RICHMOND, VA (Catholic Online) - On August 2, Cardinal Raymond Burke, Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal at the Apostolic Signatura (Vatican City) delivered the thought-provoking message, "The Work of the New Evangelization: 'So That the World May Know New Hope'" at the Knights of Columbus 2011 Supreme Convention in Denver.   In treating this theme during his discourse Cardinal Burke cited Blessed Pope John Paul II's concluding prayer in the post-synodal  Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in America ("The Church in America") as the foundation for the work of spreading the Gospel message today. 

Placing the work of the new evangelization under the protective care of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas, the Blessed Pontiff strove to secure new hope through her Son for families, homes, neighborhoods, and countries.   Cardinal Burke emphasized the vital importance of "teaching, celebrating and living our Catholic faith with the engagement and energy of the first Christians and of the first missionaries to our nations" as the Christian faithful pursue the fulfillment of God's universal call to holiness.

In Ecclesia in America, Blessed John Paul II urged the Church in America to encounter the person of Jesus Christ anew, that this experience with the living Lord is "the path to conversion, communion and solidarity" for our country (EIA 7).  In the course of his address earlier this month, Cardinal Burke intimated that secret to the success of the new evangelization is contained in Blessed John Paul II's Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte, "At the Close of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000", where the beloved pope reminded the world that it will not be saved neither by new programs nor by "a formula but by a Person, and the assurance which He gives us:  I am with you" (NMI 29). 

The key to the new evangelization of our Faith in this postmodern age is the fundamental relationship each one of us has with our Lord Jesus.  Do we take the time we need during each day to encounter Him heart to Heart?  Do we stay still long enough to search for God, to listen for His voice, to trust Him in a spirit of obedience even when He might lead us into uncomfortable waters for the sake of our own souls and those of our brothers and sisters in the human race?

Cardinal Burke emphasized as critical to the success of the new evangelization that we as Christians engage actively in our participation in public life, in a manner that authentically reflects genuine discipleship in Jesus Christ.  Rooted in a life of prayer and the sacraments, the Christian is able to listen more carefully to the voice of Christ whom he encounters in a vibrant relationship with our Lord.  We are -- as Blessed John Paul II exhorts - to "have faith in Christ, to believe that what the Lord has promised to us will be fulfilled, and thus to live courageously the truth which has its highest expression in pure and selfless love." 

We must confront what Pope Benedict XVI has called a "moral relativism .. which has generated profound confusion and deadly error regarding the most fundamental truths of the moral order" even to the point that morality no longer exists (cf. Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor; also "Benedict XVI's Christmas greeting to the College of Cardinals, the Roman Curia and the Governorate: Resolved in faith and in doing good," in L'Osservatore Romano Weekly Edition in English, 22-29 December 2010, p.13).

In standing for the authentic teachings of our Lord Jesus wherever they may be, Christians have countless opportunities to defend the truths of our Faith through a natural unfolding of their daily attitudes and activities: standing against the immoral "murder of the unborn child in the womb"; opposing the "artificial generation of human life and its destruction, at the embryonic stages  of development, as the means to obtain supposed cures for crippling or deadly diseases"; confronting any attempts to justify the "so-called 'mercy killing' of those who have the first title to our care"; and defending the fundamental truths of human marriage and sexuality, written by God into the body and soul of each human person and manifested in holy marriage defined by God Himself through a spousal relationship between man and woman, and never between two persons of the same sex.

In confronting the significant moral challenges of our time, our active relationship with Jesus Christ - including our regular encounters with the living Lord sacramentally, especially in the Holy Eucharist and Reconciliation - provides a firm foundation for any effort to share our Faith with others.  If we do not pursue holiness first in our own lives, why should people around us believe that a relationship with Jesus ...