 500poor, besides which they had to care for 60 to 80 sick. Duringthis time Vincent even wrote a letter to the pope asking himto offer mediation to hasten peace between the two parties, tono avail.

Of all the works carried on abroad none perhaps interested himso much as the 25,000 poor slaves of Barbary, whose lot he hadonce shared. Christians for the most part, they had beencarried off from their families by the Turkish corsairs. Theywere treated as beasts of burden, condemned to frightfullabour, without any corporal or spiritual care. Vincent sentamong them a priest and a brother, who were followed byothers. They preached and conducted services. At the same timethey acted as agents with their families, and were able tofree some of them. Up to the time of St. Vincent's death thesemissionaries had ransomed 1200 slaves, and they had expended1,200,000 livres in behalf of the slaves of Barbary, not tomention the affronts and persecutions of all kinds which theythemselves had endured from the Turks.

St. John Bosco (1815-1888)

He was born of poor parents at Becchi, Italy, and in 1835 heentered the seminary and was ordained priest in 1841 byArchbishop Franzoni of Turin. One of his duties was to visitthe prisons of the city, and the condition of the childrenconfined in there made him resolve to devote his life to their

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rescue. Bosco met a homeless child named Bartolomeo and beganinstructing this first pupil of the streets; companions soonjoined Bartolomeo, all drawn by a kindness they had neverknown; and in February, 1842, he had founded an Oratory(literally, “place of prayer”) that sheltered four hundred byspring of 1846.

In 1845 Bosco began night schools for boys working in thefactories. Opposition to his work arose, and complaints werelodged against him, declaring his community to be a nuisance,owing to the character of the boys he befriended. Hisperseverance in the face of all difficulties led many to theconclusion that he was insane, and an attempt was even made toconfine him in an asylum. The Oratory had to be moved time andagain: to St. Martin's, to St. Peter's Churchyard, to threerooms in Via Cottolengo, where the night schools were resumed,to an open field, and finally to a rough shed upon the site ofwhich grew up an Oratory that counted seven hundred members.

Bosco developed a method of instruction, and prohibited mostpunishment. He held that the teacher should be father,adviser, and friend, and he was the first to adopt thepreventive method. Of punishment he said: "As far as possibleavoid punishing . . . . try to gain love before inspiringfear." And in 1887 he wrote: "I do not remember to have usedformal punishment; and with God's grace I have alwaysobtained, and from apparently hopeless children, not alonewhat duty exacted, but what my wish simply expressed." In allhis pupils Bosco tried to cultivate a taste for music,believing it to be a powerful and refining influence."Instruction", he said, "is but an accessory, like a game;knowledge never makes a man because it does not directly touchthe heart. It gives more power in the exercise of good orevil; but alone it is an indifferent weapon, wanting guidance.In his rules he wrote: "Frequent Confession, frequentCommunion, daily Mass: these are the pillars which shouldsustain the whole edifice of education." At the time ofBosco's death in 1888 there were 250 houses of the SalesianSociety in all parts of the world, containing 130,000

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children, and from which there annually went out 18,000finished apprentices.

Blessed Frédéric Antoine Ozanam (1813-1853)

Frederic Ozanam left Lyons in his nineteenth year toundertake law courses at Paris' famous University of theSorbonne. He joined in reviving a defunct Catholicdiscussion club. Atheists and doubters often bested theirCatholic hosts. No matter what arguments Catholicsraised, their opponents replied: "True, the Church wasonce a great force for good in this world. But what, myfriends, is it doing now?" One time, the articulateFrederic marshaled a finely honed argument concerningChristianity's role in civilization. His adversary waitedpatiently and then responded: "Let us be frank, Mr.Ozanam; let us also be very particular. What do you dobesides talk to prove the faith you claim is in you?"

The question hit hard and hit home. That very night,Frederic and his friend Le Taillandier took their ownmeager winter wood supply and carried it to a poorfamily. Five other students joined and the little bandput their work under the patronage of the great Frenchapostle of charity, St. Vincent de Paul who had said,“the poor will do much more for you than you will do forthem."

Paris' poor people, exploited by the wealthy, oppressedby the government, were as helpless as any people couldbe. Those lucky enough to find work, often labored fromearly morn to late at night, seven days a week, for amiserable salary. Unscrupulous factory owners shamelesslyoverworked and underpaid little children, who had no lawsto protect them. In tenements and alleyways, in twistingcobblestone streets and filthy hallways, drunkenness,vice and immorality flourished. It was into thesetortured tenement districts, long the focal point ofFrance's troubles, that Frederic and his companionsentered with such simplicity and courage. During the next

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two years, Frederic witnessed the rapid and steadyexpansion of what came to be known as the St. Vincent dePaul Society.

Frederic experienced a sense of impending doom forFrance. The forces of hatred, injustice, greed andviolence that lay just under the polished surface ofFrench society were gathering like the fires of anunderground volcano. "It is a struggle," Ozanam declared,"between those who have nothing and those who have toomuch. The violent clash of luxury and poverty is shakingthe ground under our feet."

Rioting occurred in February, 1848, subsided, then brokeout anew with terrible force on June 24, 1848. Therevolutionaries established the Paris Commune. Over onehundred thousand armed rebels rampaged through Paris inthe first hours of the June fighting. On the third day ofthe fighting, Ozanam approached Paris’ Archbishop Affrewith a plan to stop the slaughter. Ozanam inquired if hewould be willing to approach the insurgents and offerthem a promised government pardon. The Bishop, whoseheart, too, was broken by the madness that gripped hispeople, complied. He walked deliberately past the lastgovernment outpost and into the no man's land between thetwo lines. Affre pressed on through the strangely silentstreets. No one spoke, no one moved. A thousand eyeswatched the brave Archbishop. After an eternity Affrereached the front of the main rebel barricade. Insurgentscame from behind their fortress to greet him. TheArchbishop read a beautiful statement of reconciliation,and then in gentle tones urged the rebels to accept thepardon. The workers' hearts were deeply touched and theysat silent. Suddenly a shot rang out, and within momentsa frightful fire fight erupted. Affre was cut down andmortally wounded. The news of Affre's death was enough tostop the insane fighting.

St. Vincent de Paul members again threw themselvestirelessly into their slum work. Frederic, using every

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bit of influence he had, obtained help from every quarterto relieve the sufferings of the poor. The governmentcollected enough money to provide a small assistance forthe city's poor. It requested Ozanam and his men tosupervise the distribution of this fund. At his death in1853, the St. Vincent de Paul Society which he hadstarted with Le Taillandier numbered fifteen thousand"brothers," as they were called. Today these laymen ofall ages number nearly 700,000, and are found throughoutthe world.

selections from Volume 50, 4th quarter, The Anthonian,published by St. Anthony's Guild, Copyright 1976,excerpts from Hanley, O.F.M., Boniface. For Your LoveAlone.)

Colonization, Independence from Europe, Industrial Revolution:A.D. 1600-1900

The immigration to North America of millions of poor Europeanswho had been landless, penniless, conscripted against theirwill to serve in kings’ armies and with no political power yetseeking freedom and a new home – leaving behind the graves oftheir ancestors and abandoning the villages they had been bornin, vividly exemplifies with what poverty and bitterness theirlives were filled. They were willing to risk a dangerous seapassage for spiritual and economic freedom and just a chanceto climb out of subservience to self-respect. (We see the samephenomenon today with regard to the poor of Latin Americaimmigrating to the United States. We see the desperation bornof poverty!)

It was to the new United States of America that many of thepersecuted and oppressed Protestants and Catholics of Europebrought their hopes for a new life. Here they graduallyestablished, without the hubris of a state church, apopularly-financed and governed church. Successive “revivals”swept through Protestant denominations up through the end of

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the 19th Century. Catholics were a minority in the midst of apredominately Protestant culture and quickly set up their ownchurches, schools, unions, social halls, newspapers,associations and even political organizations. The populationin America was primarily rural, quite homogeneouseconomically, almost all poor and either farmers or factoryworkers. Many of the Catholic, Baptist and Methodistcongregations were poor. Presbyterians and Episcopalians weregenerally the upper income social, business and intellectualelite.

Part of the European baggage brought over by the immigrantsincluded the notion of the church not interfering in society,being kept to the periphery of the deliberately secularsociety’s decision-making. Remembering religious persecutionin their homelands, the Founding Fathers had enshrined in theConstitution the prohibition of a State Church – but in suchinexplicit terms that a non-constitutional doctrine ofsecularization has evolved into today’s court-legislated“separation of church and state.”

Additionally, the notion of Christianity being essentially aprivate religion exclusively between the believer and God wasthe norm in America. The churches became small God-centeredparallel societies designed to meet the spiritual and socialneeds of each ethnic group. While Protestant and Catholicprejudices against one another were also brought over fromEurope and perpetuated by some demagogic clergy, respect forthe rule of law generally insured that sufficient time elapsedfor the lived experience of the true reality of eachindividual’s worth; and sincerity eventually overcame the mostvirulent attitudes.

It was the question of slavery that first began to lure thechurches out of the box of purely private morality, out of thesocial club and into the public life of America. Itstructurally divided, with the exception of the Episcopal andCatholic churches, all denominations. The Catholics foughtconscientiously against each other on both sides of the civil

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war. The Abolitionist movement was an evangelical Protestantmoral revolution which gradually changed hearts over the 100years prior to the Civil War. The northern churches began topreach against slavery, and its extension into the newlyforming western states. It became a one-issue debate, withthe Republican Party closely identified with the one issuewhile the Democrats, while agreeing as to its evil, favored a“gradualist” and minimalist approach to its elimination. TheRepublicans were able to find a “philosopher-priest” of theirmovement in Abraham Lincoln and galvanize a majority of publicopinion in their favor.

After the civil war both Protestant and Catholic churchesembarked on unprecedented educational and humanitarian effortsto aid the newly-freed African-Americans. They helped fund thebuilding of new churches throughout the South. They enabledthe black Christians to establish a carbon-copy of the white’schurch polity, and assured that the black church becameinsular as in the ethnic immigrant communities, providing astructure of support for survival in a “temporary home.” Oncethe occupying Northern armies went home, and Reconstructionended, a southern white reaction to black suffrage began. TheSupreme Court’s infamous ruling, Plessy vs. Ferguson, whichlegalized “separate but equal” rights for blacks, spelled theend of practical (economic, educational and political) freedomfor African-Americans; and by the end of the century thoseblacks not residing in the north were reduced to a powerlessand subservient class in a hostile white-dominated society.

The white churches in both north and south were by this timepreoccupied by absorbing new floods of poor immigrants,starting foreign mission societies, and building churches.Protestants were organizing the Temperance Movement, whichlike Abolition again took the church into the public square.The last 30 years of the 19th century in America saw theevangelical Protestant church have great impact on the cultureof the Country. When abortion became widespread in New YorkCity, a Presbyterian bought The New York Times principally to bea mouthpiece in agitating for laws against the practice, and

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successfully led to the adoption of anti-abortion laws inevery state of the Union. “Blue laws” prohibiting commerce onSunday, and anti-gambling laws likewise entered the law booksof the States in this “righteous flowering” of the ProtestantChurch’s political muscle. It was the heyday of D.L. Moody inChicago and the fiery preachers and reformers, DeWittTalmadge and Charles Spurgeon at the Brooklyn Tabernacle inNew York.

Wars, Depression, Martyrs and Prophets: A.D. 1900-Present

The crowning achievement of efforts by evangelical Protestantsto “Christianize” America was exemplified by the TemperanceMovement and its enshrinement in law as Prohibition. The turnof the century was marked by labor violence due to harshconditions in factories for women, children and workers ingeneral. The rise of Socialism and Communism in Europe sparkedthe growth of these ideologies in America, challenged thechurches to a new level of commitment to the poor in thetenements and sweatshops. Both Protestants and Catholicsopposed Socialism and Communism. Protestant Churches steppedup and opened “settlement houses” in urban settings; theSalvation Army flourished; the YMCA and YWCA ministered to thepoor children of the big cities. There was a huge number oforphanages, “union missions” for housing and evangelizing thehomeless, and shelters for unwed mothers. A huge network ofProtestant charitable enterprise – proactively evangelistic –flourished over the landscape of America.

After World War I the Catholic Bishops founded the “NationalCatholic Welfare Council.” The NCWC organized CatholicCharities, established a degree program in social work at TheCatholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and issuedlandmark pastoral letters on the minimum wage, trade unions,and other structural realities current in the country. (Many of theseprinciples found acceptance in the “New Deal” programs ofPresident Roosevelt) The Bishops were therefore well-positioned to give leadership to Catholics with the onset of

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the Great Depression. Catholic orphanages flourished.Conscious of leading a distinct minority, the Catholichierarchy did not formally challenge the legal status quo ofthe African American. They established separate but equalchurches, schools, religious orders, etc. For example, it wasonly in the late forties did the bishops of St. Louis andRaleigh begin the desegregation of their Catholic schools, andeven then provoking considerable outrage among Catholics inthose dioceses at the time. The Protestant Churches in theU.S. remained divided over the issue of race until the CivilRights era. Southern Protestants were composed of middle andlower income whites and provided until the last possiblemoments, the biblical rationale for segregation. MostCatholics in the South believed in segregation and held racistviews even though the Catholic Church itself never preachedthe rightness of segregation – just the rightness ofsupporting the law, which happened to be segregation.

