“My Parish: A Centre of Evangelisation” Parish Renewal Conference
St Mary’s Cathedral College Hall, 19 August 2022
Welcome to my place! I’m delighted to see so many here for what will be, God willing, two days of inspiring reflection upon Parish Renewal. I would like to acknowledge the tireless efforts of the Parish Renewal Team and the Sydney Centre for Evangelisation, for providing this opportunity to the Church in Sydney and beyond. The Archdiocese is blessed to have so many sharing their gifts to make our parishes places of encounter with Christ, of spiritual growth, of pastoral support, and of outreach to the community. This evening I’d like to reflect with you on parishes as centres of evangelisation.
Whether or not we are Boomers, COVID has made us all Zoomers! The video-conferencing app Zoom is now used on a truly ‘biblical’ scale: by 300 million participants daily for 3.5 trillion minutes a year.[1] Yet it was not all plain sailing for its Chinese-born founder Eric Yuan. In the late 1990s he sought to move to Silicon Valley in the U.S., so he could join the tech boom, but his visa application was rejected eight times. On the ninth attempt he was finally admitted and started work with WebEx, a web conferencing startup. Because he spoke virtually no English, his primary mode of communication was computer code. Back in his university days he had to travel more than ten hours to visit his girlfriend (and future wife) Sherry and he had lamented his difficulty in seeing and speaking to her.[2] This sparked his interest in developing videocall software that would connect people better. In 2011 he pitched a new smartphone-friendly version to WebEx and Cisco Systems, only to have the idea rejected: the market was already saturated with comms technologies from Microsoft and others; even his friends said he was proposing a ‘solution’ to a problem that didn’t exist! But Eric was having none of it: convinced of the merits of his idea and motivated by love, he started his own company Zoom and convinced some talented developers to join him. The app went public in April 2019, the COVID-19 virus emerged a few months later, and the rest is history. The success of Zoom is told in Yuan’s net worth rising $US16.4 billion in the following year and by the fact that Zoom and zooming are now part of the universal vocabulary!
Although our parishes are not Silicon Valley start-ups, Eric Yuan’s tale of a project aimed at bringing people together that was sparked by love, pursued with conviction, demonstrated trust amidst risk and perseverance despite setbacks, and built upon teamwork has its parallels with our present concerns. Indeed, one of tomorrow’s presenters will be zooming us from America. There is inspiration there for us, even if Zoom is not altogether the way of the future for our parishes.
I. The Who and Where of the Missionary Parish
There are no parishes as such in the New Testament. There is ‘the Church’ as a whole[3] and there are ‘the Churches’—more or less dioceses—in Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Rome, Ephesus, Smyrna etc.[4] Yet you might say there are the beginnings of the idea of parishes. While there was only one Temple in Jerusalem—the cathedral as it were—there were synagogues in the towns and suburbs where people prayed, gave or received alms, studied and discussed the word of God, and were governed as a local faith community.[5] Jesus Himself was a regular both at the Temple and in the synagogues. His first intimation of the Eucharist, however, was out in the hills with thousands of people, when He took bread—and fish—blessed, broke and miraculously multiplied it,[6] echoing a previous occasion when He had miraculously changed water to wine in similarly extravagant quantity.[7] This time he directed the disciples to divide the crowd into what we might call parishes of fifty or a hundred families, so they could receive this proto-eucharist (Mk 6:40; Lk 9:14). And while Jesus had thousands of followers, He mostly worked with the Twelve plus some holy women and only they were present for His Last Supper, post-Resurrection appearances and Pentecost…
So, a community gathered in a place of a scale to allow a certain intimacy was a feature of the life of the early Church. It was in this context that the first Christians practiced “the Breaking of the Bread and the prayers”, proclamation and witness, and works of charity. And while all the Christians of a particular city or district would gather in one place on a Sunday, these were often in domestic settings[8] and thus presumably fairly intimate groups. In due course there were Christian groups in centres beyond Jerusalem and these had an apostle or bishop as their founder and thereafter as their leader. The world was gradually divided in dioceses.
