The basic features of Evangelisology (Theology of Evangelization). Prof J. Egbulefu CCE, Rome 2021
@1 Ever since the Second Vatican Council as Council of the Church on the Church took place (1962-1965), the concentration of lively time-attentive and
society-conscious theological thought has moved from Ecclesiology (Theology of the Church, especially since since 1970), through Missiology (Theology of the Mission, especially since 1980), to Evangelisology (Theology of Evangelisation, especially since 1990).
@2 The term ‘Evangelisology’ is new, it’s coinage is of recent date as it goes back to a reflection addressed online by the author to a group of students of Theology in Rome during the Pandemic - Covid 19.
@3 The aim of the present reflection is to delineate once more - in answer to the request of some members of the audience of that former reflection - the basic features of Evangelisology.
@4 Evangelization is the preaching and teaching of the ever valid, and thus also today valid, Good News (Gospel, Evangelium) that God is with us humans in and out (cf. Emmanuel, God-with-us, the Emmanuelite Credo and Gospel) by being both outside us and inside us.
And God is able to be both at the same time by virtue of Him omnipresence, His being in all places at the same time at all times.
@4a) The God outside us is the God that 1) is beside us, at once at our left side and at our right side, and at once in front of us and behind us, and at once above us (like the Sun on high above our head) and underneath us (like the ground deep beneath our feet) and 2) talks to us from outside and indirectly (through persons and through things as objects and things as events) and publicly and openly.
@4b) The God inside us is the God 1) that is in ‘our soul (precisely in all the nine faculties of our human soul, namely in our heart and mind and reason, in our memory and intellect and will, in our conscience and intuition and affection), in the human soul that is contained in, and is inseparably united with, our human spirit, the human spirit that - filled with, and illumined and directed by, the Holy Spirit - uses the nine faculties of the soul ‘to know the perceived as sensed or heard or seen or touched and taken and tasted God’, ‘to love the known God’ and ‘to serve the loved God’, and 2) who talks to us from inside and directly and privately and secretly.
@4c) The God outside us (the Externum) and the God inside us (the Internum) unite to take us to eternal life (the Aeternum) as that full life and fullness of life
1)) for which every human individual as well as every human collectiveness (family, community, society, nation, people) is longing (desiring thirsting, questing and requesting, praying, hoping, looking at the City of God from afar), searching (inquiring and researching for the proper Street and House in the City of God from closer range) and knocking (tapping at the proper gate and door of the House in the City of God from the closest range, cf. petite et vobis dabitur, quaerite et invenietis, pulsate et aperietur vobis),
and 2) for which Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God as the incarnate Son of the living God, 2a) is most relevant, as long as He, Christ, has come so that humans may have life and have it to the full (cf. Jo 10:10), and 2b) indispensable and inevitable, as long as He, Christ is “the Way, the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6). For: He is ‘the Way itself in person’ who alone can lead to eternal life. And He is ‘the Truth itself in person’ who alone has told humans the truth as the way to life that eternal life is accessible not to a selected few but to all humans that believe in Him the Godman as the only one infallible Godsent Redeemer of humans from the enemy of God, Bringer of God to humans and of humans to God, Mediator between God and humans, Reconciler of God and humans. And He is ‘the Life itself in person’ who alone cannot die but rather lives eternally and is so much the eternal life itself in person that He is the Resurrection itself in person such that whoever believes in Him will not die and, if dead, will come back to life.
@5 The preaching and teaching of such a Good News was first carried out by Christ Himself and then later assigned as a task and mandate to His Church by Him.
@5a) Christ carried out the task in a way and manner most pleasing to God the Father. Hence the Father said of Him to the people during His baptism at the River Jordan “This is my Son the beloved in whom I am well pleased”, and later also said same but with more emphasis to the Apostles of Christ during Christ’s transfiguration at Mount Tabor : “This is my Son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him”.
@5b) The Church’s task and mandate from Christ to preach and teach this Good News to the diverse peoples of all the nations of the earth living in diverse epochs of man’s history on earth, involves the proper means and proper method of carrying out such teaching and preaching of this Good News to its proper addressees.
The criteria for choosing such proper means and methods include thereby the connection first between God the Sender of Christ and Christ who brought the Good News of God the Father to the entire humanity on earth, secondly between Christ and the Church that brings the Good News of Christ to the diverse peoples of all the nations living in the diverse epochs of man’s history on earth, thirdly between the Church as the one people of God bringing the Good News to the diverse peoples of all the nations living in diverse epochs of man’s history on earth, and these diverse peoples of all the nations to whom the Church is bringing the Good News, and fourthly therefore between God the Father and these diverse peoples through the links of Christ and of His Church with these diverse peoples of all the nations living in diverse epochs of man’s history on earth.