The Southern States had hardened their segregation laws in the1920’s as a result of racist and bigoted demagogues such asSen. Tom Watson of Georgia. The so-called “Populist Movement”actually fed on latent Protestant fears of a Catholic takeoverof America, and sparked the rise of the Ku Klux Klanthroughout America. Lynching of blacks increased and this allcombined to prompt a massive “black flight” to the largeNorthern and Western cities by southern black sharecroppers.Most whites in the South bid them good-riddance. The whitechurch in the North and South said nothing of consequence tocombat the growing racial divide of the United States.

It was only the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s thatfinally forced the white Christian Church in America to againfind its prophetic voice for justice for the poor. A youngAfrican-American Baptist preacher by the name of Martin LutherKing, Jr. was thrust into leadership, and ultimatelysacrificed his life that America would dismantle all the lawsmandating segregation, and ensure equal political power forAfrican-American citizens through the Civil Rights Act and theEqual Voting Rights Act. Many Christians and their clergy

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joined in demonstrations, boycotts, marches and did jail timein the South. Many more lobbied Congress for the passage ofthe Acts. The Archbishop of New Orleans excommunicated aleading Louisiana Catholic segregationist, Leander Perez, forhis opposition to desegregating the Archdiocesan Catholicschools.

However, the race riots of the late sixties and seventies sentshock waves across the neighborhoods and pews of whiteAmerica. Integration caused the emptying of the cities ofwhites who fled to the suburbs and brought their churches withthem. The Catholics already had their schools, and theProtestants soon emulated them. A deep demographic, religiousand political polarization of the United States began to takeshape. There now persists in this very day a deep rift betweenthe suburban-rural church and the inner city church, bothProtestant and Catholic.

The Church in the United States appears today to beineffective in affecting the way most people live and think.The secular media has considerably more power to shape theculture than does the Church. The Church for most of thepopulation is a feel-good place that is available for comfortin both personal and national crisis; but there is less andless of a commitment to specific Christian doctrine, no matterwhich denomination, and less and less of the practice ofregular prayer, Sunday worship and evangelization. Whenchurch-going is practiced it often becomes nothing more than a“Christians-only” time of recreation or entertainment; andunfortunately the clergy have tried to fulfill theseexpectations to a large degree by being loath to disturb orchallenge the “comfortability” of modern American Christianityin both African-American and white congregations.

Despite the unfolding secular culture of the last 120 yearsthere has been at work an “evangelical impulse” as JacquesMaritain describes it (cf Donald Arthur Gallagher, Introduction,p. xv, in Maritain, Jacques. Christianity and Democracy andThe Rights of Man and Natural Law). Maritain (1882-1973),

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writing in 1942 at the height of the Second World War while hewas a refugee in the United States, boldly states that onlythe “evangelical impulse” unique to the Gospel and of theChurch that carries it to the world awakens within man aconsciousness of the natural law, which is “…an order ordisposition according to which the human will must act inorder to attune itself to the necessary ends of the humanbeing.” (Christianity and Democracy, p. xv) Saying the samething at the concluding session of the Second Vatican Council,Pope Paul VI in his homily quoted a prayer of St. Catherine ofSiena, “In your nature, O Eternal Godhead, I shall know my ownnature.” (AAS 58 [1966], 58)

Maritain gives a telling analysis of the failure of theEuropean democracies (before WWII) and also talks aboutAmerican democracy. This is rather long, but given the livesof saints we’re seen encounter this milieu in Europe andAmerica, we can read it and see how right he was in 1942, andhow stunningly his analysis still rings true today, especiallyas regards the polarization of the American church now.

“Another great reason for the failure of the moderndemocracies to realize democracy is the fact that thisrealization inevitably demanded accomplishment in thesocial as well as in the political order and that thisdemand was not complied with. The irreducibleantagonisms inherent in an economy based on the self-propagating power of money, the selfishness of themonied classes, and secession of the proletariatraised by Marxism to the mystic principle of theRevolution, all prevented the democratic tenets frombeing incorporated into social life; and theimportance of modern societies in the face of povertyand the dehumanization of work, coupled with theirinability to transcend the exploitation of man by man,have been a bitter failure for them.”

“But the principal reason is of a spiritual nature. Itlies in the inner contradiction and the tragic

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misunderstanding of which the modern democracies,particularly in Europe, have been the victims. Thisform and ideal of common life, which we calldemocracy, springs in its essentials from theinspiration of the Gospel and cannot subsist withoutit; and by virtue of the blind logic of historicalconflicts and habits of social memory, which hasnothing whatever to do with the logic of thought, wesaw for a century the motivating forces in the moderndemocracies repudiating the Gospel and Christianity inthe name of human liberty, while motivating forces inthe Christian social strata were combating thedemocratic aspirations in the name of religion. InFrance the labor movement of 1848 was animated by aChristian flame…The freethinking bourgeoisie smotheredboth the movement and the flame; and at that momentthe social power of religion worked for thebourgeoisie as it had worked in the past for thepolicy of “the throne and the altar.” The licensedapostles of social emancipation were no longer able torecognize Jesus in the Church and mistook religiousorthodoxy for the political and social oppressionwhich set itself up as the upholder of order. Thesocial supporters of religion were no longer able torecognize Jesus in the poor and in the confused outcryof their demands mistook every call for social justiceas advocating upheaval and social revolution….Theworking classes sought their salvation in the denialof Christianity; the conservative Christian circlessought theirs in the denial of the temporal exigenciesof justice and love.” (Maritain, Christianity andDemocracy, pp. 19-21)

The paralysis resulting from this polarization led to thepolitical vacuum being filled by Communists in Russia andEastern Europe, Nazis in Germany and the Fascists in Italy –and resulting in World War II. The clergy and the wealthyclasses in England and the Continent were not only cast in thepopular imagination as reactionary and one-of-a-kind; the

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clergy’s pay was in the hands of the wealthy, and thegovernment of the churches as well. Bishops in the CatholicChurch and Anglican Church were almost always of noblelineage. Pope Pius X (d. 1913) was the first pope in themodern era to be of humble background! The Church hadabandoned the poor before the poor had abandoned the Church.Maritain continues by switching his gaze to the United States:

In America, where, despite the influence wielded bythe great economic interests, democracy has penetratedmore profoundly into existence, and where it has neverlost sight of its Christian origin, this name conjuresup a living instinct stronger than the errors of thespirit which prey upon it. Perhaps it is because inAmerica, Christianity has taken on diffuse and dilutedshapes, often to the point of being nothing more thana sentimental ingredient of human morality, that thedivorce between the democratic principle and theChristian principle has never made itself as intenselyfelt there as in Europe….” (Maritain, Christianityand Democracy, pp. 23-4)

Proof of Maritain’s prophetical analysis of AmericanChristianity is shown in William Buckley’s repudiation of PopeJohn XXIII’s encyclical, “Mater et Magistra,” (literally, “Motherand Teacher.) He quipped, “Mater, si; Magistra, no.” (cf Kammer,Doing Faithjustice, p. 66) He maintained that the Church hasno grounds to evaluate the secular order nor proclaim thetruth to it. In contrast to Buckley’s statement, Pope JohnPaul II asserted in his encyclical Centesimus Annus,

“The Church, in fact, has something to say aboutspecific human situations, both individual andcommunal, national and international. She formulates agenuine doctrine for this situations, a corpus whichenables her to analyze social realities, to makejudgments about them and to indicate directions to betaken for the just resolution of the problemsinvolved.” (I, 5)

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The Pope is claiming for the Church the right, the duty andthe competence to prophesy to mankind.

I. Christian “Social Doctrine” in the Twentieth Century

1. The main sources of Catholic teaching are as follows:a) Catechism of the Catholic Church

1) Contains 61 paragraphs which have reference tothe poor

b) Second Vatican Council Decrees1) Gaudium et Spes and Universal Destination of Goods

(#29 & 71)2) Apostolicam Actuositatem and the Role of the Laity in

the Churchc) The so-called “social encyclicals” of recent popes:

1) Rerum Novarum by Pope Leo XIII2) Quadragesimo Anno by Pope Pius IX3) Octogesimo Anno by Pope Paul VI4) Centesimus Annus by Pope John Paul II

Free Economy: “What is proposed is no absolutecapitalism…and not socialism, but rather a societyof free work, of enterprise and of participation.” (§30-31)

Human Ecology: “The fundamental structure ofhuman ecology is the family, founded onmarriage in which a mutual gift of self byhusband and wife creates an environment inwhich children can be born and develop…asanctuary of life. ” (§39)

Preferential Option for the Poor is Essentialto the Life of the Church: “Today more thanever, the Church is aware that her socialmessage will gain credibility more immediatelyfrom the witness of actions than as a result of itsinternal logic and consistency. This awarenessis also a source of her preferential option forthe poor, which is never exclusive ordiscriminatory towards other groups. This

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option is not limited to material poverty,since it is well known that there are manyother forms of poverty …The Church’s love forthe poor, which is essential for her and a partof her constant tradition, impels her to giveattention to a world in which poverty isthreatening to assume massive proportions…”(§57)

Doing Justice is Made Possible by Grace: “…lovefor the poor, in whom the Church sees Christhimself, is made concrete in the promotion ofjustice.” (§58) “in order that the demands ofjustice may be met, and attempts to achievethis goal may succeed, what is needed is the giftof grace, a gift which comes from God. Grace, incooperation with human freedom, constitutesthat mysterious presence of God in historywhich is Providence.” (§59)

d) Compendium of Catholic Social Doctrine

2. Protestant Calls for Justice

a) Richard F. Lovelace’s Critique

“We might well ask ourselves whether what we are experiencing today is a spiritual awakening, or something better described as a numerical multiplication of evangelicals due to the success ofconservative churches and parachurch evangelism ministries. We will be in trouble if we confuse the former with the latter. Israel multiplied while in Egypt, but Moses did not find the emigrating generation very serviceable for the purposes of God.It was a different group of persons that was able toenter and conquer Canaan -- a group that had experienced a deep awakening and change of heart. Isthere a need for new theological and spiritual

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awakening among the multiplied tribes of the evangelical movement?

Criteria of Completion

In The Social Ideas of the Northern Evangelists, C.C. Coleindicates that there was a discernible pattern inthe evangelical movements of awakening thattransformed English and American society betweenthe 1790s and the 1830s. In both countries theSecond Great Awakening began with widespreadgrass-roots evangelism. This was followed by fivesubsequent phases of development in a regularpattern of succession: (1) the organization ofhome and foreign mission societies to channel newleadership into church planting or into thefield; (2) the production and distribution ofChristian literature; (3) the renewal andextension of Christian educational institutions;(4) attempts at "the reformation of manners" --i.e., the reassertion of Christian moralstandards in a decadent society; and (5) thegreat humanitarian crusades against social evilslike slavery, war and intemperance.

There is, of course, no reason why everyspiritual awakening needs to duplicate exactlythe features of preceding movements.Nevertheless, this succession of initiatives doesseem to capture elements that are part of theessence of the gospel enterprise. It is aconvenient standard for measuring the maturity ofwhat we are experiencing today, and perhaps alsofor charting where we should be going from here.For in some measure we may be responsible toshape the direction of events in the church thatmight either lead to, or fall short of, thecompletion of an awakening.

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It is clear that some of the developments ofCole’s list are already part of our experiencetoday. In the U.S. at least, a remarkably variedgroup of evangelism task forces has been reachingthe grass roots since the 1940s. Urbana,Operation Mobilization and many otherinstruments, including several working with teen-agers, have been raised up to channel convertstoward the foreign mission field. The parachurchcampus ministries and the evangelical seminarieshave performed the same function for the homefield. At least in quantity, evangelicalliterature for nurture and the propagation of thefaith has made publishing history. In addition tonew evangelical colleges and seminaries, thedecade of the "70s has seen the creation of manynew Christian primary and secondary schools.

It is mainly in the area of social and culturaltransformation that the current awakening seemsto be lagging. Is this because it lacks thespiritual force to challenge and change society,or because it has not reached that phase of itsdevelopment, or simply because its leaders havenot tried?

Some evangelicals really do not expect suchachievements, since they do not harmonize withtheir eschatology and their sense of our locationon the timeline of history. Others believe thatthe social and cultural fruits of religiousawakening will appear gradually if we arepatient, arguing that once individual Christiansare spiritually reborn in great numbers, theywill inevitably act as salt and leaven within thesociety. When liberal Christians or sociallyconscious evangelicals challenge the failure ofthis view’s adherents to articulate social andcultural concerns, the reply is that such

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concerns are not part of the church’sproclamation, but that individual evangelicalshave always been motivated to reform and renewsociety, almost automatically.

