Preaching the Word Today
Barry Fischer, C.PP.S.

In previous editions of The Cup we reflected on the nature of our Congregation as a Society of Apostolic Life as well as on our missionary charism. Our Normative Texts clearly indicate that the "apostolic goal" of our Congregation is "the apostolic and missionary activity of the ministry of the word" (C3; cf. C24). Preaching the Word of God is, therefore, constituent of our C.PP.S. identity. The present issue of The Cup will examine this important theme in the light of our tradition, of the understanding of "evangelization" today, and within the context of a spirituality of the Precious Blood, in response to the changing situations and cultural contexts in which we minister.

Evangelization
Our preaching of the Word of God must be based on Christ the Evangelizer, who came to proclaim the Good News of God's Reign. He defined his mission when he quoted from the Prophet Isaiah in the Synagogue of Nazareth at the beginning of his public life: "The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor." (cf. Lk 4:18-19)
Pope Paul VI in his Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Nuntiandi, reminds us that "all aspects of his mystery - the Incarnation itself, his miracles, his teaching, the gathering together of the disciples, the sending out of the Twelve, the Cross and the Resurrection, the permanence of his presence in the midst of his own - were components of his evangelizing activity" (#6).
The task of evangelizing all people constitutes the essential mission of the Church (EN 14). And it is within the Church's mission of evangelization that we must interpret our own call to live "the ministry of the Word" as sons of St. Gaspar.

The Importance of Personal Witness
Preaching the Word of God cannot be a mere announcement of an absolute and abstract truth, but must be the communication of a personal experience of Christ. John says as much in his first Letter: "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we looked upon and touched with our hands concerns the Word of life…what we have seen and heard we proclaim now to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; for our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ." (1:1-4)
Our preaching, in whatever form it takes, must spring from our own personal relationship with Christ. The Word of God has taken root in our lives and we have experienced its transforming power. We are committed to telling others about our relationship with Jesus and about the new life that everyone can experience through a similar relationship with the Lord. So it becomes a first imperative of evangelization that we continually renew and deepen our personal relationship with the Lord. Our apostolic witness will be efficacious if we nourish ourselves "with prayer, the sacred liturgy, the Scriptures and the living tradition of the Church" (C23). It is this relationship with the Lord that will fan the fire for mission within us and which will make us credible witnesses of the Risen Lord!

From the Perspective of the Precious Blood
Obviously, we are not the only Congregation in the Church that defines its apostolic goal as the "ministry of the Word." The Order of Preachers (Dominicans) have been around a lot longer than we. And Orders such as the Divine Word Missionaries are also sent forth to "preach the Word of God to all peoples." Nor are we the only Congregation that historically has placed a special emphasis on the "extraordinary preaching of the Word in Missions and Retreats." Suffice it to name the Redemptorists and the Passionists, among others. So, what is it then that can give a particular orientation to the exercise of the mission of evangelization as Missionaries of the Blood of Christ?
St. Gaspar was fond of preaching with the Crucifix in hand and would often say: "We preach Christ, and Christ Crucified." When preaching Christ, we preach what Christ was crucified for! Pope John Paul II, in his Angelus Message of July 2, 2000 invited the faithful to "turn to the Cross of Christ, to look upon the Son of God, on that pierced Heart, on that spilt Blood." He went on to say that that "Blood was not shed in vain and carries in itself all the power of the love of God and is a pledge of hope, rescue, and reconciliation." And in his greeting to the thousands of pilgrims in St. Peter's Square for the Jubilee celebration of July 1st, he said: "How can we not always recognize the value of each human being, when for each one, without distinction, Christ has shed his blood?" It is the spirituality of the Precious Blood that inspires and orients our mission, and thus our ministry of the Word. At the heart of the Word we proclaim lies the affirmation of the "preciousness" of each person redeemed in the Blood of Christ. As missionaries of the Precious Blood, our lives are to witness to reconciliation, covenant, and cross, affirmation, love and acceptance.

New Aeropagoi
St. Gaspar, our Founder, is an outstanding apostolic example for us. "His awareness of the conditions and needs of the people of his time and his wholehearted response to them should animate our lives" (C22). For Gaspar, "the preaching of missions and retreats" was clearly the means that he felt best responded to the needs of the times in which he lived. However, Gaspar's ministry was not just limited to that particular form of the ministry of the Word. And it certainly has taken on many forms in the historical development of our Congregation, as our missionaries responded to the particular challenges of each new area, different cultures, and historical situations in which they found themselves. Thus we have been living in "creative fidelity" to our founding charism. In fact, faithfulness will depend upon our capacity to discover the evangelical source of the charism in circumstances different from those in which it was originally manifested. Creativity supposes a capacity to sense in the present new implications of the original charism.
As a Congregation dedicated to the Ministry of the Word, the explicit proclamation of the Word continues to be an imperative, although it is exercised in various ways and according to circumstances. We can no longer limit the proclamation of the Word to the Church pulpit, or to the form of "popular missions."
The Holy Father, in Redemptoris Missio, calls the world of communications the first Areopagus of the modern age (#37c). The mass media play an ever-increasing influence in the formation of peoples, for better or for worse, and must be used to broadcast "The Good News" in a language that is understandable to the people today. Likewise, it would be a grave error on our part to ignore the challenges which the Internet poses to us. It is more than just a technological invention. There is an enormous amount of information and interchange of ideas going on. "Go and preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth," is a call today to reach those far corners of peoples' lives where they spend their time and where their values are forged, or deformed! The parks and plazas of St. Gaspar's time are replaced today by other "meeting places", such as "the World Wide Web"!