But the Church has particularly to adopt the same means and methods that Christ used, or to use other means and methods that but are adapted to those used by Christ, in order to accomplish the Christ-given task in a way and manner pleasant to Christ and, through Him, to God.
For, it is to please God that the Church must primarily and ultimately aim.
A catechetical homily on the celebrated Word of God for the 33rd Sunday in ordinary time in year B.
Prof J. Egbulefu CCE Rome 2021
@1 The 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time as the Sunday of the End of times recaptures the events of the 33rd year as the last year of the life of Jesus on earth: his suffering and death and burial and descent to the land of the dead and His glorious resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven.
On a Sunday like this that brings the liturgical year to an end, the word of God reveals to us what will happen at the end of times both with regard to things and with regard to persons.
@2 With regard to things, there are four of them to take place at the end of time: there will first be a distress, unparalleled since nations began to exist, the worst of its kind in the history of humanity on earth, after which secondly the heavenly bodies will react, - namely the sun will be darkened, the moon will lose its brightness, the stars will come falling from heaven - and the powers in the heavens will be shaken, and the Archangel Michael the great prince who mounts guard over God’s heavenly people (saints in heaven) will stand up (cf. the First Reading of this Sunday taken from Dan 12:1-3), and then, thirdly, humans on earth will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory, and, fourthly, the Son of Man will send the angels to gather the chosen ones from the four winds (North, South, East and West), from the ends of the world to the ends of heaven (cf the Gospel of this Sunday taken from Mk 13:24-32)
@3 With regard to persons, there are two major groups of them to be affected at the end of time : those in heaven and those not in heaven.
@3a) Those ‘in heaven’ at the end of time are the people of God (the Saints) as all those whose names are found written in the Book and who will be spared (cf. the Gospel of this Sunday). It is to this group that George Philip Telemann (1681-1767) sings the first verse of his Motet ‘Hold what you have’ - ‘Hold what you have, let no one take away your crown of glory. Who overcometh shall ever more be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot his name out from the book of eternal life’ (the text number of the original German text of this motet in the index of the catalogue of Telemann’s vocal works is TVWV 8:9).
@3b) Those ‘not in heaven’ at the the end of time are in two subgroups : 1) those that have not yet died and 2) those that have already died.
@3ba) Those that have not yet died and are living on earth are those in whom the immaterial and invisible immortal human soul, together with the likewise immaterial and invisible immortal human spirit containing the soul , is still united with the material and visible mortal human body to enliven the body and is still experiencing pardonable and unpardonable sin, conflict with God, on earth, for the forgiveness of the perdonable ones of which the priest keeps offering sacrifices to God (cf the Second Reading of this Sunday)
@3bb) Those that have already died are those in whom the immaterial and invisible immortal human soul, together with the likewise immaterial and invisible immortal human spirit containing the soul , is no longer united with the material and visible mortal human body to enliven the body and is no longer experiencing pardonable or unpardonable and sin, conflict with God, but is living no longer on earth, but either in purgatory or in hell and whose dead bodies are meanwhile buried in the tomb or destroyed.
@3bba) The souls of the dead living in hell are those that are there as the place and state of total absence of God and hence since God is Light, Love, Spirit, Goodness itself in person, are in total darkness, in total hatred for the lives and for fellow creatures and for God the Creator, in total principle of corruption and decay, and in total evil, malice, malevolence, malediction, malefaction or maleficence because of the unpardonable sins they committed on earth that were not forgiven them by God and that He would not forgive them neither before nor after the death of their mortal body.
that has been buried in the tomb or been destroyed.
These souls living already in hell at the end of time are those that will not be awakened from the sleep of death when the trumpet of the angels of the Lord is blown to call the dead to rise from all wind-directions and from the ends of the earth.
@3bbb) The souls of the dead living in purgatory are those that are there as the place and state of purgation of the pardonable sins they committed on earth but that were not yet forgiven them by God before the death of their mortal body.
These souls living in purgatory at the end of time are those many that will be awakened by the trumpet of the angels of the Son of Man sent by Him to call and gather these souls from all the four wind directions, whereby some of these called souls will be awakened “to everlasting life”, while the others will be awakened “to everlasting disgrace”, as retribution given to the respective collectiveness at the final judgment.