Behind the Incomplete Awakening

But this argument overlooks the fact that for thepast two generations evangelicals have beenlargely passive under the growing weight ofsocial and cultural evil. We have learned totolerate decay and injustice, to expect and evenwelcome them as signs of Christ’s return. We havebeen marinating in corruption until we can hardlydetect its growth, like Malcolm Muggeridge’s frogkilled in a pot of gradually heated water. Itseldom occurs to us that there might be any usein fighting back, or that we might be responsibleto do so.

Kathleen Heasman says of evangelicals in thelatter half of the 19th century: "By the mid-century it had become an accepted fact . . . thatthose who had experienced some spiritual renewalshould straightway take part in the variousefforts which were being made to help the lessfortunate in the community." But it has been along time since this was a reasonable expectationfor American evangelicals, who have disengagedthemselves to a great degree from socialinjustice and cultural decay, and have dividedtheir energies between church-centered religionand the task of succeeding or surviving in theAmerican vocational rat race.

Judging from evangelical experience in tile 19thcentury, some degree of activity and some senseof responsibility for action are necessary ifChristians are to be the leaven in society thatpromotes justice, and the salt that inhibits

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decay. It also seems clear that uninstructedChristians will not automatically develop thesequalities, especially if they are embedded insocially and culturally passive churches. Born-again souls do not necessarily have born-againminds -- as we have discovered in the phenomenonof fundamentalist racism. Regeneration must becontinued through growth in sanctification; newChristians must be transformed by the renewal oftheir minds. This requires proclamation andteaching focused on such issues as corporate sin,structural injustice, and the Bible’s propheticcritique of government, society and culture. Toneglect this pastoral nurture is to leave thelaity as uneducated children in the faith, and toignore large areas of the whole counsel of God.It is also to contribute to the incompleteness ofthe present movement of religious renewal.

If we are to match the achievements ofevangelicals in the awakenings of the 18th and19th centuries, we will have to pay someattention to the moral and social needs of thesociety to which we are ministering. We will haveto labor in prayer against decay and injustice,and some of us may have to be led out of thatprayer into action. Other networks of evangelicalleadership exist which might, after prayerfulconsideration, coordinate their energies topromote many of the initiatives generated in ESA.Here again, evangelical media could have acrucial role in focusing the thinking and concernof their adherents on issues like world hungerand the plight of our urban minorities -- issuesthat correspond to the problems of slavery andchild labor which 19th century evangelicalssuccessfully attacked.

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If American evangelicalism were to movesubstantially to recover the classicalevangelical stance which included social andcultural transformation in its agenda along withevangelism and nurture, the evangelical movementwould regather many of its diverging segments.The rest of American Christianity, continuing itsmovement of convergence, would then becomeincreasingly open to learn from the evangelicals:first, to re-examine the spiritual dynamics ofindividual rebirth in Christ, and later to strivefor a more complete submission of theology to themind of Christ expressed in Scripture.

Of course, it is no small miracle being projectedhere, on either side. We are talking about aquantum-jump in the sanctification of the mindsof mainline Protestants, involving repentanceafter 200 years of drifting from the Reformationresponse to the Bible. We are also talking aboutrepentance among evangelicals, dealing with theirrejection of genuinely biblical values upheld bytheir theological opponents. This measure ofrepentance cannot come without a remarkableunveiling in history of the face of God’sholiness, an uncovering of unsuspected depths ofsin among his people, and a new breaking-throughinto human consciousness of the whole counsel ofGod. Since we probably will not move to completethe present awakening until this level ofconviction appears among us, we should giveourselves to prayer for its coming.

(“Completing an Awakening” by Richard F.Lovelace. Dr. Lovelace is professor of churchhistory at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary,South Hamilton, Massachusetts. This articleappeared in the Christian Century, March 18, 1981 pp.296-300.)

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b) Bread for the World

c) Evangelicals for Social Action

1901 -2000 “The Century of the Martyrs”

The Twentieth Century has been called the century of martyrs.Never before in the history of the church has so much bloodbeen shed by those who profess Jesus Christ. The RussianRevolution unleashed a Communist pogrom upon all organizedreligion. The vast majority of all Orthodox and Catholicpriests, nuns and monks in all parts of Russia were shot orsent to Siberia under conditions designed to kill them. Manysuffered cruel tortures besides. There were many lay people invillage, town and city – especially the professors andprofessionals who were Christian who were also marked forexecution. Communist armies subsequently invaded Armenia andGeorgia in the Caucasus, and the Baltic countries in thenorth, with Christians suffering the same fate as theirRussian counterparts. After World War II ended, Communistgovernments inspired by Russia took over all of EasternEuropean countries and the Church suffered much persecution,with many being imprisoned and executed.

The Nazi regime in Germany not only targeted Jews forextinction, but also lay and clerical leaders in every countrythat the German armies occupied.

Inspired by Freemasons and Secularists, the Mexican governmentin the 20’s and the Spanish revolutionary government in the30’s also had thousands of Catholic priests and nuns murderedby firing squad.

The Japanese Imperial Army invaded country after country inAsia beginning in 1935, and Christians were the targets ofspecial abuse and murder.

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The Communist takeover of China in 1949 signaled yet anotherdevastating blow to the Church, with many Protestants andCatholics dying for their faith or imprisoned. The KoreanPeninsula was next overrun by Communists and the Church ceasedto exist in North Korea. Vietnam was next to fall in the samefashion, with the Communists controlling the north andstamping out the Christian Church.

There has likewise been a concerted effort at the gradualdestruction of Christian villages in Muslim countries,especially in Egypt, the sub-Saharan countries, Palestine,Turkey and Lebanon. Muslim fanatics even broke into theTrappist Monastery in the Algerian desert and executed all themonks.

Modern Prophets, the Church Finding its Voice…and a ChurchWilling to Suffer

Jesus’ ministry is a ministry of justice. The love of Christ has so penetrated and permeated the modern prophets that they,like the prophets of old, have the interior freedom to speak fearlessly on behalf of their brothers and sisters in need, when they perceive that the powerful are oppressing the weak; they can see people suffering beyond the glittering façades ofcontemporary society in the alleys, tenements and mobile home parks.

“Woe to you Pharisees! You pay tithes on mint and rue and all the garden plants, while neglecting justice and the love of God.” (Lk 11:42)

Jesus is here teaching that it can be the proper place of thepastor to lead his people in working against injustice and in building a more just society. The pastor supports and facilitates the active involvement of his people in such endeavors to improve the common good. Indeed, it is the right and duty of Christian laypersons primarily to take on the roleof such activism.

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“Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one withwhom I am pleased, Upon whom I have put my Spirit; heshall bring forth justice to the nations, Not cryingout, not shouting, not making his voice heard in thestreet. A bruised reed he shall not break; asmoldering wick he shall not quench, until heestablishes justice upon the earth…I the Lord havecalled you for the victory of justice, I have graspedyou by the hand; I formed you, and set you as acovenant of the people, a light for the nations, toopen the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisonersfrom confinement, and from the dungeon, those wholike in darkness.” (Is 42:1-7)

“God it is who has given you life in Christ Jesus. Hehas made him our wisdom and also our justice, oursanctification, and our redemption.” (1 Cor 1:29-30)

The roles of the pastors and the prophets in the church arecomplementary. The pastors should exhort their flocks, asdoes Scripture, to “Seek the face of God!” The prophets tellthose who sincerely seek God where He may be found: “Lookaround you! He is there, right beside you, in your spouse,your child, your neighbor, your co-worker, and every humanbeing who is in need.” Indeed God is not so far off that onemust travel to where the sun rises or sets; nor must we lookfor Him in the heights of the heavens or the depths of theearth. (cf Dt 30:11-14) God is, as Jesus proclaimed, near “athand”; yes, even, as Jesus teaches, “within us!!!” (Lk 17:21)

The rich man in Jesus’ parable in Luke (Lk 16:20) isprecisely shown to be culpable of sin because he ignoredLazarus at his very own gate! The job of the pastors in thechurch is to get Christians converted deeply enough to be inlove with God and obedient to Him; the job of the prophets inthe Church is to point out the “obvious,” the Lazarus in needat each of the gates of our lives.

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This is not to deny, however, that while the respective rolesof the pastor and the prophet are complementary, they are alsoin a dynamic tension! The prophet prophesies to the wholepeople, including their leaders, pastors, ministers or priests.The role of the prophet in saying, “Woe to the shepherds ofIsrael who have been pasturing themselves!” (Ez 34:2), or insaying, “Woe to you Pharisees…” (Lk 11:43) can prove to beconfrontational and unsettling to the comfortable in thepadded pews of our contemporary Christianity. It is the roleof the modern prophets today, including the “movements” ofwhich we’ll see later, to remind the Church that all toooften it is depending on money and on the power of the richand of riches rather than on the Power of God, the HolySpirit. Indeed in the history of Christianity we see time andtime again how the Devil tempts the Church into mediocritythrough its exclusion of the poor and its taking on thetrappings and finery of wealth. The Church today in NorthAmerica and Western Europe can be said to match such adescription and its pastors desperately need to heed itsmodern prophets as they cry the cry of Jesus, “’My house shallbe called a house of prayer,’ but you have turned it into aden of thieves.” All four Gospels carry this account of Jesusin the Temple! (Mt 21:13; Mk 11:19; Lk 19:46; Jn 2:16)

Catholic Modern Prophets

Dorothy Day (1897 – 1980)

Dorothy Day was born an Episcopalian in New York City, butduring her college career abandoned Christianity for Marxism.She was associated in the early ‘20’s with the anarchist,Communist and socialist movements. She had one child, andnever married. About 1930 she had a conversion toChristianity and joined the Catholic Church. She and PeterMaurin co-founded The Catholic Worker movement, which espouseda personalist, communitarian and pacifist philosophy.

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Dedicated to street ministry and one-on-one evangelism, Daybegan homeless shelters in New York City, called “houses ofhospitality.” She propagated a radical and practicalChristianity which embraced the poor and marginalized. Shesupported the Catholic cemetery workers going on strikeagainst the Archdiocese of New York. The Catholic WorkerHouse would host, every Friday evening, a symposium on varioustopics by invited speakers. Every talk was followed by a“reflection,” which meant audience participation and reactionto the issues raised in the talk that particular night. Hermovement resulted in raising the consciousness of thousands ofCatholics about the needs of the unemployed, the homeless andthe alcoholic. Her “houses of hospitality” have spread toevery major U.S. city, and generations of Catholics have beenexposed to her “fundamentalist” teaching through thecommunities which have sprung up to operate the houses ofhospitality, and to distribute the monthly newspaper, TheCatholic Worker. I quote from Day’s autobiography, The LongLoneliness, concerning her struggle with the necessity ofleaving her “domestic partner” who was the father of herchild, and an atheist to become a Catholic Christian:

“….Only the baby interested him. She was his delight.Which made it, of course, the harder to contemplate thecruel blow I was going to strike him when I became aCatholic. We both suffered in body as well as in souland mind. He would not talk about the faith andrelapsed into a complete silence if I tried to bring upthe subject. The point of my bringing it up was that Icould not become a Catholic and continue living withhim, because he was averse to any ceremony beforeofficials of either Church or state. He was ananarchist and an atheist…He was a creature of uttersincerity, and however illogical and bad-tempered aboutit all, I loved him. It was killing me to think ofleaving him.

“I had no particular joy in partaking of these threesacraments, Baptism, Penance and Holy Eucharist. I

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proceeded about my own active participation in themgrimly, coldly, making acts of faith, and certainlywith no consolation whatever. One part of my mind stoodat one side and kept saying, “What are you doing? Areyou sure of yourself? What kind of an affectation isthis? What act is this you are going through? Are youtrying to induce emotion, induce faith, partake of anopiate, the opiate of the people?” I felt like ahypocrite if I got down on my knees, and shuddered atthe thought of anyone seeing me.

“I speak of the misery of leaving one love. But therewas another love too, the life I had led in the radicalmovement. That very winter I was writing a series ofarticles, interviews with the workers, with theunemployed. I was working with the Anti-ImperialistLeague, a Communist affiliate….I was just as muchagainst capitalism and imperialism as ever, and here Iwas going over to the opposition, because of course theChurch was lined up with property, with the wealthy,with the state, with capitalism, with all the forces ofreaction. This I had been taught to think and this Istill think to a great extent. ‘Too often,’ CardinalMundelein said, ‘has the Church lined up on the wrongside.’ ‘Christianity,’ Bakunin said, ‘is precisely thereligion par excellence, because it exhibits, andmanifests, to the fullest extent, the very nature andessence of every religious system, which is theimpoverishment, enslavement, and annihilation ofhumanity for the benefit of divinity.’