In this Issue
This issue explores a cross-section of how some of our missionaries are responding to the challenges of the times in their ministry of the Word.
Fr. Robert Schreiter sets the tone for the edition by examining the implications of contextualization for the Ministry of the Word.
Evangelization is essentially concerned with communication, from God's communicating to us through His Son, "the Word," to modern-day technology. Fr. Chesco Msaga, missionary in Tanzania, looks at the challenges that the mass media pose for evangelization on the African continent and urges us to invest efforts in this area which impacts the way people think. It can be a powerful means for transmitting the Gospel message.
Next Fr. Alois Schlachter of the Teutonic Province, and a member of an inter-Congregational Mission Team, focuses upon some of the particular challenges of living the Ministry of the Word in the highly secularized societies of Central Europe. He emphasizes among other things, the importance of their "team witness" in an individualistic society.
Fr. Al Naseman, of the Cincinnati Province, was inspired from his early years by the preaching of Precious Blood Missionaries. Dedicated to the extraordinary preaching of the Word for many years he recounts in his article some practical aspects of being "on the road" as an "itinerant missionary."
And, finally, Fr. José Luis Morgado, a young Portuguese priest of the Iberian Province, enumerates a number of challenges that he has experienced in his ministry of announcing the Gospel to young people today. One of those challenges is that of overcoming the separation of faith and life in our proclamation of the Gospel. Our lives should be an open invitation to young people to "come and see!"
These are but a few examples of how our missionaries around the world are living out the "apostolic goal" of the Congregation through the "ministry of the Word." In the words of Redemptoris Missio, "There are many other forms of the 'Areopagus' in the modern world towards which the Church's missionary activity ought to be directed; for example, commitment to peace, development and the liberation of peoples; the rights of individuals and peoples, especially those of minorities; the advancement of women and children; safeguarding the created world. These too are areas which need to be illuminated in the light of the Gospel." (RM 37c)
As Missionaries of the Blood of Christ, dedicated to the Ministry of the Word, we are called to be open and flexible as we read the signs of the times and seek to respond to the challenges of the new evangelization.

The Ministry of the Word and Its C.PP.S. Contexts
by Robert Schreiter, C.PP.S.

Introduction : The Word in the World
The ministry of the Word which we undertake as Missionaries of the Precious Blood finds its origin in the Word who from the beginning was with God (John 1 :1-2), whom God sent into the world, and became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1 :14). Within these verses in the Prologue to the Gospel of Saint John we find our whole ministry of the Word summed up.
The Word of God has been with God from the beginning, and it was through the Word that God created the world (Gen 1 :3 ; John 1 :3). Although God sends the Word into the world in the Second Person of the Trinity, in a certain manner the Word is already in the world because the world was created through the Word. The fact that this Word sent into the world takes on flesh, i.e., takes on the form of the world, means that the Word is not alien to the world, because it was through the Word that the world was made. That the Word takes on flesh means that the world becomes united to God's Word-the Word of everlasting life (cf. John 6 :68)-in a new and special way.
What does all of this mean for our ministry as Precious Blood Missionaries ? It means, first of all, that our ministry of the Word does not take on one single form, as though the Word of God can be present in only one way in the world. The whole point of the Incarnation of the Word is that the whole world might become conjoined more closely to its Creator, through the Word which reconciles all of creation to God. For us as C.PP.S. Missionaries, that reconciliation is exercised most clearly in the shedding of Christ's blood, the blood of the cross which makes peace between God and the world (Col 1 :20). Second, it means that our ministry of the Word is always seeking out ways in which the world needs to hear the redeeming Word in a specific way, in a way which will bring the world into the circle of the Blessed Trinity in a more real and intimate way. For the Word achieves it mission not only when it has been spoken, but especially when it has been heard, because in that hearing the relation between the Word and the world is achieved.
So our participation in the ministry of the Word can call us to many different forms of ministry, depending upon how the world needs to hear the Word-as the redeeming Word of the blood of Christ-at a given time and place.

The Ministry of the Word as Mission
Issue number seven of The Cup of the New Covenant explored the ways in which the C.PP.S. is missionary. It was noted there that much of our work falls under what Pope John Paul II has called the New Evangelization, that is, the renewal and building up of the Body of Christ, both within the Church itself and especially in parts of the world which have already accepted Christianity in some form. We also engage in what is called first evangelization, that is, preaching the Word where it has never been heard before. The work of the Tanzanian and Brazilian Vicariates or in the Indian delegation are examples of this. That number of The Cup offered a number of opportunities to reflect on our being missionary in these different settings.
In this article, I would like to shift the focus just a bit, to look at the C.PP.S. ministry of the Word both historically and in the present situation.