In the centuries that followed, as diocesan congregations became too big to congregate with their bishop in a house or even in a cathedral, presbyters were appointed to celebrate on behalf of the bishop in local communities and so dioceses were divided into multiple territories. Our English word for those territories, ‘parish’, comes from the Anglo-French paroche, the Latin ‘parochia’ and the Greek πάροικος (from πάρα which means near and οικος meaning household, clan or neighbourhood): they word means a group of faithful who are neighbours or fellow-travellers in a particular district.[9]
Dividing the world into dioceses and the dioceses into parishes was never an entirely neat arrangement. There were monasteries, and later more active religious orders, with their own churches, ceremonies, charities and lay associates. There were shrines and pilgrimage sites and the private chapels of the upper classes. Cathedrals became rather unusual city parishes as well as centres of much else in diocesan and even civic life. Missionaries were sent out to areas where people were yet unevangelised or little catechised. But for most people the parish church was the centre of their Church life and this often mirrored the people and boundaries of their neighbourhood or municipality. ‘Closer to the ground’ than cathedrals and monasteries, the parish system allowed for the provision of many kinds of pastoral care and evangelisation—even if levels of faith and activity varied enormously from time to time and place to place.
Thus the Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of the parish as a place “where all the faithful can be gathered together for the Sunday Celebration of the Eucharist”, where Christians are initiated and Christ’s teachings elaborated, where the Gospel is lived in charity and concretely expressed in good works.[10] So, while there is an undeniable territorial aspect to parish as the ‘somewhere’ that Christians gather—whether it’s a house, a catacomb or a ‘bricks-and-mortar’ church appointed to serve a particular district—its true essence is the participation of a group of people in the Paschal Mystery of Christ who may or may not be perfectly circumscribed by the geography of their domicile. Sunday Mass may be at the heart of the parish idea, but no-one will come to Mass unless they are brought to faith and practice by evangelisation, family, culture; and Mass itself should equip and project people back into the world they must influence for the better. Thus, if parishes are to be Mass centres, they must also be centres of evangelisation: the one feeds the other.
What’s more, the baptismal vocation of every pastor and parishioner mandates solicitude for those attending but also for those beyond the present attendees. Healthy parishes are, as it were, infectious: while their pastor may focus much of his energy on the care of those who already identify as his flock, those he shepherds must themselves extend the faith, love and worship of that community to others, especially to those who have not known it or have forgotten it. This means that the very logic of parishes is proclamatory or missionary: they are there precisely to ensure that the Good News of salvation spreads ever more widely and penetrates ever more deeply in a particular district. They are the local vehicles of evangelisation for an evangelising Church.
II. The For Whom of the Missionary Parish
Our parishes, then, are not static entities, designed to keep the ‘in-group’ of the committed comfy. They are more like organisms, with numerous dedicated cells and organs, each working together towards a common goal of nourishment and growth, self-rejuvenation and reproduction. The DNA directing this organism’s mission—its Great Com-mission—comes from the Lord’s last words to us (Mt 28:18-20; Mk 16:14-18), with its four-fold mandate:
- to evangelise—“go out to all the world, preaching the Gospel” and “making disciples of all nations”
- to sacramentalise those disciples—“baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”
- to catechise those disciples— “teaching them to obey everything I commanded you” and
- to memorialise His presence with us—“remembering that I am with you always, to the very end of time”.
Successful parishes, then, are like farms constantly sowing new Gospel seeds in people’s hearts, or like nets always trying to draw new ones in—to use two Gospel metaphors. But this ‘growth’ is more subtle than corporate growth for profit’s sake or bureaucratic growth following some five-year plan. The fruits of evangelisation are not always immediately obvious and parishes must engage in the ‘inefficiency’ (as this world sees it) of the Good Shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine in search of the single lost one, or the Good Farmer who casts his seed everywhere, hoping that in some place it will take root and sprout and fruit.[11] This growth is more subtle but no less intentional: we must be quite deliberate about making our parishes places that radiate the love of God, places where Jesus is encountered not only within church walls but where he is taken to those outside, calling them in to his life-giving love.
III. The Why of the Missionary Parish
The Church in Sydney is living out the mission of Jesus Christ in a time of unprecedented change. Sydney’s population continues to grow, while the sources of meaning and way of life for many have radically changed. Fewer people engage with our parishes or other community groups for that matter. Not as many are as active or effective in transmitting faith to the next generation. Some are disillusioned by the child abuse crisis. Others are victim to the relentless march of secularisation. The recent census found that many no longer identify with any particular religion and are happy to tick ‘no religion’ in a culture inimical to faith. Others are gradually drifting away, not through any conscious choice against, faith, God or the institution, but by attachment to competing narratives and interests and distractions of many kinds. The pandemic and associated restrictions on worship were also keenly felt. Some traditional methods and supports for mission are no longer effective; others might yet be rediscovered and reinvigorated; but some new directions must urgently be taken.