“I certainly believed this, but I wanted to be poor,chaste and obedient. I wanted to die in order to live,to put off the old man and put on Christ….I loved theChurch for Christ made visible. Not for itself, becauseit was so often a scandal to me. Romano Guardini saidthe Church is the Cross on which Christ was crucified;one could not separate Christ from His Cross, and one

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must live in a constant state of dissatisfaction withthe Church.

“The scandal of businesslike priests, of collectivewealth, the lack of a sense of responsibility for thepoor, the worker, the Negro, the Mexican, the Filipino,and even the oppression of these, and consenting to theoppression of them by our industrialist-capitalistorder—these made me feel often that priests were morelike Cain than Abel. ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ theyseemed to say in respect to the social order….With allthe knowledge I have gained these twenty-one years Ihave been a Catholic, I could write many a story ofpriests who were poor, chaste and obedient, who gavetheir lives daily for their fellows, but I am writingof how I felt at the time of my baptism.”

Dorothy Day was put off but not put out by the world’s co-opting of the Gospel in much of the Church she saw. Shedetermined to be a faithful daughter of the Church and obeyher calling to be a prophetic witness to the Church itself ofits forgetful and sometimes deliberate exclusion of the poor.

Mother Teresa (1910 – 1997)

Mother Teresa of Calcutta was not always so dedicated to theservice of the poor as her later life made famous. She joineda Catholic religious order of nuns which taught wealthy girlsin boarding schools throughout the world. Assigned to India,she was essentially “minding her own business” being a goodnun and leading a comfortable and secure life when, whileriding a train on her way to her annual eight-day retreat in aresort in the mountains of northern India, she experienced apowerful move of God within her. After much prayer she askedpermission of her superior to go out of the convent to livewith and serve the needs of the desperately poor of Calcutta.After years of obscurity, but after having been joined bygrowing numbers of young women feeling a similar call to serve

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“the poorest of the poor,” Mother Teresa received the Pope’sapproval for her proposal to begin a new order of nuns calledThe Missionaries of Charity. She had a desire to bring hernuns into every corner of the earth where there were poorpeople in need. Espousing a radical poverty and a rigorousrhythm of prayer and work, the Missionaries of Charity soonbecame the fastest-growing Catholic religious order, andspread into all the population centers of the earth, with theexception of Communist China. Relying heavily on volunteersaccepted without necessarily having even a Christian faith,Mother Teresa’s sisters have introduced regular Catholics tothe service of the poor and been instrumental in Catholicism’syouth revival. Helped onto the world stage by MalcolmMuggeridge’s biography and her winning the Nobel Peace Prize,Mother Teresa’s witness was also held high by Pope John PaulII. Mother Teresa, like Ste. Thérèse of Lisieux, preached thepossibility of holiness for every ordinary person. She wasfond of telling people, “ You can be a saint if you want to.”She saw life as simply a whole series of choices to giveselflessly to others.

Jean Vanier (1928 - )

Jean Vanier is a Canadian, the son of a former Governor-General of Canada. After beginning a career as a philosophyprofessor in Toronto, Vanier began to follow a call to createChristian communities which offered hospitality, service andmembership to the mentally disadvantaged. “L’ArcheCommunities” began to spread beyond Canada to Europe and thenall over the world. The idea of combining “well” people with“mentally challenged” people into one intentional communityhad not been attempted before, but Vanier saw instance afterinstance of healing take place as space was made for the loveof God to be operative within the very home environments ofwell and sick people. Both were healed. “L’Arche” challengesChristians to embrace the mentally ill rather than isolatethem or segregate them. As with the Missionaries of Charityand the Catholic Worker houses of hospitality, there is in

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L’Arche a deeply-held faith that God’s love is capable ofhealing, and bridging otherwise impossible divisions.

Archbishop Oscar Romero (1917 – 1980)

The crushing poverty of the Third World has been a majorscandal of the last half of the Twentieth Century. While Asiaand Africa experienced increasing poverty due in large part tothe turmoil of rebellions against European colonial rule andthe inability of the indigenous people to manage acontemporary economy, Latin America’s poverty was the resultof centuries of systemic oppression by ostensibly Catholicsocieties. Political instability and oligarchic rulepredominated in South and Central America, frequentlymanipulated behind the scenes by U.S. and European governmentsand multi-national business interests such as fruit, coffeeand mining companies. A growing grass-roots movement in LatinAmerica against the status quo culminated, after the SecondVatican Council, in the formation of CELAM, the cooperativeorganization of Latin American Catholic bishops, who issuedclarion calls for Catholic outreach to the poor in theirmeetings in Médellín, Colombia and Puebla, México.

Archbishop Romero began to stand up for the oppressed peopleof El Salvador. While the U.S. and other governments lookedaway, El Salvador became awash in blood as its governmentsystematically sent death squads to wipe out entire villages“suspected” of anti-government leanings. Romero spoke outfearlessly against the government’s atrocities, despite deaththreats. Finally, while celebrated Mass in his Cathedral inSan Salvador, he was fatally shot.

Protestant Modern Prophets

Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984)

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Schaeffer was passionately committed to the proclamation andrational defense of the Gospel. One of the foremost Christianthinkers and apologists of this century, he wrote twenty-fourbooks, which have been translated into more than twentylanguages. Schaeffer's basic message is the same - God's Wordis the only guide man needs to interpret his past and solvecontemporary problems.      When Schaeffer graduated fromFaith Theological Seminary in 1938, the United States facedmany perplexing new social and religious problems. Theevangelical movement was threatened by encroaching liberalideologies, which argued that the Bible is not a reliablesource of truth. He and his wife Edith were both eager foropportunities to speak out in defense of conservativedoctrine.

As a pastor of several churches throughout Pennsylvania andMissouri, Schaeffer was grieved at the compromise he saw inmany mainline Protestant denominations. Then, in the late1940's, he toured Europe on behalf of the American Council ofChristian Churches. To his astonishment, he saw even greaterneeds there and moved to Switzerland to work with youth. TheSchaeffers founded the Children for Christ ministry in 1948 inLausanne. With three daughters himself already, Schaeffer wasfamiliar with the challenges of teaching young people. Schaeffer wanted to reclaim Western culture to the Judaeo-Christian framework.

Schaeffer began with a personalist approach. In 1955, he hisown home in Huemoz as a "home" for solid Bible teaching, whereanyone could come and listen to thought-provoking analysis ofScripture. The new work was named “L’Abri.” Throughout theremainder of the 1950's, but especially in the 1960's whenauthority and "the establishment" were most severelyquestioned, L'Abri drew thousands of visitors. How did it keepgoing? Edith Schaeffer explains: "We prayed that God wouldbring the people of His choice...send in the needed financialmeans to care for us all, and open His plan to us." Pastor andauthor Dr. Harold Brown says, "L'Abri's initial theologicalimpact was not made institutionally...but indirectly, through

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individuals whom the Schaeffers came to know and whose livesthey changed." The Lord continued to unfold His purposes. In1968, Schaeffer published his first two books - Escape FromReason and The God Who Is There.

In these landmark works he explored ways in which otherphilosophies have failed to adequately come to terms withreal-world problems.  It was largely the U. S. Supreme Court's1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, which opened the door to legalabortions on demand, that drew Schaeffer's interest back toAmerica. In the book How Should We Then Live?, Schaeffer addressedthe foundational problems which led to this devaluing of humanlife.

Albert Schweitzer (1875 – 1965)

Schweitzer said, “Man must cease attributing his problems tohis environment, and learn again to exercise his will—hispersonal responsibility.” Schweitzer is perhaps, after MotherTeresa, the world’s best-known humanitarian. He won the NobelPeace Prize in 1952.

“At the age of 30 Schweitzer turned away from thesuccessful career he had established in theology andmusic. From 1905 to 1913 he studied medicine andsurgery with the intention of serving humanity bybecoming a medical missionary in Africa. In 1913 heand his wife, a trained nurse, went to Lambaréné,French Equatorial Africa (now in Gabon), and set up ahospital; there he cared for some 2,000 patientsduring his first year. For two years during World WarI (1914-1918) Schweitzer and his wife, both Germannationals, were interned in a prison camp in France.He wrote during that period two volumes of a projectedphilosophical study of civilization, The Decay and theRestoration of Civilization and Civilization and Ethics (both 1923;trans. 1923). Concerned in these volumes with ethicalthought in history, Schweitzer contended that modern

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civilization is in decay because it lacks the will tolove. He suggested that people should develop aphilosophy based on what he termed “reverence forlife,” embracing with compassion all forms of life.(“Schweitzer, Albert," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2005http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All RightsReserved )

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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born and reared in Atlanta,Georgia and ordained a minister at age 18 at the church hisfather pastured and his maternal grandfather founded, EbenezerBaptist Church. After earning his B.A. at Morehouse College,King completed theological studies at Crozer Seminary inPennsylvania, and received his doctorate in systematictheology from Boston University. King’s first pastorate atDexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, AL coincided withgrowing discontent among African-Americans in the city overthe degrading enforcement of segregated seating on the buses.Rosa Parks, a leading member of the NAACP in Montgomeryrefused a bus driver’s order to move to the back of the bus.After her arrest, the NAACP’s leaders asked Dr. King to leadthe boycott of the buses, and to be the spokesperson of theprotests. In 1956, a federal court ruled in favor of Dr.King’s organization. He wrote a memoir of the boycott calledStride Towards Freedom which gave his ideals and his passionnational exposure.

Always a clergyman, and always staking a high moral ground,King nevertheless began to use his organizational skills tochannel his beliefs and those of his followers into concertedaction. He founded the Southern Christian LeadershipConference in 1957. He visited India in 1959 and honed histhinking about non-violent protest in the tradition of Gandhi.Dr. King frequently preached throughout the North, realizingthat no progress toward racial equality could be made withoutthe broad support of whites in the North and West, andparticularly the churches and their leaders. The SCLC began toorganize non-violent protest marches and demonstrations, sit-ins, and boycotts in selected Southern cities. Birmingham,Alabama saw outright police brutality using German police dogsto attack peaceful demonstrators, including children. Thenation was galvanized into action as the nightly news put theviolence into the very laps of middle America. Dr. King wasarrested; but wrote his famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail. TheCivil Rights Act became law in 1964.

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The apex of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s prophetic witnessoccurred in August of 1963 when the SCLC organized the “Marchon Washington.” King delivered a stirring address to a hugecrowd of 200,000 stretching out from the steps of the LincolnMemorial. His “I Have a Dream” speech expressed the hopes ofAfrican-Americans in oratory as moving as any in Americanhistory: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise upand live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold thesetruths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ …I have a dream that my four little children will one day livein a nation where they will not be judged by the color oftheir skin but by the content of their character.” Dr. Kingwas awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.

King continued to press for full freedom for blacks in theSouth by organizing marches in support of voting rights,correctly realizing that only unimpeded access to the ballotbox could empower his people to shape both their own destinyand to properly participate in shaping the destiny of theirCountry. King determined to march from Selma to Montgomery,the capital of Alabama. Only a few miles out of town, themarchers were confronted by police and tear-gassed. Again thenation was shocked at the ferocity of the sheriff againstsimple and peaceful folk. A federal court ordered the statepolice to allow the march forward. It was King’s triumph, andso touched the soul of the country again that the FederalVoting Rights Act of 1965.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968 in Memphis,Tennessee as he was preparing to launch a new movement foreconomic justice.

John Perkins (Jackson, MS)

John Perkins and his family have been ministering among the poor for the past 42 years. In 1960, John Perkins and his wife, Vera Mae, and their children left a “successful” life in

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California and moved back to Mendenhall, Mississippi to begin ministry. The racism, which was part of Southern culture, translated into harsh poverty and unemployment for backs in this rural Mississippi town. Perks felt compelled to do something for this community. In twelve years, John Perkins helped start a day-care center, a youth program, a church, andadult education program, a cooperative farm, a thrift store, ahousing repair ministry, and a health center. Today, Mendenhall Ministries still thrives.

In 1972, the Perkinses moved to Jackson, where they founded Voice of Calvary Ministries—another Christian community development ministry. Voice of Calvary started a church, a health center, a leadership development program, a thrift store, low-income housing development and a training center. From their ministry, other development projects started in theneighboring town of Canton, New Hebron and Edwards. Melvin Anderson, who grew up participating in Mendenhall Ministries, has since assumed the leadership of this dynamic ministry.

In 1982, the Perkinses moved to Pasadena and founded Harambee Christian Family Center in Northwest Pasadena, a neighborhood which had one of the highest daytime crime rates in California. After 12 years, Harambee is running numerous programs including after school-tutoring, Good News Bible Clubs, computer learning center, summer day camp, youth internship program, and a college scholarship program. In the Fall of 1995, Harambee opened the Harambee Preparatory School,which is a fully endowed elementary school providing quality education and prepares neighborhood children for college.