The Ministry of the Word in C.PP.S. History
Certainly the most pre-eminent ministry of the Word associated with St. Gaspar and the founding of the C.PP.S. was the conducting of the popular missions in the parishes and towns of the Papal States. This ministry of the Word-to put it in contemporary terms-was an exercise of the New Evangelization, par excellence. The popular mission, aimed at a renewal of faith in all sectors and in all dimensions of a parish or a larger community, is for us a hallmark of St. Gaspar's special gift to the Church and to us. In the Constitutions (C1), it says that "Living together in mission houses they [St. Gaspar and his followers] were a source of continual renewal for the priests and the people, mainly be preaching missions and retreats. In this nucleus the Society of the Precious Blood had its origin, and from it derives its spirit."
Central as this form of the ministry of the Word has been and continues to be, it was never the sole, defining mission for the Missionaries. In 1825, St. Gaspar considered seriously sending members of his Institute to Ischia as foreign missionaries. The ministry at Santa Galla was especially dear to him, and he urged the Missionaries never to forget this important work.
The first major movement of the C.PP.S. outside the Italian peninsula led the Missionaries into entirely different circumstances : the frontier territories of the United States. There the ministry of the Word called them to setting up the infrastructure of the Church itself, rather than renewing a Church already long established. From mission houses in Trois Epis and Baumgaertle in central Europe, and from the Casa del Sol in Spain, the missionaries moved into schools and parish ministries alongside more traditional ministries of missions and retreats. Pope Pius XII's appeal for missionaries in Latin America to combat Communism and the proliferation of Protestant sects led the C.PP.S. to that region of the world in the 1940s and 1950s.
The point of all of this is to say that, as circumstances changed in Europe and the Americas, so too the ministry of the Word-that is, how the Word needed to be heard-necessarily had to be augmented to include new forms alongside more familiar ones to the C.PP.S.

The Ministry of theWord in the C.PP.S. Today
Today the C.PP.S. finds itself in some eighteen countries. And within those countries, a great variety of circumstances obtain, each calling for a ministry of the Word exercised in a different way. Where parishes may have been the structures of the Church which called for most renewal at a point in the past, today they became the best means for creating ongoing ministries of the Word. The worldwide flow of immigration has made this an important locus for ministry in Canada, Portugal, the United States and Italy. Speaking the reconciling Word in war-torn countries such as Croatia and Guinee-Bissau presents new challenges. Engaging in what the Church has come to call "the dialogue of life" and "the dialogue of social action" are central to the C.PP.S. ministry in India, where direct proclamation is not allowed. And as the articles by Frs. Schlachter and Morgado show elsewhere in this issue, youth holds a special place for ministries of the Word in a rapidly changing world.
As the C.PP.S. examines its ministry in places where it has long worked, and as it looks toward new areas in which to be engaged, the questions posed at the beginning of this article can serve as a guide : Where is the Word taking on flesh in the world today ? And how does the world need to hear the Word of God in this specific time and place ?

The Church and Communication
by Chesco Msaga, C.PP.S.

Introduction
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations, baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you (Matt 28 :18-20). With these words, our Lord Jesus Christ commissioned the first disciples and, by extension, the whole Church to proclaim the Good News of salvation to the whole world. The Church through all the ages and among different races of people has striven, by the use of relevant means of communication, to remain faithful in carrying out this divine mandate.
From the beginning, it has been a characteristic of God to want to communicate. This He does by various means. He enters into relationships with human beings in a very special way. In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he spoke to us by a son (Heb 1 :1-2). Jesus reflects divine perfection and fulfils the Father's will to communicate. He spoke as no man had even spoken before (cf. John 7 :46), and preached the complete conversion of his contemporaries so that they may be, in soul and body, the image and likeness of God.

Modern Communication at the Service of the Gospel
The technological development in the field of communication has been spectacular in the past century. There have been great advances in the mass media especially (press, radio, television, cinema and now the Internet), and of group media (audio-visual materials, mini-radio cassettes, video, and so on). Information has become more abundant and specialized, which now includes not only reporting of events, but their critical interpretation as well. The media have had a profund influence on how people think, feel, and make choices.
The Church recognises the necessity and the importance of these modern means of communication for the effective spreading of the Gospel. The mandate of Christ is to carry the Good News to the end of the earth. To do this, the Church has to use the most effective means available so as to be able to answer questions of modern human beings, excite their interests, and help them discover, through the poverty of human words, the message of salvation. Pope Paul VI recognised the importance of the mass media when he wrote : "In our age, which is characterised by the mass media, the Church would feel guilty before the Lord if she did not utilise these powerful means that human skill is daily rendering more perfect, in order to proclaim the mystery of our faith" (Evangelii nuntiandi, 45).
Consequently, all the members of the Church are urged with one mind and intent to see that the means of social communication are effectively used in all the varied works of the apostolate in accordance with the requirements of the time and situation (Inter mirifica, 13). For "it would be difficult to suggest that Christ's command was being obeyed unless all the opportunities offered by the modern media to extend to vast numbers of people the announcement of his Good News were being used" (Communio et progressio, 26).
The power of the modern media has been demonstrated particularly in the pontificate of Pope John Paul II. The media coverage given to his travels, speeches, encyclicals and other writings has made it possible for millions of people to become acquainted with the Church's position on many issues, and within a very short period of time.

