Motivated to evangelize

MADISON  Faith prompts Catholics into action, according to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

Learning more about Jesus through our intellect motivates us — or gives us more motivation — to evangelize: to lead other people to the truth of Jesus as Savior of all, which the Benedict calls an “act of love” in his prolific writings. In them, Benedict also teaches us that partaking of Christ in the Eucharist not only makes us become “one with the Lord,” but also brings us in union with fellow believers.

Christopher Blum, a Catholic professor and author, explored those and many other insights of faith by Benedict — critical to a modern world that advances false notions of truth, reason, freedom and faith — from June 24-26 during the sixth annual Pope Benedict XVI Summer Institute at St. Paul Inside the Walls: the Diocesan Center for Evangelization at Bayley-Ellard here. During a session each of those evenings, Blum, a professor of history and philosophy and academic dean at the Colorado-based Augustine Institute, examined Benedict’s writings on reason and faith, which dovetailed with the theme of this year’s institute, “Science and the Soul.” A question-and-answer period with the audience followed each night’s session.

“Our reason and intellect open us up to knowledge of God and the things of God, which Benedict writes, should not be limited to empirical evidence. God is credible to us. Our faith is our response to that truth. We know that God loved us first and we wait to be with him in heaven. But we also should have the courage to ask questions [about that truth],” Blum, author of books such as “A Mind at Peace: Reclaiming an Ordered Soul in the Age of Distraction,” told the diverse audience at the Benedict Institute. They included clergy, religious, laity, academics, pastoral ministers and St. Paul’s staff. On the final night, he spoke about the importance of Catholics to take their faith outside of themselves, inspired to perform acts of charity. “We should not be afraid to affirm what is good. We have to be confident in the good and lead others to the truth Benedict writes,” the speaker said.

Benedict stands in stark contrast with philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant, a German in the Age of Enlightenment, who advances the idea that people are motivated to work hard and achieve out of self interest: the desire to possess things and dominate people and their surroundings. The pope emeritus countered with the idea that people do possess freedom but they also can be “won over” for “the cause for the good” if we “give them reasons to choose good” and if “they see good being lived out” by Christians, Blum said during the final session in one of St. Paul’s classrooms.

Therefore, the sacramental “mysticism” and communion of the Eucharist, which makes us “one with the Lord,” also “brings us in also union with all those to whom he gives himself,” writes Benedict in “Deus Caritas Est [‘God is Love’],” which was his first encyclical in December 2005.

“I cannot possess Christ just for myself; I can belong to him only in union with all those who have become, or who will become, his own. Communion draws me out of myself towards him, and thus also towards unity with all Christians,” Benedict writes.

We also should be motivated to love of neighbor—caritas: tending to the cries of all those, who need consolation and help, feel loneliness or are in need of material assistance. In “Deus Caritas Est,” Benedict writes that the State might be tempted to provide for all those needs, which would result in its over-regulating of our lives.

On the final evening of this year’s Benedict Institute, Father Manning, St. Paul’s executive director and diocesan vicar for evangelization, thanked Blum for sharing some of the “wealth of wisdom” from Benedict’s writings with the Diocese.

“We have learned more from Benedict through you — and there is more that we need to learn,” Father Manning told Blum in St. Paul’s Oak Room, where participants had moved for the question-and-answer period. “You are a wonderful philosopher and theologian but also thank you for so evidently being a believer,” the priest said.

Among those people asking questions that night was Brian Honsberger, associate diocesan director of evangelization, who coordinated the Benedict Institute. A few years ago, he had taken one of Blum’s courses at the Augustine Institute.

“I learned more from Professor Blum than from any other professor. I was happy to bring him here to share with the people at St. Paul’s,” Honsberger said.

One participant, Margaret Mainardi of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Boonton, called Blum’s talks “refreshing.”

“They gave me time to stop and think about things. I looked at my faith through reason, which gave me a sense of happiness. I got closer to God, which is good,” Mainardi said.