In 1989, John Perkins helped co-found with Wayne Gordon the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA). Its first conference attracted over 300 participants from all over the country. From 1990 to 1991, CCDA doubled its organizational membership from 37 to nearly 100 organizations. Today, its annual conferences energize growing numbers of evangelicals who want to take the church outside the walls and into the

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marketplaces and byways. CCDA offers a prophetic light to the church in the United States.

In 1992, John Perkins began publishing URBAN FAMILY magazine in response to the breakdown of the urban family, the breakdown of the community, and the increasing violence withinthe inner city. The mission of URBAN FAMILY is to be a voice of hope and progress, offering solutions that emphasize responsibility, affirm dignity, build moral character, and encourage reconciliation. Despite dropping out of school in the third grade, Perkins has been recognized for his work withfive honorary doctorates from Wheaton College, Gordon College,Huntington College, Spring Arbor college and Geneva College. He has authored several books including: A Quiet Revolution, Let Justice Roll Down, With Justice for All, Beyond Charity, He’s My Brothers, and Resurrecting Hope. Perkins serves on the Board of Directors of World Visionand Prison Fellowship, and is an international speaker and teacher on issues of racial reconciliation and community development.

The following are quotes and notes from interviewing JohnPerkins:

Humanity has been defaced by sin Injustice is the deprivation of the restoration sought by

God The rich have the means to find God When Peter was in prison, the angel came and released him

and told him to go back into the Temple and preach allthe words that bring life. Preach the word that’s hardsuch as “We serve God and He owns the earth and we becomeits stewards for Him – He requires a report from us! Itis hard to preach with integrity when you want thosedollars!

Maintain integrity in your life by keeping a person inauthority in your life, a person you respectfully fear.Be aware of your frailty and keep mentors in your life.“Walk in the light” in all areas of your life – be anopen book.

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African-Americans have been living off the “assets ofslavery” e.g. their music, self-identity, notions ofdeliverance as their idea of religion. But nowadays theyact these out more as art-forms than out of lived faithexperience. They must return to the basics: to the wordof God and live the Way of Christianity, not useChristianity as a folk-religion.

First the white folks fled the inner city; then theeducated and professional black upper and middle classfolks followed them to the suburbs when the Fair HousingAct was passed. What’s left in the inner cities ofAmerica is a permanent, hard-core “underclass” of blacksand Hispanics who are ruled by government and churchwelfare dependency, drugs and alcohol abuse, pornography,and an inescapable cycle of prison time, mental illnessand homelessness. Yet these poorest of the poor – to useMother Teresa’s phrase – are no less loved by God, and Heis able to heal with the hands of the Church even theseseemingly impossible cases. We are called to “rebuildthe ancient ruins, and restore the ruined houses”. CCDAand other Christian organizations provide workable modelsof transformation of the inner cities, and are theredoing it successfully. are there, and doing this. Theproblem is they’re still quite small amid a huge sea ofdegenerating neighborhoods, they’re alone with meagerresources; meanwhile the suburban white and blackchurches build huge sanctuaries, family life centers andsocial halls.

Sin has worked itself out in history by destroying thefamily. And this has happened in the urban community.

Wayne Gordon (Chicago, IL)

Rev. Wayne Gordon was educated at Wheaton College where heheard God’s call to teach high school kids in Chicago’s innercity. Wayne’s first job was at a high school in the Lawndalearea, populated by poor African-Americans and riddled byabandoned homes and apartment buildings, rampant with drug-

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trafficking and alcohol abuse. Gordon became a teacher and afootball coach. Wayne has the gift of loving the African-American. He loved the kids he taught and coached, and theyresponded. It wasn’t long before he was praying with hisstudents in the locker room. Again, the kids were thirstingfor meaning, for love; they responded. Wayne offered to holda bible study once a week, after school. The kids ate it up,and before long were begging Wayne to start a church. “ButI’m not a minister!” he protested. It didn’t matter to thekids that Wayne didn’t have a theological degree; what didmatter to them was that he put his faith in Jesus Christ intoaction by not only working in their own neighborhood, butliving in their own neighborhood. He made himself vulnerableand accessible to them. He loved them as Jesus loved them.

Before Gordon’s marriage to his wife, Anne, he told her,“You’re not just marrying me, you’re marrying my missionarycalling and my way of life in the inner city.” She agreed, andover twenty years have passed; they have reared three childrenin Lawndale, with the last just entering high school. Waynedid eventually take theology for five summers and got thattheology degree. But before that, he led Lawndale CommunityChurch to be the yeast in the dough, the yeast of Christ’skingdom in the once-hopeless world of Lawndale. The Church’smotto and mission statement is, “Loving God and LovingPeople.” It isn’t an “either/or” for Wayne Gordon – hechallenges every Christian with a tough (to live out) Gospelof concrete service to others just where they are. Today, LCChas over 500 worshipping families and Wayne continues aspastor.

One of the major goals of “Coach” has been developing a new generation of leaders for North Lawndale. Over 100 young people have graduated from college with more than half returning to live and work in North Lawndale.

The church has established separate non-profit corporations torun its residential center to rehabilitate substance abusers,its after-school and college prep tutoring programs, its home

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and apartment-building renovation and building programs, andits full-time medical clinic which sees over 75,000 patients ayear. What is the result? Renovated, reconciled, renewed andrededicated men and women’s bodies, minds and spirits – whosecity here on earth is being rebuilt because God’s will isbeing done in Lawndale (on earth) “…, as it is in heaven”!Scripture studies and counseling form the lifeblood of theprograms of Lawndale Community Church. The Word of God washesover hurting souls, cleansing and renewing. Bodies, minds andspirits are transformed, becoming living miracles andtestimonies to the power of God.

Wayne Gordon helped to formulate the Christian CommunityDevelopment Association (CCDA). CCDA is a network ofministries nationwide who engage in Christian communitydevelopment efforts. The CCDA movement continues to expand. Heauthored the inspiring book Real Hope in Chicago. The bookdetails the power of God working in a community in need. Waynehas co-authored books and written numerous articles on God’sheart for the poor and Christian community development.Lawndale Community Church was given a “Point of Light” awardby President George Bush in 1989 and Chicago Magazine namedWayne as one of the Chicagoans of the year in 1995 for hiscommitment and creativity.

Wayne Gordon is a real testimony to that grace of God and thewitness of God’s call upon a person’s life. Wayne possessesthe ability to empower people and believes that the heart ofthe Gospel is reconciliation. The past 20 years of his lifehas exemplified breaking down all racial barriers to pave theway for God’s truth in the lives of all the he encounters.

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Fifth Part. The Four Eschatological Signs: Urgency ofEvangelization & Second Coming of Jesus, the NewPentecost, Christian Unity and the Church of the Poor

“Hostem repellas longius, pacemque dones protinus, ductore sic te praevio, vitemusomne noxium.”

The enemy drive from us away, peace then give without delay; with you asguide to lead the way, we avoid all cause of harm.

I. Urgency of Evangelization and Jesus’ Second Coming

Remembering the witness (and the warnings) of the ancient andmodern prophets, and the lives of the saints throughout thehistory of the Church who found the means in the midst oftheir own societies to proclaim Jesus to the poor, we mustlook at Eschatology, the theology of the future, in order tocontemplate the End to which all created things are ordered.We fundamentally encounter the suffering of Jesus in thesuffering of the poor. The suffering of Jesus is the Cross. Wemeet and minister to the arrested, falsely accused,humiliated, tortured, rejected, abandoned, poverty-stricken,executed Jesus Christ when we welcome the poor into our lives,our homes, and our churches. We deny the Lord Jesus when we donot welcome the poor into our lives, our homes and ourchurches.

“Whoever acknowledges me before men I will acknowledgebefore my Father in heaven. Whoever disowns me beforemen I will disown before my Father in heaven.” (Mt10:32-33)

But this is only half of the reason why the poor are asacrament, a means of grace, to the church. Jesus rose fromthe dead, and His resurrection is the promise of everlastinglife for all who believe in Him. He is the eschatologicalsign who shows to man the destiny to which he has beenintended by God. The paschal mystery of the death and

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resurrection of Christ is the whole truth, and the promise ofresurrection is the “other half” of the role of the poor inbringing the truth to the church. The poor serve the churchby being undeniable reminders that the treasures of this lifeare temporary; and that our true home is in heaven. Theirsuffering points to the time in our future when “every tearwill be wiped away.”

The New Testament calls our time “the final age” (Heb 1:2; 1Jn 2:18), different from past ages when the Truth was hidden(Rom 16:25; Eph 3:9; Col 1:26), when the Church is called toproclaim and embody in Itself the salvation for which Man isyearning: “But now he has appeared at the end of the ages totake away sins once for all by his sacrifice.” (Heb 9:26) Itis yet an “evil age” (Lk 11:29; Gal 1:4) ruled by the darkpower of Satan (Mk 16:20) which will oppose the Gospel withpersecution (Mt 10:23; Mk 4:17).

The Church is the new Kingdom being established by the King,Jesus, and gaining its first beachhead in the “invasion” ofthe Enemy’s territory by winning the hearts of some of theJewish people. It is a kingdom “not of this world,” because itis not based on bricks and mortar, slaves or gold and silver,but built on “living stones,” (1 Pt 2:5) the believing heartsof people “with eyes to see” and “ears to hear” who haveaccepted the gift of the freedom of God’s grace through nomerit of their own.

“Therefore let the whole house of Israel know beyondany doubt that God has made both Lord and Messiah thisJesus whom you crucified.” When they heard this, theywere cut to the heart.” (Acts 2:36-37)

Believers in the Kingdom of Christ are given the power of theHoly Spirit and enter into battle against the Devil, fightingwith the weapons of love and good works, and with signs andwonders, and boasting only in the cross of their Lord, JesusChrist (Gal 6:14). Appearing weak, they vanquish their enemies(1 Cor 1:27), giving God the glory. They have been redeemed by

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the Blood of the Lamb from their slavery and brought back totheir true family. Their faithfulness and perseverance in goodworks merits resurrection from death and a crown (2 Tm 4:8 )in the everlasting life to come.

Jesus warns his Church that this final age will not endwithout much trial (cf Lk 21) and even wonders aloud, in aquite disconcerting way, “when the Son of Man comes, will Hefind any faith on earth?” (Lk 18:8). I am convinced that thisstartling statement adds strong impetus to my central thesisthat the embracing of the poor by the Church will keep usbelievers firmly grounded in making God present to this“unbelieving age” by and through our unselfish acts of love.This is the answer to the question, “What role do the poorplay in the Kingdom which is both ‘here’ and ‘not yet’ inthis, the ‘final age’?”

The theology of Metz and Moltmann used Christian eschatologyas a prophetic critique of the contemporary culture, and givesus insight into deeper answers to these persistent questions.

“During the 1960’s Johann Baptist Metz and JürgenMoltmann advocated a political theology. Aware of theterrible effects of Nazism and World War II, theyemphasized the political mission of the church….theyargued that the church’s social mission entailed apolitical mission. Their arguments involved both adiagnosis of modern society and a critique of moderntheology. They described modern society as secularizedand as a market society that reduced religion to theprivate sphere….They used the biblical categories ofpromise and prophetic critique to explain thesignificance of biblical eschatology for politicalsociety. The category of promise was inclusive, for itdid not separate church and world or spirit and natureinto false dichotomies. The category of propheticcritique enabled political theology to suggest that thechurches could have a political mission and at the sametime not seek a return to a kind of Constantinian

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integralism between church and state….By taking such acritical stance, the churches could express asolidarity with the poor, hungry, and homeless withinsociety without identifying with a particular party ora particular social program.” (see The New Dictionaryof Catholic Social Thought, pp. 159-160.)

Urgency is a key contribution to rounding out the Church’spreaching of the kingdom of God. URGENCY!!! The typicalcongregation runs like it’s got all the time in the world. Butdo we? Does the world? No, we do not; and no, the world doesnot. In fact, a clear message of Jesus and the teaching of theNew Testament is that this world is passing away and will endin fiery judgment. And if we don’t have a sense of urgency,how can we get it? Again, it is in serving the poor – whodemand help NOW!!! – that the church today can recover thesense of urgency that Jesus wanted to conveys when He says,“The hour is late.” Lk 6:24; 12:16-:21; 14:12–14; 16:19–26;Mt 13:39: “the harvest is the close of the age, and thereapers are angels” Mt 28 “The Great Commission.” Jn 4:35: “Itell you, lift up your eyes, and see how the fields arealready white for harvest.”; Lk 14:23: “And the master said tothe servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges, and compelpeople to come in, that my house may be filled.”; Mt 4:23-25:“His fame spread to all of Syria, and they brought to him allwho were sick with various diseases and racked with pain,those who were possessed, lunatics, and paralytics, and hecured them.”