The Current Situation in Africa
The situations in Africa regarding the use of social communications differ from one country to another. Civil authorities in some countries control the media and the Church cannot use them. In other countries, even when the same control exists, the Church enjoys some access for a few programmes and for limited hours. Other countries (but at this time, just a few) recognise religious freedom and the right to use the means of social communication, but the Church's financial limitations and lack of qualified people hinder making full use of this opportunity. There are, however, many Church people who have been trained as professional communicators over the past twenty years, but who end up having to work in other apostolates. There is also a general tendency to overlook the numbers of professionally qualified Catholic laity who would gladly contribute their talent and effort if allowed and encouraged to do so.
The media must be used for more than spreading the Christian message and the Church's authentic teaching. It is also necessary to integrate that message into the new culture created by modern communications. This requires a change in attitude on the part of the Church, so that the media might meet the need to be of service to people and cultures of dialogue with the contemporary world and human promotion.
Contemporary Africans have access to different forms of mass media in varying degrees. Newspapers have limited value, because many Africans are not literate enough to benefit from the good articles published there. Those who do read them are often the elite in society who make policies which influence the lives of the rest of the people. In this manner, these elite become, even if unconsciously, potential messengers of the Gospel.
Television is still regarded in the rural areas as a luxury and an activity of the well-to-do. In cities, the situation is different. Again, its influence upon the elite makes it a potential resource for shaping public policy.
Radio is the most widely diffused of the modern means of communication. The cost of buying a small transistor radio is gradually coming within the reach of the ordinary person in the village. As far as Catholic broadcasting is concerned, there are only a handful of countries which have their own Catholic radio stations. In Tanzania, for example, there are only four Catholic radio stations.
Because of the external pressure exerted by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, there is now greater freedom of private participation in the electronic media. At least, this is being enshrined in many countries' constitutions. With this new opening, the Church in many countries in Africa is setting up radio stations. UNDA, the international Catholic association for social communications, has been advising the Church on setting up broadcasting stations and, in some instances, helping to seek funds for these projects.

The Church and the Mass Media Today
In its official documents since the Second Vatican Council, the Church has recognized the importance of using all possible means of communication to spread the Good News. The Church has increasingly noted especially the potential impact of the mass media within its mission. In Evangelii nuntiandi, for example, the mass media are seen as capable of increasing almost indefinitely the capacity for spreading the Word of God. They enable the Good News to reach millions of people. However, there is also a special quality and challenge, which must be taken seriously in any entry into the mass media : "through them [the mass media] the evangelical message should reach vast numbers of people, but with the capacity of piercing the conscience of each individual, of implanting inself in his heart as though he ere the only person being addressed, with all his most individual and personal qualities, and evolve an entirely personal adherence and commitment" (46).
This touches upon the vocation of those who engage in producing and broadcasting materials via the mass media. I speak in this capacity as a communicator and as a priest. The incarnation principle of communication inevitably demands a "witness of life." As a communicator, the priest must be an intelligible and authentic sign of the person and message he proclaims. To communicate the word of God with credibiity, he must incarnate it in his life. Obviously there must exist a vital relationship, an in-depth consistency between the communicator and the message, so that the receiver may be able to perceive that the communicator himself has touched and lived that which he communicates.
In Evangelii nuntiandi, Pope Paul VI pointed to the witness of life as the first method of evangelization. He noted that modern people listen more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and when they do listen to teachers, it is because they are also witnesses (41). What Paul VI says about the Church in general is especially relevant to the priest as the main communicator in the parish. He testifies to the parish and to the world at large, primarily by conduct and life, that is, by his witness of poverty and detachment, of freedom in the face of the powers of this world-in short, the witness of sanctity (42). Nowhere else is such a witness as close to the people as in such a small, overseeable unit like the parish, where people live side by side with their priests.
This closeness of the priest to his parishioners, however, should also lead him to be aware of the expectations, experiences, and shortcomings of his people. Because of the "group effect" of a parish, the priest must be aware of what his people read, see, and hear in the mass media as it reaches them and becomes part of their daily life.

