A place of prayer, a sanctuary of the Word

Some of you might know of the Cursillo Movement? Actually, the Cursillo had quite an influence on Kiko (the initiator of the Neo-Catechumenal Way) in his early years.  In the Cursillo Movement, there is a saying: �Antes que puedas hablar de Dios con los hombres, hay que hablar con Dios de los hombres.� That is,  before you can speak to people about God, you have to speak to God about people.

Pope Francis said something similar when he said �Evangelization is done on one�s knees.�

So, here this evening we dedicate a place of prayer, a place of adoration � a sanctuary of the Word. Here you can speak to God about the people you are sent to bring Good News. Here the work of evangelization begins � on your knees.

Many, many years ago, when I was still in the seminary, I read a book about pastoral counseling. I do remember that the author quoted a psychologist from the 1960s by the name of Carl Rogers. He was wrong about a lot of things. In the 1960s, he messed up the minds of a good number of nuns � they took off their veils, and many of them just took off. But even a broken clock is right twice a day. And so, he had one insight that I believe was right � and still is. He said that for any counseling relationship to succeed, the counselor must have �unconditional positive regard� for his client.

In other words, he must love the client. When you look at the great evangelizers � people like a St. Paul, a St. Peter, or a St. Francis Xavier �you see that �unconditional positive regard� at work.  They looked at the pagans and they believed that their souls were worth saving � even as in the case of Peter and Paul, to the point of dying for them. They loved the people they evangelized.

If people do not sense our love for them, if we regard them less than positively, or we love them �conditionally�, that is, with an �if�, then what evangelization will take root?

So, this is all the more reason, for us to begin to evangelize �on our knees� � at the feet of Jesus, in the school of Mary. 

 

Let me conclude with the opening paragraph of Vatican II�s Gaudium et Spes: 

�The joys and the hopes, the grief and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted these are the joys and hopes, the grief and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts. For theirs is a community composed of men. United in Christ, they are led by the Holy Spirit in their journey to the Kingdom of their Father and they have welcomed the news of salvation which is meant for every man. That is why this community realizes that it is truly linked with mankind and its history by the deepest of bonds.�

Those �deepest of bonds� are forged here in prayer and under the �Word�.