II. The New Pentecost

Just when the crisis of faith seemed to have emasculated thechurch intellectually and the forces of evil unleashed againstthe institutional church world-wide seemed overpowering, Godintervened through the breaking out of the Holy Spirit in thefirst days of the Twentieth Century. We see in thePentecostal churches and renewal movements a fresh Hope, along

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with the joy which is always its fruit, that echoes theTwenty-Third Psalm, verse 5: “You have set a table before mein the presence of my enemies.”

The Holy Spirit has heard the desperate cry of humanity formercy. Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, Preacher to the PapalHousehold for both John Paul II and Benedict XVI, in hisremarkable book on the Holy Spirit Come, Creator Spirit, p.353, makes the point that the Holy Spirit teaches us to saytwo words: Abba (Father) and Marana-tha (Come, Lord Jesus). Everyauthentic movement of the Spirit teaches believers about beingsons and daughters of their Heavenly Father and takes themback to their roots. At the same time, the Spirit breathesinto believers’ hearts a deep yearning for righteousness totriumph, an “evangelical urgency” to spread the Good News ofJesus, and calling upon Him to come soon.

The Holy Spirit, in other words, gives such assurance to theFather’s beloved children that they are enabled to boldly andurgently communicate the truth about God to a world goneastray. Amid unprecedented war, genocide, abortion, drug use,divorce, epidemics and secularization there is arisingunprecedented grace! Grace is being poured out in the veryPerson of the Holy Spirit for Christians to live as Jesuslived and as His Gospel teaches us to live. The gift of faithis being made available to God’s People so that they may obeythe words of God’s old and modern prophets. The young “aredreaming dreams” and the old “are seeing visions,” and arebeing transformed into persons of active love who are unafraidto be witnesses to Jesus’ Name in a culture more and moreinimical to any explicit reference to God or His Son.

“… they will manhandle and persecute you, summoningyou to synagogues and prisons, bringing you to trialbefore kings and governors, all because of my name. You willbe brought to give witness on account of it.” (emphasis added. Lk21:12-13)

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Authentic “movements of God” or “outpourings of the HolySpirit” will have several characteristics which attest totheir truth. First is their universality or “catholicity.”By this is meant that such revivals “work” by bringing peopleto deeper conversion whether they live in New York City orCalcutta, Buenos Aires or Kampala. Second, their doctrinefalls in line with the orthodox teaching of the Church fromthe beginning. Third, the fruit is lasting, that is,conversions lead to permanent commitment to the life of theChurch (not individualistic, but communal). Fourth, there isan urgency to evangelize and proclaim Jesus’ Name. Fifth,there is a clear call to unity among God’s people, a “messageof peace” as it were, which demands both a forgetting of oldhurts and a radical service of neighbor. Sixth, there ispreaching and teaching about Jesus’ second coming and the“Last Things” (death, judgment, heaven and hell). And lastbut not least, the poor are embraced and served with renewedaffection.

It is on this last point in particular that we must dwell, sothat we understand how absolutely essential it is forChristians to come to grips with their poverty amid and forthe sake of the poor. Johannes Metz, in his book, Poverty ofSpirit, underscores why the poor are a necessary part of God’s“economy of salvation”:

The only image of God is the face of our brother, whois also the brother of God’s Son, of God’s ownlikeness (2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:15). Our human brother nowbecomes a “sacrament” of God’s hidden presence amongus, a mediator between God and man. (p. 35)

The modern prophets as well as the ancient ones seek to wakeup the People of God from their complacency and self-concern.God is calling forth, in these very times, people after his ownheart who seek Him and love Him enough to do His will. To theextent that His People humble themselves in welcoming thepoor, to that extent will they find Him. The Holy Spirit, inthe movements now current in the Church and in those arising

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every day, is leading believers to live lives of witness tothe truth, “…not as the Pharisees do,” so that this skeptical,pleasure-seeking and self-serving age will have no excuse whenthe Judge of all comes as the Eschatological Sign on the lastday:

“The prophet of a future promise is spurned andmisunderstood. ‘Serve the law that has been handeddown to us,’ say the people around him. In fact, hedoes remain true to the law of our historicalheritage. In him the continuity of history ismaintained. In his poverty and effacement, the threadsof history are woven together and the truth of historyemerges. He sustains the priceless secret of humanityfor us, rescuing it from the sterile routine andillusory self-evidence of the habitual. His powerfulwitness challenges us out of a hardened, unquestioningacceptance of the present into the poverty of theprovisional future. As a pioneer and pacesetter, hecomes to men under many different guises – teacher,philosopher, statesman, doctor, writer, priest, etc.He moves closer to the mystery of our heritage,plunges into it and lets it close over him.” (Metz,Poverty of Spirit, pp. 42-3)

The healing ministry of Jesus is one of the hallmarks of theKingdom of God. A so-called charismatic gift, healing is for“not for the well, but for the sick.” (cf. Lk 5:31) It is thesuffering poor in body and in spirit, who need God, who benefitfrom this spiritual gift of the Spirit. Jesus said, “You willdo even greater things than these.” Healing and deliverancefrom evil spirits are two of the “power gifts” of the HolySpirit which are being released in the Church in this presenttime. Unordained people are receiving the faith to pray infaith with persons afflicted with physical and mentalillnesses of all sorts. Dramatic results have been seen.Likewise, even as there is a resurgence of neo-paganism,witchcraft, pornography and drug use, so also has there been

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an empowering by God to deliver people from the oppression ofevil spirits.

These gifts are channels of God’s mercy especially for thepoor, who have no money and can only turn to God. They areextraordinary tools of evangelism of the poor now made newlyavailable to the church. They demonstrate God’s loving desireto intervene directly in the lives of men and women today, toshow his love and to stir up belief in hardened hearts. TheHoly Spirit’s gifts are given to build up the church and notfor the ministering individual’s sake.

The Holy Spirit initiated an unprecedented wave of conversion,prayer and service at the beginning of the last century. Onlyin the power of the Holy Spirit did the Apostles recognizeJesus as He truly was – after He had physically departed fromthem! Only in the power of the Holy Spirit were the followersof Jesus able to love Him and abandon themselves to Himentirely. So it is today. Operating out of the flesh,Christians will be repelled by the poor rather than see Jesusin the poor. This is why the “new Pentecost” is a necessaryprelude to the second coming of Christ.

Some have attributed the newly explicit and widespreadPentecostalism evident in the Church today to what some mayregard as a series of pure coincidences. Beginning near theclose of the Nineteenth Century, the Holy Spirit began to moveon a scale never before seen on the earth. Not content withinspiring single prophets, here and there, who could be (andhad been) quickly marginalized by mainstream mediocreChristianity, the Holy Spirit responded to a clear prayer forhelp. It began with an obscure Catholic nun named Sister ElenaGuerra. Between 1895 and 1903, Blessed Elena Guerra, foundressof the Oblate Sisters of The Holy Spirit in Italy, wrote 12confidential letters to Pope Leo XIII, asking that he fosterdevotion in the church to the Holy Spirit. She had had manyprivate revelations instructing her to communicate to Catholicleaders that they were to beg God to send a new outpouring ofthe Holy Spirit. Amazingly, the Pope believed her revelations

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were genuine, and consequently published an encyclical on theHoly Spirit called Divinum Illud Munus (This Divine Gift) in l897.It called for a special prayer called the Novena (nine days ofprayer) to be prayed to the Holy Spirit between Ascension andPentecost that year and in perpetuity. The text of theEncyclical specifies that “the intention expressed by the HolyFather in calling for the novenas for Pentecost: it was toinvoke the Holy Spirit for the reunion of Christians.” (cf. Monographby Kim Catherine-Marie Kollins entitled “Burning Bush: AReturn to the Cenacle in Adoration and Intercession,” Chapter18). “The reunion of Christians”! Can you believe that such a goalwas stated at a time when Protestants, Catholics and Orthodoxwere still in deep suspicion of each other, and often at eachothers’ throats? It was a miracle that the Pope could evenconceive of, much less promote such a prayer, given the “siegementality” that most of Catholicism espoused.

But then look at what happened: on January 1, 1901, the firstday of the new century, again at the behest of Sister Elena,Pope Leo XIII offered a special prayer as he formallydedicated the church in the 20th Century to the Holy Spirit. Heprayed the “Veni, Creator Spiritus,” (Come, Creator Spirit)composed in the ninth century by the German abbot RhabanusMaurus, which had until then only been used at the most solemnCatholic events such as papal elections and consecration ofbishops and ordinations to the priesthood.

Yet while all this took place in Italy and in the Catholicworld, something remarkable was happening in America. It wasalso on January 1, 1901, in Topeka, Kansas, U.S.A., THE VERYDAY POPE LEO WAS PRAYING HIS PRAYER, there began an outbreakof the spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit that had not beencommon since the early days of Christianity.

“Rev. Charles Fox Parham was holding an intense prayervigil with some students of The Bethel College andBible School. They were studying the Acts of theApostles. One of the students, a girl named Agnes

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Ozman, asked Rev. Parham to pray that she receive theBaptism in the Spirit. As he complied by praying forher intention and laying his hands on her head, sheexperienced an outpouring of the Holy Spirit and beganspeaking in tongues. This outpouring, also received byRev. Parham and other students during the next fewdays, is generally accepted as the beginning ofPentecostalism.” (Monograph by Kim Catherine-MarieKollins entitled “Burning Bush: A Return to the Cenaclein Adoration and Intercession,” Chapter 18).

Apparently, since the request of Pope Leo XIII for prayers tothe Holy Spirit had received only a half-hearted response fromthe Catholic bishops, God turned to his “little ones,” the“anawim.” The poor blacks and whites who had beenmarginalized in mainstream denominations were picked by theHoly Spirit to manifest to the rest of Christianity the powerof the Holy Spirit and His gifts. Thus the modern-day massoutpouring of the Holy Spirit began as a “PentecostalMovement,” first among Protestants.

1. Protestant Pentecostalism

The phenomenon of the outpouring of the charismatic gifts uponbelievers began almost simultaneously in Topeka, Kansas andLos Angeles, California. These “apostolic times gifts” weremanifested among ordinary people who seemed to do no more thanask for it to occur. Sometimes, as in Acts, these phenomenawould simply be given spontaneously. Unusual boldness inwitnessing, overflowing joy, a curious “warmth” and a deepassurance of the forgiveness of one’s sins, and a newfoundfreedom to praise God and to love the “brothers and sisters”characterized these “Pentecostal meetings.” Soon the “holyrollers” were the talk of the town. Thousands came out ofcuriosity and sincerity.

These early worship meetings were all the more remarkablebecause they tended to be interracial, interdenominational,free-flowing and not time-limited in format and open to active

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participation by women. The Holy Spirit seemed interested inbreaking down barriers, reconciliation and renewal of personalfaith.

The official leadership of the “old-line” denominations hadlittle use for this unbridled expression of religious fervor,and it wasn’t long before the men and women who hadexperienced the new outpouring of the Holy Spirit were forcedout of their churches either because of the newly fired upfolks’ inopportune and tactless manner of witnessing theirnew-found treasure, or because one or the other church’sdoctrine seemed to reject the legitimacy of this outpouring.

Thus began the formation of groups which would become theAssemblies of God, Holiness Church, and United Pentecostals.Para-church organizations such as the Full Gospel BusinessMen’s Fellowship International and Campus Crusade for Christcame into being at this same time, espousing what would serveas a typical Creed for most new groups tracing their originsto the Pentecostal revival:

We believe in one God, Maker of all things and being inTrinity of Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.

We believe that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, became incarnate, was begotten by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, and is true God and true man.

We believe in the resurrection of the dead, the eternalhappiness of the saved, and the eternal punishment of the lost.

We believe in personal salvation of the believers through the shed blood of Christ.

We believe in the Bible, in its entirety, to be the inspired Word of God and the only infallible ruleof faith and conduct.

We believe in divine healing, through our faith, and healing is included in the Atonement.

We believe in the Christian’s hope - the imminent, personal return of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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We believe in intensive world evangelization and missionary work in accordance with the Great Commission, with signs following.

We believe in the baptism in the Holy Spirit, accompanied by the initial physical sign of speaking with other tongues as the Spirit of God gives utterance (Acts 2:4) from the new birth, and in the nine gifts of the Spirit, listed in 1 Corinthians 12, as now available to believers.

We believe in sanctification by the blood of Christ, inpersonal holiness of the heart and life.

From the early 1900’s until the late ‘60’s the torch ofPentecostalism was carried by these churches andorganizations. As their organizations matured, they becamein polity, seminaries and ritual to resemble the other non-pentecostal Protestant denominations, and lost some of theirfree-wheeling style. Unfortunately too, they rather quicklyabandoned their interracial character and non-judgmentalspirit, quickly succumbing to the “splitting phenomenon”characteristic of classical American Protestantism byfurther splintering Christ’s Church. The United PentecostalChurch even abandoned the traditional belief in the Trinity.