Conclusion
Information and communication are drastically changing the world we live in. Instead of establishing commonality and solidarity, public communication now tends to reinforce division, widen the gap between rich and poor, consolidate oppression and distort reality. It does this in the service of maintaining a system of domination and silencing the masses, often by media manipulation. Yet communication remains God's great gift to humanity, without which we cannot be truly human or reflect God's image (cf. Gen 1 :26). Nor could we enjoy living together in groups, communities and societies, steeped in different cultures and different ways of life.
Evangelisation is a process of communicating. In these days, it is inconceivable that any programme for evangelisation should ignore the means of social communication. Indeed, using these means is both valid and urgent.
It is valid because of the undeniable impact media exert on the life of society today. They create what is in fact a new culture, and so are the carriers of new cultural models. They influence both individuals and whole populations. Were the Church not to use these media, it would be deprived of a powerful instrument for transmitting its message.
It is urgent because there is no substitute for these media as a vehicle for communication for communicating the Good News and the Church's authentic teaching. If the Church does not use them, it runs the risk of missing the influence they already have on the masses, something which politicians and other religious groups know how to exploit.

Preaching the Word of God in a Secularized Society
by Alois Schlachter, C.PP.S.

Between 1993 and 1999, I was involved in twenty-three parish missions : nineteen in Germany, three in Austria, and one in Italy. Five of these were "C.PP.S. missions" ; the others were conducted together with members of other religious congregations (Redemptorists and Dominicans). Parish missions have never been my sole ministry ; at the same time, I was working as an associate pastor, with youth, and at a shrine for pilgrims.

Challenges of a Secularized Society
What "challenges" did I experience in these years ? Purely and simply, we invited people in the parish missions to join us daily in a celebration of the Eucharist and to hear a homily, along with other events scheduled for the mission. The model of "good Christians," who fulfill their Sunday obligation, comes foremost to mind here. I must admit honestly, that we reached mainly those already going to Church in our parish missions, rather than those at a distance, as it were, from parish life.
Our more direct contact with "secularized society" came, in my view, in our work with children and youth. If there was a kindergarten in the parish, I would visit not only the children there, but also would invite their parents for a session in the evening, most often along with their children. Our usual topic was : "When Children Ask about God." These evenings were always well attended. We moved easily and quickly from the children's questions to more "adult" questions and problems. Thus, for example, a woman who came from the former East Germany would recount how hard it was for her to deal with bringing here child up "in the faith," since she had not had such an experience as a child, and her husband was indifferent or even hostile to the idea.
I liked to go into the schools, if these existed in the parish. For the pupils, it was in a certain sense a kind of challenge to deal with and meet personally someone like a "Father." Many children and youth we encountered had only known a priest or a nun from movies or television, or from commercials for beer, pizza, and the like. It wasn't as though I was "peddling" my own story, but my life was for many of them a challenge which provoked all kinds of questions before I had said a single word.

A Double Challenge : For Head and Heart
It was along this pathway that I would then come to preaching more directly the Word of God. This led to a "double challenge in a secularized society" : to the people themselves with whom we came into contact, to be challenged by an existential and personal witness ; and a similar challenge to us missionaries. I am of course aware that in many instances there was a lack of knowledge of the Faith on their part, but I kept reminding my fellow missionaries when we met in those years that a sermon was less a time of instruction than it was a personal witness. This is something Pope Paul VI said in an address on October 2, 1974 to members of the Pontifical Council of the Laity, and again in 1975 in his Apostolic Exhortation "Evangelii nuntiandi" : "Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses." This is frequently quoted, but it often has not moved from the heads into the hearts of "teachers."
This all became very clear to me in a parish mission we held at the end of 1999. We had arranged for youth and young adults a programme entitled "Faith : Do You Mean You Believe, Too ?" It was in the form of an open forum or a talk show. I sat on the stage with the Lutheran pastor, a Catholic layman from the evangelization center, a woman journalist who was avowedly Christian, and three members of nondenominational churches. When one of the latter testified to her concrete experience with Jesus, the attention of the audience was the greatest. I recalled Karl Rahner's observation : "The Christian of tomorrow will be a mystic, or he will be nothing." In the end, it is not about what you know, but the kind of experience you have. Thinking about this, St. Gaspar's definition of the missionary, given in his tenth Circular Letter (1836), had new meaning for me : Who, then, is the missionary ? He is someone sent by God to bring knowledge of salvation (cf. Luke 1 :77)." "Salvation" is here something comprehensive-not just something for the head, but also for the heart.
This has, among other things, very practical consequences. For one, it means that proclamation of the Word must also touch the senses. St. Gaspar certainly attended to that in his time. We should not try to imitate him blindly, but in our own time it is important to address the senses also. When we speak of "celebrating our faith" during a mission, that "celebration" must be something people can feel.
That plays a special role in ministry with children. In the afternoons with the children during the mission, I always made sure that there was time for something creative. Every child would either make something or work together in a small group to create a "work of art". This engaged not only the senses, but could also be the beginning of "having an experience." At least I tried to give them that possibility.