This concern to propose the Gospel ever ancient, ever new, to our times sparked renewed thinking about evangelisation at and following the Second Vatican Council. This drive to recapture the missionary nature of the Church has been a very strong one in the recent papacies. In Evangelii Nuntiandi Pope Paul VI taught that God’s kingdom is built up by those who sincerely accept the Good News into their hearts, gather in the name of Jesus in faith-filled communities, and then share this with others. This means that evangelisation is incumbent upon all of us who have received and accepted the Gospel, not just the official missionaries to ‘deepest darkest Africa’.[12] We are all called to be evangelisers, but in our case to deepest darkest Yagoona! And our reason is simple: every human person is, we know, made for truth and goodness and beauty, and ultimately for communion with God and fellows; none of us will truly thrive without this. So love for each individual should drive our evangelising, not some numbers game, not some target of parishioners or collections, not so we can feel good about ourselves. No bureaucracy or grand plan can love you: only a person can love you, a divine or human person, and so mission is always one to one and one by one.
Evangelisation is no numbers game. But should we care about numbers nonetheless? Of course we should. Some parishes are moribund. They lack the people and the depth of faith to generate much by way of worship, evangelisation, or service. They depend upon Father, a parish secretary, and a few exhausted lay volunteers. They are incapable of replacing themselves. They serve a declining group of rusted-ons, and neglected all the other souls in the district. The whys and wherefores of this are for another day. But our parishes must accept that they will no longer be carried by the culture. If they don’t take evangelisation seriously, the cradle Catholics will stop coming, the next generation won’t even be cradle Catholics, and the parish will die. Jesus’ promise that the Church will survive is for the whole Church, not for any part. The future of every parish depends on evangelisation.
IV. The How of the Missionary Parish
So, what is required to do this effectively? Pope St Paul VI told us that it first requires witness.[13] As effective and as necessary as teaching is, it is uninspiring and neutered if it is not an expression of the love of Christ. Put simply, to be effective evangelisers we must be people who themselves live and breathe the Gospel. In a sense, then, it is not so much ‘what’ we do as evangelists but rather ‘who’ we are that spurs people’s interest, curiosity and wonder. Silent proclamation tills the soil that will eventually receive the seeds of Christ’s teaching and allow them to take root and grow. If we lack the passion and authenticity, the words fall flat. As Pope Francis asks, how can a proclaimer of what is supposed to be Good—indeed the very best—News look like they’ve just come back from a funeral?[14] Parishes must be families of people who give joyful witness to what Christ has done in them and for all humanity.
Witness is first; then comes proclamation. Pope Paul noted that “There is no true evangelisation if the name, the teaching, the life, the promises, the kingdom and the mystery of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, are not proclaimed.”[15] Some think it is enough to talk social justice or ecology or some other low fat Christianity, without being too specific about what or whom we believe in. But as the recent popes have all observed, we are not here to preach the altruism of the NGOs, the humanist wisdom of the ideologies, or some version of the nice person, as if faith in Jesus Christ can be reduced to creeds, creedal faith to feel-good mantras, spirituality to moral living, moral life to social justice activism, activism to woke formulas and actions. No, instead of the faith equivalent of Coke Decaf and No Sugar, we proclaim a full cream Christianity—beginning with an encounter and relationship with the Lord, together with the mysteries of our faith in their fullness. Parishes must be broadcasting studios for such a full-on faith.
Following witness and proclamation in this evangelisation blueprint are adherence and assimilation. To receive the Gospel is to be inaugurated into an entirely new way of thinking and living, a “new way of being”.[16] This reveals itself concretely in the gathering of eucharistic communities, especially parishes. This newness of life, manifested in the ecclesial community, is the Church, the visible sacrament of salvation.[17] Here we are taught and converted ever more deeply, spiritually nourished by the sacraments, supported pastorally, and fuelled by the power of the Holy Spirit to make us saints and evangelisers.
It’s not always straightforward or easy. From the first Pentecost onwards, Christians have pondered how best to transmit the essential content of the faith in different times, cultures and circumstances. Put another way: how do we connect God’s timeless Person and truth to the contingencies of history and culture? What does this mean for us as Sydneysiders in the twenty-first century and the communities that we are part of?