2. Catholic Pentecostalism

At the same time that the Pentecostal Revival burst upon theAmerican church scene, seeds of the most fundamental CatholicRenewal in 500 years were being sown by the Holy Spirit inEurope. Bishop Angelo Roncalli was the Papal Ambassador toCzechoslovakia in the 1930’s. He regularly visited a tinyCzech Catholic village whose population of 300 had experiencedthe full spectrum of charismatic gifts (1 Cor 12-14) forcenturies. The Bishop seemed “perfectly at home amidst themanifestations of the charismatic gifts” (cf. Patti GallagherMansfield, As By A New Pentecost, the Dramatic Beginning of the CatholicCharismatic Renewal, Franciscan University Press, 1992. P. 6)Bishop Roncalli was later to be named Archbishop of Venice,

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and then was elected Pope in 1958, taking the name John XXIII.Sister Elena Guerra, the Apostle of the Holy Spirit who haddied in 1914, was the first person he beatified (first step tosainthood). And of course it was the same Pope John XXIII whoconvoked the revolutionary Second Vatican Council. He orderedall Catholic clergy in the world to lead their people inpraying a special prayer to the Holy Spirit that he composedhimself prior to the Council’s opening and during itssessions:

“Renew your wonders in this our day, as by a newPentecost. Grant to Your Church that, being of onemind and steadfast in prayer with Mary, the Mother ofJesus, and following the lead of blessed Peter, it mayadvance the reign of truth and justice, the reign oflove and peace. Amen.”

The Second Vatican Council, in essence, was charged to lay thefoundation for this new Pentecost by providing “new wineskins”for the Catholic Church (see Mt 9:16-17).

Roman Catholic Pentecostalism (Lutherans and Episcopalians,too) traces its beginnings to remarkable events which tookplace among Duquesne University students gathered on a retreatweekend in 1967. Sometime during the course of that weekend,the students decided to “pray over” one another by layinghands on one another. As they did so, many began toexperience the gift of “speaking in tongues.” Indescribablejoy and wonder filled the room. The students were set on fireand began to proclaim their belief in Jesus boldly – somethingvery uncharacteristic of Catholics. They organized “prayermeetings” and before long people from local parishes in andaround Pittsburgh began to attend, to experience thisoutpouring of the Spirit, and take this new life, love and joyback into their own parishes. Within two years the“Charismatic Renewal” took off in the Catholic Churchthroughout the United States, and very soon after, in Europeand Latin America. Interestingly, the Second Vatican Councilhad just concluded, publishing revolutionary decrees about the

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role of the laity, the need for the Church to engage themodern world, to go out on mission – and to be reconciled withnon-Catholic Christians, even calling them brothers andsisters in a common faith! The Holy Spirit’s CharismaticRenewal in the Catholic Church was the gasoline, or the fuel,needed by the Church to set the vision of renewal painted bythe Council swinging into action.

Fervent with love for the person of Jesus, evangelism,openness to the power of healing, words of knowledge andprophecy, the gift of tongues and the inexpressible joy of theLord characterized this outbreak of God in the CatholicChurch. Many Protestant Pentecostals watched unbelieving fromthe sidelines at such phenomena occurring in a church thatmany considered to be cult whose members were unsaved. Mostwere eager to pull newly-charismatic Catholics away from theirCatholic parish into their own denominations since suchevidence of true belief couldn’t possibly, they thought,survive in such a deceived and misled group as the CatholicChurch! Many Catholics did indeed leave their church,especially where their new freedom and fresh faith wasn’twelcomed by their unprepared pastors and bishops. Yet manyCatholic bishops and priests did eventually become involved inthe Renewal, experiencing “the Baptism in the Holy Spirit,”and testifying to the value of this phenomenon in their livesas faithful clergy. Several Catholic theologians andCardinals soon wrote books lauding the Renewal. Finally in1989, Pope John Paul II called the Charismatic Catholics toRome for the Feast of Pentecost and in the arms of the greatSquare of St. Peter’s welcomed them into the bosom of theCatholic Church. Pope Benedict XVI has called them back for asimilar gathering on Pentecost of 2006.

3. The Communitarian Movements

The third sign of a new outbreak of the Holy Spirit is thelargely lay-inspired and lay-led communitarian movements whichhave swept through mainline Christianity all over the world.

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Sociologically, they are a reaction to what Mother Teresacharacterized as the poverty of the Western countries:loneliness. Communities salve the sickness of individualism,isolation and egoism infecting modern culture by takinginspiration from the following text, among others in theBible, and putting it into practice in varying degrees andwith creative structures in ways that some recent Protestantauthors have called “the new Monasticism”:

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teachingand fellowship, to the breaking of bread and theprayers….And all who believed were together and hadall things in common; and they sold their possessionsand goods and distributed them to all, as any hadneed.” (Acts 2:42-45)

It would consume too much space to devote the pages necessaryto describe each, so a short list must suffice. Those withmore interest may “google” to find more extensive informationon each. They are listed below in no particular order; someare of one denomination, some interdenominational.

Rutba House, The Community in Durham, N.C. Cursillo – Road to Emmaus – Kairos

*From the Churchhouse to the PrisonsKoinonia Partners

*Witness against racism – Clarence JordanSword of the SpiritReba FellowshipTaizé and Brother Roger Shutz

*Protestant monastery dedicated to reconciliationInternational Fellowship of Catholic Covenant CommunitiesCommunione e Liberazione FocolareThe Alleluia Community in Augusta, GA People of Praise in South Bend, INThe City of Lord in Phoenix, AZInternational Fellowship of Catholic CharismaticCommunities

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Neo-Catechumenal Way *A revival of the ancient form of discipleship &

catechesisWorld-Wide Marriage Encounter

*Renewal of marriage and family lifeMessianic Judaism

*There are over three hundred congregationscomprising between twenty and thirty thousandJews who have accepted Jesus as the Messiah.These converts to Christ rather than to“Christianity” maintain that they are actually“completed Jews,” and preserve their distinctiveJewish practices.

International House of Prayer*A mostly Protestant Evangelical Community whichintercedes 24/7 for the entire Church and whichpromotes the notion that deep prayer andmystical union with God are entirely possiblefor today’s Christians.

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III. Christian Unity

The organized push for unity among Christian denominations maybe traced to the close of the 1920s, when several pioneering Protestant movements had been formed to advance the cause of church unity worldwide.

In 1937, church leaders agreed to establish a World Council ofChurches, but its official organization was deferred by the outbreak of the second world war until August 1948, when representatives of 147 churches assembled in Amsterdam to constitute the WCC. Member churches today include nearly all the world’s Orthodox churches, scores of denominations from such historic traditions of the Protestant Reformation as Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist and Reformed, and a broad representation of united and independent churches.

The world’s largest Christian body, the Roman Catholic Church,is not a member of the WCC, but has worked closely with the Council for more than three decades and sends representatives to all major WCC conferences as well as to its Central Committee meetings and the assemblies. The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity appoints 12 representatives to the WCC’s Faith and Order Commission and cooperates with the WCC to prepare resource materials for local congregations and parishes to use during the annual Week of Prayer for ChristianUnity.

“Because of this we no longer look on anyone in termsof mere human judgment. If at one time we so regardedChrist, we no longer know him by this standard. Thismeans that if anyone is in Christ, he is a newcreation. The old order has passed away; now all isnew! All this has been done by God, who has reconciledus to himself through Christ and has given us theministry of reconciliation. I mean that God, inChrist, was reconciling the world to Himself notcounting men’s transgressions against them, and thathe has entrusted the message of reconciliation to us.”(2 Cor 5:16-19)

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There is an undeniable convergence taking place across theworld in the entire body of Christ. The visible unity of theChurch is a work – and a gift – of God in the Holy Spirit. Itis the will of God, expressed in Jesus own “high priestlyprayer” on the eve of his death.

“Do not be afraid! Do not be satisfied withmediocrity! ‘Put out into the deep and let down yournets for a catch.’” – Pope John Paul II’s exhortation,recorded live on Abba, Pater CD, track 2

I have listed below some of the key Catholic teachingdocuments which call for unity in the Christian world:

Ut Unum Sint Fides et Ratio Dominus Jesum Papal Document on The New Evangelization: Tertio Millenio

Adveniente Blazing the Trail by Rev. Peter Hocken. “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” Statement of

Catholic and Evangelical Protestant leaders published inFirst Things.

Second Vatican Council Catholic Church’s Recovery of the Symbolic and

Intuitive Interpretation and Communication ofRevelation and the Magisterium (cf Bohr, CatholicMoral Tradition, p. 36ff)

Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio Declaration on Religious Freedom Dignitatis Humanae Decree on relations with the Jewish people, Nostra

Aetate

Louis Boyer may be grasping at straws and drawing conclusionsbased more on his own ecumenical hopes than on reality, but henevertheless sees as early as the Protestant Revival in

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England the seeds of today’s Holy Spirit-led denominationalconvergence:

“John Wesley’s preaching of a faith restored to its truefunction as source of, rather than excuse from, personalsanctity, is expressed in a celebrated passage of Vinet.This 'hymn' to Christ suffering, taken from his Theologiepastorale, gives all the sweetness and strength of whichProtestant devotion is capable and which it received fromthe revival of Wesley.

'O King of glory and man of sorrows! Whoever lovesthee has suffered, whoever loves thee consents tosuffer. He is promised both to glory and to pain.

Man suffers, on thy account, even in his dreams; sosuffered, though she did not know thee, the wife ofthe judge who condemned thee. Who loves thee alittle, or mourns for thee, has only to realize hefollows thy way; he is made to partake, like Simonthe Cyrenian, the hard burden of thy cross.

Those who bless thee are cursed; mankind casts themout from its communion; and, in this place of exilefrom the human family, they are, themselves, doublyexiled.

All those who loved thee have suffered; but allthose who have suffered for thee, loved thee allthe more. Pain unites to thee, as joy unites to theworld.

Pain inebriates, like a generous wine, those thouinvitest to thy mysterious banquet, and forces fromtheir anguished hearts hymns of adoration and love.

Happy is he who, like the Cyrenian, has stooped totake his share of the cross thou drawest! Happy ishe who wills to endure, in his body, that whichremains, will remain to the end of the world, to

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suffer, of thy sufferings, for the Church, thybody!

Happy is the faithful minister who continues, inhis flesh, thy sacrifice and thy conflict! While hestrives and groans, I see him, in vision, leaningon thy breast, like, on the day of the funeralfeast, him whom thou didst love.

For himself, while charity bears him, dusty andbleeding, from place to place, from suffering tosuffering, he, unknown to the world, reposes on thybreast, in a sacred retreat, and tastes, insilence, the sweetness of thy words.

Happy the faithful minister! His charity multiplieshis sacrifices, and his sacrifices augment hischarity; love, which is the soul of his work, is,also, its great reward.

Happy the faithful minister! What every Christianwould desire to be, he already is. That cross whicheveryone tries in his turn, he carries withoutceasing. This Jesus, with whom the worldceaselessly disputes our gaze, is himself hisworld, and the object of his unceasingcontemplation.

Happy, thrice happy, if all his desire is to add afew voices to the concert of the blessed, and toremain hidden in the joy of all, keeping only inhis heart the invisible regard and the eternal"Well done!" of his Master and Father!'

What strikes us in this passage is its fully Catholictone. Yet it would be hard to find another equallyexpressive of all the characteristics of the piety of theRevival. After reading the life of Wesley, his Journal,his sermons, the hymns of his brother Charles, one cannot

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imagine a prayer more exactly suited to a minister as hewished to be, and most certainly was.

This illustrates perfectly a fact we hold to beindisputable, namely, that the Protestant Revival, by itsvery fidelity to the great principles of the Reformation.and primarily to the sola gratia, a fidelity clear-sightedenough to detect the jewel hid in so much dross, recallsthe best and most authentic elements of the Catholictradition.

This is even more interesting in that the leaders of theRevival, generally speaking, Wesley first of all, Vineteven more, not only lacked any pronounced sympathy forCatholicism, but lived in a prodigious ignorance of itsreal nature, and held most extraordinary views on itshierarchy, sacraments, and doctrine. However, though theyknew it so little, they did not fail to be struck withthe coincidence between the principles by which theylived and those that sustained the spiritual lives of thegreat Catholics. They accounted for this as well as theycould, sometimes by very strange reasoning, to prove tothemselves that the Catholic saints had been such inspite of their Catholicism, not because of it.