The Witness of Missionaries Together
Finally, I would like to point out an especially palpable aspect of witness for us missionaries. It is striking and has an impact when the missionaries' witness is a joint one. That probably has something to do with the widespread individualism of our culture. For that reason, it was always for me one of the greatest challenges in proclaiming the Word of God to attend especially to the other members of the Mission Team and to the parish community itself. Not infrequently people in the parishes would remark to me how did it happen that we-members of different religious congregations-could work so well together.
A special characteristic of this community we had among one another, especially when I was leading the mission, was the time we spent together in prayer and sharing experiences. It was at least as important as the time of carrying out the mission itself. Hence, it is as important to the mission experience to bring a fellow member of the Mission Team to the dentist in the next town if he has a chipped tooth, as it is to think one more time about a sermon or an afternoon with the children. In Article 49 of the Customary of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood in Poland (1992) we read : "The greatest missionary is not the one who speaks or travels the most, but the one who loves the most."

Go with the Flow : The Life of an Itinerant Missionary
by Al Naseman, C.PP.S.

A recent cartoon pictures a man in hell. The caption reads : "My motto was 'Go with the flow.' But I had no idea that the flow was going here." Our motto as C.PP.S., too, is "Go with the flow"-but for us, it is the life-giving flow coming from the throne of God and from the Lamb :
Then an angel showed me the River of life-giving water, sparkling like crystal, flowing from the throne
of God and of the Lamb, down the middle of the street. On either side of the river grew the tree of
life that produces fruit twelve times a year, once each month ; the leaves of the trees serve as medicine
for the nations. (Rev 22 :1-2)
One way to view this flow is that it is our C.PP.S. preaching ministry. Early in my own life I was exposed to it as visiting C.PP.S. Missionaries came into my parish in Dayton, Ohio, with sermons that sparkled. Even to this day it is "spiritual medicine" for me to hear a Missionary preach. Each is a gleaming tessera in our common mosaic depicting God's overflowing love.
The Missionaries drew me along like a powerful stream. After my ordination in 1967, my early C.PP.S. years were spent in formation and vocation ministry. Those became the first part of a life dedicated to the Ministry of the Word. What followes sketches my ministry as an itinerant preacher since 1985. It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Much as I cherish art, I must admit that the converse is also true : a thousand words are worth a picture.

Passing Along the Word
Imagine an athletic team which played every game away from its home field. There would be great challenges involved in this. My preaching ministry as a C.PP.S. Missionary finds me always on the road. Nonetheless, I always feel that, with the Word of God, we have the home-field advantage. Jesus said that we who leave home for the sake of the Gospel will find hundreds of homes along the way.
But we are never at home for long. If parish ministry could be compared to a novel, preaching a mission or retreat is a short story. If parish ministry is a full-course meal, then preaching ministry is a sampler platter. If parish ministry is the moon, preaching ministry is a shooting star-fleeting perhaps, but always intense and bright.

The Full-Car Gospel
On a parish mission, you might expect me to pack the usual things : socks, underwear, trousers, and clerical attire. But I also cram into my car Bibles, books, banners and poles to display them, leaflets, brochures, puppets and masks, scripts for plays, musical instruments, rosaries, posters, medals, and whenever possible, my own 1.60 x 2.20 m. portrait of Jesus. Jesus instructed the original missionaries to take nothing on their journey but a walking stick and sandals. Perhaps a gear-shift and tires-with an auto in between them-is a modern-day version of meeting Jesus' demand. But what about all the other stuff I carry with me ?
Happily I discovered something about St. Gaspar's method of conducting missions in Obedient Rebel, the story of Blessed Maria de Mattias : "Canon Del Bufalo arrived at the head of a veritable caravan of men and equipment. His methodology, different from the traditional methods, was a thoroughly organized machine of many aspects, externally choreographed and yet interiorized."
Perhps without knowing it previously, I really am a kindred spirit of St. Gaspar !

Ketchup in the Refrigerator, Rattlesnake in the Garage
St. Paul asserts in Philippians 4 :12 : "I know how to live in humble circumstances ; I know also how to live in abundance." This is a lesson which we itinerant preachers continue to learn.
Once I arrived at a parish in the desolate area of the High Plains to find the pastor gone for the week. That's quite all right-pastors out there can rarely find a substitute priest in order to get away for a time. But he left no provision for food. The refrigerator yielded a solitary bottle of ketchup, in a rather advanced state of decay.
A mission not long after found me in a revolving restaurant atop the 32nd floor of a skyscraper. The elegant restaurant had no prices on the menu, and the pastor and three parishioners treated me royally.
At a parish in the Western part of the United States I opened the garage door one day, only to find the parking space already reserved-by a rattlesnake !
One time in West Virginia, I went to bed the first evening in a large old Victorian rectory. The bedroom door did not close completely anymore, so I had to push the door to. During the night, the pastor's gargantuan dog pushed the door open and catapulted onto the bed. The next morning the pastor asked me how I slept. I mentioned the dog. He said, "Oh, when no one is here, that's the dog's bed..."