It was St John Paul the Great who first talked of a ‘New Evangelisation’, the impetus behind this being that in many places the old formwork of Catholic identity and practice no longer exists or serves as once it did. Seismic cultural shifts make a recalibration of the Church’s missionary mandate necessary.[18] He identified three particular mission fields: the unconverted, that is anywhere and anyone that have not yet received the primary proclamation of the Gospel or not yet established communities of faith; the converted, that is those who already believe, but still need faith education, pastoral support and community building aimed at deepening faith and action; and the diverted, those formerly Christian individuals and communities that have lost their sense of faith or affiliation, and now live a life “far removed from Christ and His Gospel”.[19] We need new energies, strategies, methods, supports for evangelisation in such an age.
The challenges to our evangelising mission occasioned by militant secularism, family dysfunction, values disorientation and new technologies were also major themes in the papacy of Benedict XVI. It was he who established the Pontifical Council for promoting the New Evangelisation and held a Synod on the subject in 2012. He encouraged all Christians to recapture the zeal and courage of the early missionaries and to re-evangelise those places where the Gospel had fallen away. Although there is no magic bullet for doing this, the fundamental principle is always the same: a personal encounter with Jesus. Pope Benedict framed it in the following terms: “Being Christian is not the result of ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”[20]
Pope Francis echoes much of this also. Already as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Bergolio taught that whereas ordinary evangelisation brings people to encounter Christ for the first time, the goal of re- or new-evangelisation: those who have disconnected back into relationship with Christ and the Church; that the Holy Spirit is continually inspiring the Church with new ways to evangelise and re-evangelise; and that, while well-chosen words are important, the witness of just and compassionate lives is even more persuasive. The call to focus outward is all the more crucial when Christians feel inclined to batten down the hatches and hideaway while the storms pass by. To use his simple image: the Church is supposed to be more than a baby-sitter for other people’s children; she is supposed to be a generative mother and nurturer of new children.[21]
V. The What Next of the Missionary Parish
To sum up what I’ve said so far: the Great Commission was addressed to all the baptised and all Christians have a sacred duty to evangelise and then sacramentalise, catechise and memorialise in Christ’s name. As parish structures evolved these became centres of all four activities, but especially of the Sunday Eucharist. They also had a proper concern for those in their district who were not yet Christian or did not attend. By witness, proclamation, adherence and assimilation, we are ourselves deepened in and assist others to be inaugurated into a new way of being. The call of the new evangelisation is to find new energies, strategies, methods and supports for evangelisation in an age where many cultures, institutions or individuals that should already be Christian have lost their way. The challenges of our time in Australia and the call of the post-Vatican II Church mean parishes must demonstrate a renewed missionary impulse, motivated by a love for the lost sheep and recognise that it really is a case of “populate or perish”.
We are not the first generation to face such a challenge. The liturgical calendar might warrant our calling August “The month of evangelisers”. From the early Church we celebrate on Wednesday (24th August) St Bartholomew, the great apostle who made his suffering for Christ into his greatest preaching and demonstrated that beauty is more than skin deep. On 10th August it was another martyr, St Lawrence, who converted the poor by his Christian charity and his gaoler by proclaiming the kerygma; he even turned black humour to his purpose, telling those barbecuing him to death to turn him over as he was done on one side. On the 27th August St Monica will be the star, the mother who talked and prayed her son Augustine into Christianity, priesthood, the good life, and the next day (28th August) we celebrate Gus himself, one of the greatest preacher-pastor-theologians in history, who brought his intellectual, rhetorical and professional gifts from his previous life with him and put them at the service of the Gospel; he has been described as a patron of the new evangelisation.[22]
From the Middle Ages we have St Bernard tomorrow (20 August), whom Word on Fire Ministries commends for keeping love front and centre in evangelisation,[23] and St Dominic (3 August in Australia) whose whole life was either talking to God or about God, and who founded an order of preacher-evangelists. Dominic’s passion is told in the story of him talking all through the night to a guy in a pub until finally at dawn the man recanted his heresy and re-joined Christ’s Church. In the same generation St Clare (11 August) abandoned herself to Christ through holy poverty, and adopted her friend Francis’ aphorism of always preaching if only seldom using words; she is remembered for protecting her monastery from rape and pillage by holding up the ciborium with the Sacrament so that the enemies of religion fled.