But honesty obliged them to admit that, in these andtheir teaching, they found their own ideal expressed andrealized. The author of the Imitation, St. Francis deSales, M. de Renty, were those most familiar to Wesley,and most loved by him. He was always engaged in compilingextracts from their works and publishing them in popularform, to be circulated among his followers. St. FrancisXavier, he wrote in a letter of the 30th of May, 1772,strikes him as the very image of a life given to God inthe service of his brethren. 'There is a martyrdom,' hesaid, 'that seems to me more glorious than that of St.Peter.' As for Vinet, he considered Pascal and St.Bernard as the teachers and living examples of theChristianity a Protestant ought to realize in virtue of

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his Protestantism..” (from Bouyer, Louis. The Spirit andForms of Protestantism)

IV. The Church of the Poor

Another undeniable eschatological sign in our times is, ofcourse, the emergence of “the church of the poor.” As we haveseen throughout salvation history, God always supplieswhatever is necessary for His People to accomplish what Hewishes. The authenticity of the “new Pentecost” ofenthusiasm, contemporary worship, and prophetic and healinggifts is proven by the witness of serving the poor: for Jesussays, “ Not everyone who says, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter theKingdom of Heaven, but only he who does the will of myHeavenly Father.” (Mt 7:21) Jesus again makes the point, byquoting protesting Christians at the end of the world, “ButLord, we cast out demons in your name!” The King replies, “Getout of my sight you evildoers!” (Mt 7:23) Serving the poor isthe litmus test of any so-called “movement” of God.

Likewise, the authenticity of any “new evangelization” iswhether such “witnessing” is accompanied by genuine service.True evangelization addresses needs of the whole person, theirspiritual and material needs. One of the great heresies ofour current skepticism-ridden mainline denominations both inEurope and America is the belief that should we proclaim Jesusto the poor, we somehow infringe upon their freedom, or takeadvantage of their circumstances. Nothing could be furtherfrom the truth! In fact everyone, and especially the poor,have a right to hear the Gospel. To keep silent about the Truth ofJesus Christ is the real denial of a human right. Thereforeit is precisely the new Pentecost in the Church which isproviding the antidote to the raging skepticism, crisis offaith and doubt which infects not only society at large butmany clergy, seminary and theological faculties and thebureaucracies of the contemporary Western Church, not tomention the churchgoers in the pews.

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Conversely, the value of any “social ministry” or outreach tothe poor can be measured by the inclusion of an evangelicalcomponent arising from the conviction about sharing the GoodNews of Salvation. Any robust ministry with the poor by theChurch must include evangelization. Christians in the UnitedStates are particularly polarized into two camps: those whocare about the poor but not to the inclusion of the right tolife and of evangelization; and those who see the moralprecepts of Christianity as the cornerstones of genuine humanfreedom. This is a false dichotomy created by Christianswhose values have been co-opted by the two U.S. politicalparties and/or who espouse the false gods of, on the right, alaissez-faire economic system; and on the left, a rationalistconception of the secular state.

Christianity is neither. Christianity consists in bringingabout the original justice of intimacy with God that sin, inall its manifestations, destroys. As pilgrims in this worldand citizens of the City of God, Christians never put theirultimate faith into ideologies which of necessity demonize theopposition (cf. Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, §28, b).

The five eschatological signs must all be present to authenticateeach other. For example, if an outreach to the poor is notecumenical, evangelical and open to all the gifts of the HolySpirit, it is not fulfilling the will of God and Christiansinvolved in it are falling far short of their call;consequently their fruit will not endure. If differentdenominations of Christians are meeting regularly to pray butnot cooperating in evangelizing the unchurched or serving thepoor, they are risking simply staging a charade, playing gamesof feel-good Christianity. Or if Pentecostal Christians do nomore than hold healing crusades or prayer meetings and don’tever visit the prisons, or open a homeless shelter, they areneglecting Jesus’ command to “do it for Me.”

Sixth Part. Christian Integrated Development

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The term “integrated development” can be defined in themicrocosm as “the union of sublimity with engagement, thecontemplative with the active, the nurture and healing of thewhole person, the correspondence of a person’s privaterevelations with the body of teaching taught in church.” Inthe macrocosm of the Body of Christ, “integrated development”can be defined as “the union of the natural law and doingjustice.”

This chapter is written in reaction to a sad and unnecessarydivorce which has rent the fabric of the church’s response toinjustice and which has compromised its response to theinjustices rampant in current society. What is this divorce?One group believes that the natural law of God givesfundamental rights to the unborn and defines the family as theunion of a man and woman in marriage with openness toprocreation of children and that such a family is the bedrockof human culture and society; and that these principles cannotbe compromised without undermining what it means to be human;and therefore that all other issues of injustice pale incomparison to the fundamental injustice of killing a babywhile in the womb; and that all other anti-social activitiespale in comparison to that of redefining the meaning of humansexuality and compromising the procreative aspect of humanintimacy. This group believes that objective truth can beknown by both revelation from God and by reason.

The other group believes that there is no hierarchy ofinjustices, that the fact that one-fifth of Americans have nohealthcare insurance and therefore no ready access to medicalcare is no less of an injustice than that of killing 1.3million babies in the womb every year; and they believe thatsexuality is solely for the pleasure of the individual andsexual activity can be pursued with one’s self or with anyconsenting individual; that such freedom is the bedrock ofsociety and that no law, no religious mandate nor conventionof society should limit the freedom of any person to pursuesuch pleasure and that inhibiting such freedom is in fact afundamental injustice. This group believes that truth is

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defined only by each individual’s understanding, and that theonly behavior not permitted is that which physically ormentally harms another person.

Try to imagine a society where no baby is aborted; the familystrengthened and supported; no one goes hungry; affordablehousing is available; and health care is accessible to all.Where evangelization and social ministry are combined, whereeveryone can hear the good news of Jesus, “the great secretnow revealed” (Eph 3:3) and at the same time receivecompassionate and effective care of their material needs. Sucha society is possible if those who are pro-life also supportthose running food pantries, helping provide health coveragefor the poor and working for low-cost housing. Such a societyis possible if those who are concerned about extending justiceto all immigrants and who lobby the Administration to helpsave refugees in Darfur go and pray in front of an abortionclinic. If committed Christians embrace the validity of eachothers’ passion to offer compassionate help in the name ofChrist to those in need – the poor, sick, mentally ill,neglected and abandoned children, the unborn, the divorced,those in prison – then such a society may come about.

God has uniquely equipped the church over any otherinstitution with both the material and spiritual gifts to meetthe needs of the whole person in the microcosm and reconcilingthe whole world to the Father in Jesus in the macrocosm. TheBerlin Wall of ideology must be breached by the love of JesusChrist for all the poor whose lives are threatened, by obeyingSt. Paul’s words in Eph 4:

“I plead with you, then, as a prisoner for the Lord,to live a life worthy of the calling you havereceived, with perfect humility, meekness andpatience, bearing with one another lovingly. Makeevery effort to preserve the unity with has theSpirit as its origin and peace as its binding force…Let us profess the truth in love…” (1-3; 15)

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Neither side can win the world to the Gospel without theother. Only when we follow the truth no matter where it takesus, will we know God’s will. We must swallow our pride and bewilling to admit that the killing fields of the doctors’offices, clinics and hospitals are perpetrating a socialinjustice of the highest order that cries out to God for help;and that it is disingenuous to deny that the holocaust of 1.3abortions annually in the U.S. alone is not “ethnic cleansingand genocide” of the highest order. It is also likewisedisingenuous to claim that the poor are on a level playingfield with the middle class and the wealthy, and have an equalchance to succeed. Rather such an attitude is tantamount tothe Pharisees’ “laying on men’s backs a burden they themselvesare unwilling to carry.” Government has a God-given mandateto protect the poor, especially from the depredations ofunbridled and conscienceless profit-takers.

Therefore authentic social ministry in the church today must be pro-life, pro-traditional family and express God’s preferential option for the poor. Christiansocial ministry must be evangelical, because every human being has thefundamental right to hear the Gospel. Often in social ministry wehear the politically-correct mantra that if I speak of God andof Jesus and the Gospel to the poor that I am somehow takingadvantage of the vulnerable position of the poor andinfringing on their right to unimpeded assistance. The truthis, that when we withhold the Gospel [Repent of your sins,believe in God and in Jesus His son and you will be saved andyou will receive the Holy Spirit who will transform you into ason or daughter of God.] by either our silence or misguided‘tolerance,’ that is precisely when we violate the fundamentalrights of the poor. How can we dare set ourselves up in thechurch as material do-gooders, professing to love the poor,while we are withholding from them “the unfathomable riches ofChrist” (Eph 3:8)!!!!

The history of the church from the very beginning shows a holyboldness in sharing the good news of salvation in JesusChrist. Anyone presuming to circumvent the repentance andchange of heart required by Christianity was exposed as a

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fraud (cf. the story of Simon the magician in Acts 8:9-24) Andanyone attempting to acquire material gain at the Gospel’sexpense was roundly condemned. (cf. the story of Ananias andSapphira in Acts 5:1-11) It has always been understood by thechurch from the beginning that Christians are new creations,“holy, blameless and full of love” (Eph 1:4), “you must layaside your former way of life and the old self whichdeteriorates through illusion and desire, and acquire a fresh,spiritual way of thinking. You must put on that new mancreated in Gods image whose justice and holiness are born oftruth.” (Eph 4:22-23) The justice and holiness born of truthis always in the New Testament associated with the doing ofgood: “be doers of the word and not hearers only” (James1:22), “God chose us in Him to…be full of love” (Eph 1:4), “Weare truly his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to lead thelife of good deeds which God prepared for us in advance.” (Eph2:10) Jesus’ love of the woman caught in adultery, hisparable of the good Samaritan, and the feeding of thousands ondifferent occasions clearly command Christians to heroic loveof others and service to others’ needs.

It is time for those who engage in social ministry to becommitted to the whole Gospel and witnessing to the Faith. Itis time for those who engage in pro-family movements, the pro-life movement, and evangelical outreach to go out to thehighways and byways seeking those not of their own kind, and“bring them in to the wedding feast” of the Lamb of God.

The master then ordered the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedgerows and make people come in that myhome may be filled. (Lk 14:23)

Seventh Part. Local Church Practice. “Per te sciamus da Patrem, noscamus atque Filium, te utriusque Spiritum,

credamus omni tempore.”

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Through you may we know the Father, and come to know the Son as well, andin You O Spirit of them both, may we always believe.

1. Pastoral Practice

Within my parish boundaries or church’s neighborhood, forwhom am I pastor, just my Baptists, Methodists, or Catholics? For whom am I accountable to God? What are my strategies for “bringing Jesus to the people, and bringing the people to Jesus”? “The banquet is ready, but those who were invited were unfit to come. That is why you must go out into the byroads and invite to the wedding anyone you come upon.” (Mt 22:8-9)

Confessional or Counseling Practice: Giving as penance or means of restitution for serious or habitual sin the service of the poor such as “serve at the soup kitchen for two days,” rather than, “go and try to do better,” or“ say five Our Fathers.” Or for sins of envy or stealing, “give fifty dollars to feed the elderly”; or for sins of impurity, “give $25 to the Crisis Pregnancy Center.”

At every church meeting, as a regular habit, ask the question, “how does what we’re proposing affect the poor both among us and outside the church?” “Does it harm or ignore the poor?” “Or does it, in fact, welcome the poor?”

Look at the actual neighborhood that the church building is located in. Ask who are the poor. Ask where the poor are. We may be startled to find out how close they really are. Do a “needs assessment.” Don’t assume the parish is meeting either the parishioners’ needs, or the neighborhood’s needs.

Are we willing to live with the poor? Are we willing to offer hospitality in our home to both fellow church members in need, to Christian travelers and even to strangers?

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2. Preaching

Always conclude sermons with practical suggestions for follow-up and follow-through.

Remind the people that just as Christ came “not to be served, but to serve,” so too should every hearer of the word “be doers, also.” Service is how we transmit the blessings God gives us to others.

What makes sin, sin, is its offense against Love in some way. Just as Christ gave Himself up for our offenses, soshould we make conscious “atonement” for our sins throughinconvenient and disagreeable service. Preach about the need for each Christian to follow Jesus in his atonement.Note what Jesus’ last exhortation, just before his Ascension, stated: “He said to them: ‘Thus it is written that the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead on the third day. In his name, penance for the remission of sins is to be preached to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem.’” (italics are mine. Lk 24:46-47) For example, if we hate to wash dishes, then that’s exactly what we should go do at the soup kitchen serving the poor downtown as penance for our sins.

3. Mission and Mercy

Go further afield from the church complex than the immediate neighborhood. Seek out para-church or other churches’ ministries or outreaches to the poor and see ifyou could plug into them or partner with them (no need toreinvent the wheel, and there’s always a need to bring the body of Christ closer together; joint ministry ventures are a great way to build bridges of understanding).

Find the local or regional prisons and youth detention facilities, and give your men’s group something of the Gospel to sink their teeth into besides feeding their faces at a monthly breakfast!

Establish a “sister church” relationship with an inner-city church and have regular mutual contact.

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Establish a “sister church” relationship with a congregation in a foreign country, and have summer projects there.

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