Mistaken for Gods
When the crowds saw what Barnabas and Paul were doing, they cried out : 'The gods have come down to us in human form !' Barnabas and Paul shouted : 'Men, why are you doing this ? We are of the same nature as you. We proclaim to you good news that you should turn from idols to the living God.' (Acts 14 :11-15)
We Missionaries receive so much affirmation : "You would have made a great father." "What a dear Gaspar you are." "I love your voice." There is the danger of focusing upon ourselves rather than upon Jesus, who gives us his all.
I started to listen to myself too much one time when I visited a kindergarten class during a parish mission. I was telling the children one of my favorite stories. One little girl sat there, absolutely transfixed, never taking her eyes off me. As soon as I finished, her hand shot up, eager to ask a question. "This is going to be wonderful !" I gloated. Then she said : "Why are your teeth so crooked ?" She brought me back to earth.
I get letters. From a parishioner in Missouri : "I want you to know that you touched my life and those of my three children. My fifth-grade son was so eager to come to the evening service. All three of them spent the evening meal talking about your classroom visits."
From Pennsylvania : "I never go and talk to the retreat master, because I have such a hard time talking about personal things and my feelings. But you were just so human and approachable, and it was a real breakthrough for me to even try it."
From Indiana : A Goliath of a man admitted he relished his job as someone who maintained discipline in a bar. But during the parish mission he came to realize that he wanted to leave something more to his young son. So he gave up his job, started going to church again, and became-of all things !-- a greeter at the church door. But you still had better watch your conduct in church !
The words of Mark 4 :26-27 summarize the successes we itinerant preachers may experience along the way : This is how it is with the kingdom of God : it is as if a man ere to scatter seed on the land, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how.

The Good-Bye Ministry
After "Mama" and "Dada" and "no," one of the first words we learn is "bye-bye." It's a good thing. Bye-bye is the last word we say ; and in between, our lives are an unrelenting series of good-byes : good-byes to home, to children, to youth, to plans, to country, to comfort, to health, perhaps to life.
William Shakespeare proposed that "Parting is such sweet sorrow." If this is true, then the Missionary has a superior accumulation of it, for a Missionary departs more than most.
And the sorrow can be sweet indeed. We may not think of hugs and kisses when we think of St. Paul, but remember this farewell in Acts 20 :36-38 :
When he had finished speaking, he knelt down and prayed with them all. They were all weeping loudly as
they threw their arms around Paul and kissed him, for they were deeply distressed that he had said that
they would never see his face again. Then they escorted him to the ship.
This scene is played out over and over again in the life of an intinerant Missionary. One time during a parish mission in the South of the U.S., I spotted a dyspeptic parishioner in the congregation. He frowned all through the first night, and then through the second night. I overheard him saying on the third night how disgusted he was to see all the hugging going on after the end of the presentation. The fourth night he looked even more sour. On the last night, he came up to us and announced : "I can't tell you what this mission has meant to me. And I can think of no better way to say thank you than to give you all a big hug." And he tearfully hugged us.
Love is never more intense than when we must say good-bye, and isn't that love one of the keystones of Precious Blood spirituality ? It is that love we try to impart in missionary preaching, a river of life-giving water. The flow continues.

Youth Ministry and the Word of God
by Jose Luis Morgado Ferreira, C.PP.S.

Introduction
It is not difficult to speak of youth and youth ministry. There are abundant bibliographic resources of the most varied kinds, moving from statistics, to reflections on the general character of youth ministry, to ways in which youth relate to the Church. More difficult, however, is reflecting on the theme proposed in this article. I will try to present in this regard the experience I have had with youth that has most motivated me in recent years. This experience will be my principal source, with only passing references to other authors and to the Scriptures. I am aware that The Cup of the New Covenant is read by people who live in different ecclesial and cultural settings than my own in Portugal. For that reason, I would like to begin by offering an overview in broad strokes of the kind of youth with which we work, and then move toward noting six challenges we face. Then there will be a brief conclusion.

Portuguese Youth and the Church
A recent study in Portugal reported that 28.9% of youth called themselves practicing Catholics. 47.7% said they were not practicing Catholics. 12.8% professed to be atheists, and 10.6% said that they fit in none of the above categories. Thus, about 76% of the youth in Portugal claim to be Catholics, although less than 30% practice their faith.
These statistics show that our preaching reaches a somewhat small percentage of youth. However, based partially on these same numbers, I believe that there is a religious awakening in Portugal among youth, and that there is a quest for God. There is a lot of talk about secularization, about rejecting God, about the Church dying little by little through lack of initiative, and its isolation and distance from modern society, touching mainly an aging population mired in traditional devotionalism. Nonetheless, I believe that there is a growing quest for God among youth, linked to a decision to reject a world which offers them directions which do not satisfy them and leaves them anxious and disoriented, living a life bereft of values and without openings to a sense of happiness and salvation. For all these reasons, youth are approaching the Church and God not for the traditional reasons from earlier times, but with an openness to new possibilities and with the hope for an answer to their concerns and dreams for the future.
It is along this route that movements arising with ever greater intensity from the heart of the Church are contributing in a very positive way to a youth ministry at the parish and the diocesan level which is both well designed and thought out. However sometimes the structures and the means for achieving these goals successfully are still missing. This constitutes a challenge for youth ministry. One thinks, for example, of the quality of welcome which many parishes offer to youth.
One can observe some different stances among Portuguese youth today. In the first instance, we can speak of youth at a great distance from the Church and from faith. This is the most numerous category. Second, one can speak of youth open to religious experience, open to a certain kind of participation, without however wanting to make a full commitment. Third, there are youth who practice their faith, but are not greatly motivated to do so, and do it only because it is the traditional thing to do. Their lives as Christians is more one of habit than a conscious expression of a search for God and the coming of God's Reign. They are youth without much Christian maturity ; they constitute a large part of the youth we work with. Finally, there is a category of youth who are committed. These are without a doubt a source of hope. For these youth, faith is a gift.