@3bbba) Those to be awakened to everlasting life are again of two classes: the first class is made up of those who have been taught by the Holy Spirit, have learnt from Him and are thus called “the learned”, and such people “will shine as brightly as the vault of heaven”, while the second class is made up of the teachers of their fellow humans and are known as those who “have instructed many in virtue”, and such teachers or instructors “will shine as bright as stars for all eternity” (cf. the First Reading of this Sunday). These two classes of those to awake to everlasting life or to eternal disgrace must stay awake and stand ready because no one knows the hour when the Son of Man is coming (cf. the Acclamation before the Gospel of this Sunday taken from Mt 24:42-44) in the clouds with great power and glory (cf the Gospel of this Sunday, from Mk 13: 24-32). For the Kingdom, the power and the glory that belong to the Father (cf. the community’s immediate response to the priest’s prayer ‘Deliver us Lord...” immediately after the Lord’s Prayer “Our Father who Art in heaven” at the Holy Mass) belong also to the Son who being consubstantial with the Father has said it all in His priestly prayer to the Father: “I am not praying for the world but for those you have given me, because they belong to you: all I have is yours and all you have is mine, and in them I am glorified” (Jo 17: 9-10). And they must have always prayed to have the strength to stand with confidence in front of the Son of Man (cf the alternative Gospel Acclamation taken from Lk 21: 36), and their prayer includes that that Lord leave them take refuge in Him and that He preserve them and will not leave their soul among the dead nor let His beloved know decay, that He show them the path of life, the fullness of joy, at His right hand happiness forever, in His presence in heaven (cf. Responsorial Psalm after the First Reading of this Sunday, Ps 15:5,8-11)
Their reaction to the goodness of God to them after they have received the grace to awake to everlasting life is first their telling God the Lord face to face that He is their portion and their cup, and that it is He Himself who is their prize, and secondly their going from words over to action, enjoying the beatific vision by keeping the Lord ever in their sight, contemplating the beautiful face of the Lord, while their heart is rejoicing and their soul is glad (cf. the Responsorial Psalm after the First Reading).
@3bbbb) Those to be awakened to everlasting disgrace are those who, though their sin, conflict with God, is pardonable and can be forgiven them by God, yet do not want to be reconciled with God, wherefore they
unite with those in hell as with those whose sins are unpardonable and who will therefore not be awakened at the end of time, and who, being unjust by not giving to God what is due to Him, by not loving Him, not worshipping Him in spirit and truth as He deserves and desires, have been banished into eternal damnation as their proper retribution by God the just Judge.
@4 In effect, after the last Judgment at the end of time there will no longer exist the trio ‘Heaven (Paradise), Purgatory, and Hell’, but rather only the duo: ‘Paradise and Hell’.
For in that 33rd year as His last year on earth, the terrestrial Christ travelled only to Purgatory and to Heaven, He did not, and would not, enter into hell nor travel to hell at all, for He is God while hell is the total absence of God. Besides, He is the Redeemer, and with His not going into hell at all He perpetuated the duration of hell.
He travelled to heaven, ascended into heaven, went into heaven and remains there till He comes again to judge the living and the dead and to go back irrevocably and irreversibly into heaven with the just after the final judgement; but through His remaining there irrevocably He has perpetuated the life of the Saints in heaven.
He travelled to purgatory but did not remain there, and with His coming out of purgatory He inaugurated the end of purgatory from the last judgment onwards.
For He - after His suffering with His body, and His death as the separation of His soul from His body on the Cross, and the burial of His body in the grave where His body, waiting for the return of the soul, rested in safety (cf the Responsorial Psalm of this Sunday) - let His soul descend into purgatory as into land of the dead, in order - after opening the locked door of purgatory (with the Master Key that Himself possess as “the holy and faithful one who has the key of David, so that when he opens, nobody can close, and when he closes, nobody can open” (Rev 3:7), and entering therein and preaching “to the spirits in prison” the Good News of liberation to those locked up there in captivity for the debt of the sins they committed here on earth and that had not been forgiven them before they died (cf the 2nd Reading of this Sunday). Indeed “because he is their Judge too the dead had to be told the Good News as well, so that though, in their life on earth, they had through the judgment that comes to all humanity, they might come to God’s life in the spirit” (1 Pt 3:19; 4:6). Ever since He opened the door of purgatory and went therein and came out from there, no one can close that door again.
In effect whoever accepts to be reconciled with God through his repentance and his letting His pardonable sins be forgiven him by God in Christ the Godman as the only efficient and infallible Mediator between God and humanity and follows Christ to wherever He goes, such human person will go into purgatory with Christ in spirit and will come out from there too from where He went ahead of the one since the door has been irrevocably opened by Him who Himself is the Gate (“I am the gate. Anyone who enters through me will be safe: he will go freely in and out and be sure of finding pasture” Jo 10: 9).