From Christendom to Apostolic Mission a resource for a new apostolic age

The challenge of evangelization at this time in our Church was an ongoing discussion between the President of the University of Mary, Monsignor James Shea and some of his friends. “We became convinced that Pope Francis’ observation that ‘we do not live in an age of change, but in a change of age’ really was true in a striking, transformative way,” he explained to Dakota Catholic Action. “That realization brought into much clearer focus the emphasis that Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI put on the New Evangelization.”

The reaction he received from audiences in several states after giving talks on the topic, revealed that the issue touched a chord with Catholics truly worried about the rapid secularization of our culture. It inspired him to publish his thoughts in From Christendom to Apostolic Mission: Pastoral Strategies for an Apostolic Age released by University of Mary Press in May of 2020.

The basic vision of the book is that societies have a moral and spiritual “imaginative vision” that impacts everything about that society. In the U.S., we have experienced a dramatic shift in recent decades from a “Christendom imaginative vision” to a secular one. As a result, the Church needs to re-think her strategies for spreading the Gospel. “It’s urgent,” according to Monsignor Shea.

Monsignor Shea’s goal of writing the book, was simply to have something to pass onto the faculty. “Our main motive in publishing the book was as an encouragement and explanatory piece for those working here at the University of Mary,” he said. “We want to have a common vision and sense of purpose in our important work of Catholic higher education.”

The book opens by explaining, “At every point, the One who came as light into darkness to establish a kingdom of truth and love has been opposed by the darkness. The light continues to shine; its origin is in God himself, and the darkness cannot overcome it (c.f. John 1). But the extent of that light, the way it sheds its rays, the kind of opposition it encounters and therefore the means it uses to keep its light shining and shed its influence abroad, changes from place to place and age to age. It is therefore important for those who are members of Christ’s body, who share in his divine life and so are called by him to be the light of the world (c.f. Matt. 5), to take thought for the times in which they live and to devise pastoral and evangelistic strategies suited to those times.”

The book walks us through history beginning with a time where zeal, the truth, and the Holy Spirit was all the Church had…that and eleven apostles. We see the waves of evangelization spreading to create cultures of Christendom where Christianity becomes the prevailing wind only to eventually slip into the culture through complacency. Once the culture smothers much of the spirit that should set the Church apart from the secular world, the mission must again become apostolic to overcome it. 

Pastoral strategies include rethinking education and also rejecting social analysis that expects defeat. “They leave out faith and miracles and the Holy Spirit by a necessary of their method and so they will necessarily be inaccurate concerning the activity of a spiritual organism with its roots in heaven,” Monsignor Shea wrote. “What sociological survey could have predicted the conversion of an ancient and sophisticated civilization at the hands of a small group of uneducated laborers? What numerical analysis could have surmised the explosion of the monastic movement? Or the conversion of all the pagan peoples of Europe? Or the appearance of a St. Francis and his thousands of followers in a few short years? Or the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the conversion of Mexico? Or, for that matter, the conversion of a single soul?”

Thus, Monsignor Shea states that our task is simply to understand that we are living in a new apostolic age, to trust that the Holy Spirit is at work and as St. Paul says, the more evil that is present, the more grace abounds. And ultimately, he explains, we are to seize the adventure of working with the Holy Spirit to live and share the saving message given to us by Jesus Christ.