Challenges
When we speak of challenges to preaching the Word of God, I think that we have to take into account the kind of youth we are addressing, since each group has its own challenges. For the sake of limiting the field here, I will put forth some ideas regarding the kind of youth the C.PP.S. is working with in Portugal : youth who engage in traditional practices whom we find in our parish work, although in some cases youth who are distant from the Church but have been baptized and belong to families which practice their faith on a regular basis.
1. It seems to me that a first challenge is to integrate preaching the Word of God into a process of education into the faith. Today, one cannot simply preach ; one has to present things in an integrated way. Youth have to learn that faith is a gift which nourishes them through the Word. Unfortunately, much of youth ministry has been concentrated on catechesis for Confirmation. This leads youth to the misconception of registering for this catechesis only in order to receive the sacrament. Because of this, those who prepare in this way are likely to abandon religious practice after having receiving the sacrament of Confirmation. The educational process of faith I am talking about has to be more evangelizing in nature.
2. A second challenge is to create an internal disposition in youth to make the Word part of their own persons, that is, to eliminate the separation of faith from life. Faith and life are a two-dimensional reality which has to give form to a single body. The Word of God appears in that separation to be important only when it is heard, studied, and celebrated. The truly challenging question arising here is : Is the Word of God an appendix to catechesis and preaching, or is it in fact really spiritual nourishment ?
3. I think a third challenge lies in how the newness of the Word of God has to provoke youth. The Word which gives life by always being something new belongs to the designs of the Spirit. That is the same word which, according to St. Paul, is written on the heart of those who hear it and live by it, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the Living God (2 Cor 1 :3-6). Youth have to be a letter from Christ, as it were, who understand and celebrate the Word of God as something new and relevant, a word for today and even tomorrow. A magazine which appears biweekly or annually says nothing to the youth of today. It is a dead letter, referring to something already past which may have been important in its day. The Word of God is something current, new, and surprising.
4. A fourth challenge, closely connected with the previous one, is the fact that the Word of God points to something ultimate, to salvation. The Word saves, and as such has to provoke conversion in youth, an interior change, an openness to that Word. Youth, with their anxieties in the midst of their search for happiness, security, and rootedness can encounter in the Word of God the holy place where they can be nourished and find the reason for their own existence. The Word can give meaning to their lives and lead them to happiness.
5. When we speak of the challenges to preaching the Word of God in youth ministry, we cannot forget the one who does the preaching, the one who passes on or announces the Word. In this context I believe that one of the challenges is, without a doubt, the witness of the preacher. The preacher has to be a faithful witness to the Word being proclaimed, and someone who points at the same time to men and women who are models of people living lives illumined and nourished by the Word. In his letters, St. Gaspar has left us some challenges regarding this point. In a letter of May, 1832 to the Missionary Don Rafaelle Rosati, he said : "But wherever you go, preach by example and exercise care in everything." (No. 2340). St. Gaspar also tells us that the preacher needs to be grounded in firm virtue, adequate knowledge, and detachment from all things. (No. 1241, to Pope Leo XII, July 29, 1825). If one thing gets attention with youth, it is discovering in the person of the preacher a consistency of life. One cannot say to youth (or anyone, for that matter !) "Do as I say and not as I do." Youth need models, exemplars of life.
6. Finally, I would like to present one other challenge related to Sacred Scripture. The Bible has to be presented as "the Book" of salvation, not as some supplementary text or manual to be consulted according to the preferences or moods of the moment. The Word of God is the Scriptures which contain the revelation of the mystery of Christ.

Conclusion
With these considerations I wanted to share some of the challenges which seem to me to be important for working with you at this point in time. I am certain that they do not exhaust the possibilities (is anyone capable of exhausting them ?) ; indeed, each of us could add those deemed suitable and so fill out the reflection I have offered here. I made a special effort here not to cite authors or documents, since my personal experience was my main source, as I said at the beginning. We all know that there are no simple recipes in work with youth, and that it is easy to spin out theories. For that reason, youth ministry is in itself a challenge for all of us, also as Missionaries of the Precious Blood. But that is a topic for another article.
I close with a biblical reference-the question welling up in the hearts of Andrew and John : "Master, where do you live ?" (John 1 :36-39), and the answer by which Jesus leads them on : "Come and see." The boldness of the preacher has to challenge and stimulate in youth that same interest shown by Andrew and John, and at the same time open the road for youth to come and see, in such a way that, while journeying along, they can affirm with Peter : "Lord, to whom shall we go ? You have the Words of eternal life." (John 6 :68).