From early modern times we remembered St Alphonsus Ligouri at the beginning of the month (1st August), whom Pope Benedict XVI described as “a model of missionary action which can also inspire us today for a new evangelisation, especially among the poorest” through the missionary order and prayer groups he established.[24] Tuesday (23rd August) will feature St Rose of Lima, “Little Flower of the New World”, who joined others hiding in the local Dominican church from Dutch Protestant pirates. When the marauders burst into the church, they were confronted with the terrifying spectacle of this young girl ablaze with light, holding a monstrance with the Blessed Sacrament in imitation of St Clare; they turned and fled.[25] On the 12th August it was St Jane de Chantal we remembered: a wife, mother, widow and nun, who taught us that catechesis is all about keeping our eyes on God and allowing Him to do the work.[26]
From the nineteenth century we acknowledged St Peter Julian Eymard on 2nd August and St John Vianney on 4th August, who converted the radically secular culture of post-revolutionary France by promoting closeness to Christ in the Eucharist and Confession. For our own Mary MacKillop (8th August) in the same era, it was through education of the young and poor, never losing sight of the fourth ‘R’ in reading, writing, ‘rithmetic and religion.
The twentieth century opened with the pontificate of the great reformer pope St Pius X, remembered on 21st August for seeking to purify and renew the Church so she could better project herself into the world.[27] We also have two martyrs of the Nazis: on 9th August St Edith Stein who turned her own conversion story and the life of the mind to inspiring intellectual and spiritual conversion in others; and on 14th August Maximilian Kolbe, who founded a spiritual ‘army’ to convert sinners, operated a publishing house, and took another’s place in the death cell in Auschwitz. Like St John the Baptist, whose feast falls on the 29th, he was fearless in proclaiming Christ and executed for speaking truth to power.
On the 15th August we solemnised the completion of Our Lady’s earthly mission of showing Christ to the world as if she were of living monstrance herself, and of joining Jesus’ Father in declaring “This is my beloved Son: listen to Him!”[28] And on the 6th August we had the Transfiguration, when Christ let His men glimpse His glory and set for us the pattern of all evangelisation, which must always be about revealing Him as God-and-man, risen in glory, the promise of salvation and transfiguration for us all. What a month—a month of examples to us of the different ways we can each evangelise!
Soon after my installation as Archbishop in 2014, I initiated a five-year pastoral planning project entitled ‘Parish 2020’, with the goal of examining the situation and mission of the Archdiocese, its challenges and opportunities, the spiritual gifts of its people, and the structures that can best support the new evangelisation and renewal of our local communities. This enabled me and my collaborators to hear the voices of clergy and lay faithful, in our deaneries, parishes, migrant communities, schools and agencies. The fruit of that research, consultation and discernment is our Archdiocesan Mission Plan ‘Go Make Disciples’ which was launched on the Feast of our Lady of Guadalupe in 2020. Providentially it will also serve as our post-COVID recovery plan. Our Mission Plan speaks to the fundamental reality that “every pastor, every member of the faithful and all our parish communities are called to deep spiritual renewal as disciples, to being better connected with each other, and to reaching out better to others.” The goal of this will be realised when each of our parishes and parishioners makes the Great Commission their mission statement and where evangelising, sacramentalising, catechising and memorialising are the very fabric of our parish lives.
In this bid to renew our faithful and transform our parishes specific emphasis is placed on five themes: evangelisation geared towards bringing people to encounter Jesus Christ and enter into friendship with him: leadership that empowers people to contribute to building God’s kingdom; community that is a meaningful experience of belonging to the communion of saints and saints-in-the-making; formation that enables growth in faith, understanding and holiness; and worship that is an encounter with God’s mercy in the sacraments, devotions and prayer.
Throughout her two-thousand-year history, the Church’s call to go make disciples has enjoyed periods of great fruitfulness and other periods of merely hanging on amidst grave challenges. At times there has been harvest a hundredfold and at other times drought. Yet even when the land of people’s souls is lying fallow, God can be readying it for new planting, new rain, new abundance. Crucifixion and Resurrection, Pruning and New Life, are the ordinary rhythm of our Church’s history, and we should not imagine we are uniquely cursed: that is not just despair it is vanity! Statistics can be sobering, an important catalyst for a shake-up, but they are not the sole metric by which we gauge our successes and God always has surprises just around the corner for his Church. We should not forget that the Church of Sydney also has many strengths upon which to build: a proud history, a multicultural population many of whom are hungry for God, some very helpful plant and resources, some excellent pastors, above all people of faith and practice, at higher rates than normal in Australia, led by the Holy Spirit of the Great South Land.
And so, I invite all of you to enter into this conference with an open heart so you can be part of the solution. I pray that we may all ponder the ideas from the many wonderful speakers we will hear from over the next couple of days and contemplate faithfully how we can implement them in our own parishes and beyond, so that we may truly be a nation of missionary disciples. Thank you for your faith, hope and love. God Bless you all!
[1] https://dispatch.m.io/eric-yuan-zoom/;
[2] https://www.theceomagazine.com/executive-interviews/it-electronics/eric-yuan/
[3] Mt 16:18; 18:15-21; Acts 5:11; 8:3; 15:22; Rom 16:16,23; 1Cor 10:32; 11:6; 12:28; 14:4-35; 15:9; 2Cor 8:18-24; 11:28; Gal 1:13; Phil 3:6; Col 1:18,24; 1Thess 2:14; 2Thess 1:4; 1Tim 3:5,15; 5:16; 6:2; Rev 22:16.
[4] Acts 9:31; 11:1,19,22,26; 12:5; 13:1; 14:23,27; 15:3-4,41; 16:5; 18:22; 20:17,28; Rom 16:1-5; 1Cor 1:2,10; 3:1; 4:17; 6:4; 7:17; 11:18; 16:1,19; 2Cor 1:1; 8:1; 11:8; 12:11-13; Gal 1:2,22; Eph 1:22; 3:10,21; 5:23-32; Col 4:15-16; 1Thess 1:1; 2Thess 1:1; 1Pet 5:13; 3Jn 1:6-10; Rev 1:4-3:22.
[5] E.g. Mt 4:23; 6:2,5; 9:18,35; 10:17; 12:9; 13:54; 23:6,34 et par. in Mk & Lk; Jn 6:59; 9:22; 12:42; 16:2; 18:20; Acts 6:9; 9:2,20; 13:5,14-15,43; 14:1; 15:21; 17:1,10,17; 18:4,7-8, 17-19, 26; 19:8; 22:19; 24:12; 26:11.
[6] Mt 14:13-21; 15:32-39; Mk 6:31-44; 8:1-9; Lk 9:12-17; Jn 6:1-14.
[7] Jn 2:1-12.
[8] Acts 12:12; 16:40; Rom 16:3-5; 1Cor 6:19; Col 4:15; Philem 1:1-2.
[9] https://www.etymonline.com/word/parish
[10] CCC 2179.
[11] Mt 13:1-9,18-30; 18:10-14; Mk 4:1-20; Lk 8:4-15; 15:4
[12] Evangelii Nuntiandi, 10-13.
[13] Evangelii Nuntiandi, 21.
[14] Evangelii Gaudium, 10.
[15] Evangelii Nuntiandi, 22.
[16] Evangelii Nuntiandi, 23.
[17] Evangelii Nuntiandi, 23.
[18] The key documents for this are: Pope Paul VI (in Evangelii Nuntiandi), Pope John Paul II (e.g. Christifideles Laici 44; Redemptoris Missio 3; Ecclesia in Oceania 18 & 13; Novo Millennio Ineunte 40; Crossing the Threshold of Hope, pp. 113-114) and Pope Benedict XVI (e.g. Ubicumque et Semper).
[19] Redemptor Missio, 32-33.
[20] Deus Caritas Est, 1.
[21] Sergio Ruben and Francesca Ambrogetti (eds), El Jesuita: Conversaciones con el cardenal Jorge Bergoglio (Vergara, 2011), 45-47.
[22] https://www.faithandculture.com/home/2020/8/12/augustine-as-patron-of-the-new-evangelization
[23] https://www.wordonfire.org/articles/gems-of-wisdom-from-st-bernard-of-clairvaux/
[24] https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/22236/pope-proposes-st-alphonsus-liguori-as-model-for-new-evangelization
[25] https://www.nashvilledominican.org/community/our-dominican-heritage/our-saints-and-blesseds/st-rose-lima/
[26] http://www.catholicdigest.com/from-the-magazine/quiet-moment/st-jane-frances-de-chantal-hold-your-eyes/
[27] https://www.wordonfire.org/articles/restoration-in-christ-and-the-spirit-of-st-pius-x/
[28] Mt 3:17; Jn 2:5.