Greg Willits and Two Popes Who Beat Each Other Up
Today marks the official release of Greg Willits' exciting new book, The New Evangelization and You: Be Not Afraid. Greg was the perfect guy to write it. Those who know him know he embodies the New Evangelization. He's funny, creative, winsome, and willing to do whatever it takes to draw people to the Lord. He lives out the "new ardor, new methods, and new expressions" Pope John Paul II called for in 1983.
Over the years, Greg has also been on the forefront of Catholic new media. His frontier work includes the Catholics Next Door radio show and podcast, the Rosary Army apostolate, and his New Evangelizers web ministry. The new media is crucial to the New Evangelization and in Greg both elements collide.
Amazingly, Greg invited me to write the Foreword for his newest book, which I was humbled and happy to do. Below you'll find the whole text and it should help you glimpse the book's excellent content. After reading be sure to order your copy, and pick up one for your priest, too!
The year was 1770, and in a small Italian church, two altar boys prepared for Benediction. Annibale Della Genga and Francesco Castiglioni entered the sacristy, put on their albs, and grabbed the heavy brass candlesticks. And then they began to bicker.
Arguing over who would stand on the priest’s right for the procession, their quibble escalated into a shouting match. Alarmed parishioners turned their heads to the back of the church to see the commotion, and that’s when it happened:
Castiglioni cracked Della Genga over the head with his candlestick.
Blood dripped out of Della Genga’s head, and both boys began shoving each other. Shocked parishioners screamed, “Throw them out! Throw them out!” So the embarrassed priest grabbed the boys, led them to the door, and tossed them out of the church.
Now fast-forward several decades to 1825. Half a million people gathered in Rome for the great Jubilee celebration. The Jubilee occurred every 25 years, and its grand climax was the opening of the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica. Traditionally, the Pope would knock on the door three times with a large silver hammer and sing, "Open unto me the gates of justice!" On the third knock, the door would swing open, and the Pope would lead his people through. The symbolism was rich: pilgrims from all over the world coming back home to the Church, following their leader through the great porta fidei, the “door of faith.”
So this Jubilee year, in front of thousands of pilgrims, Cardinal Della Genga made his way to the door. It was fifty-five years after the candlestick incident. Only he was no longer Cardinal Della Genga. He was Pope Leo XII. And as he neared the door, he turned to the Cardinal beside him—Cardinal Castiglioni—and said, “Let me have the hammer.”
With a sly grin, Castiglioni replied, “Just like I gave you the candlestick?”
Amazingly, four years later Castiglioni succeeded his friend and became pope himself, taking the name Pius VIII.
Now if you told any of those pewsitters back in 1770 that they had two future-popes in the back of their church, they’d laugh you out of the building: “Those two boys? The ones shoving and whacking each other with candles? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Most of us have a similar reaction whenever we think about evangelization: “What, me?! You can’t be serious. How could I be an evangelist? I hardly know my faith. I’m too timid. I’m too awkward. I don’t like controversy. I’m the last person that should be evangelizing.” Compounding these feelings of fear and inadequacy is the problem that many of us have little idea what evangelization is, or how to do it.
That’s why Greg Willits’ new book is so timely and refreshing. He wipes away confusion, counters our greatest fears, and gives us challenging, yet gentle, encouragement. Packed with specific, practical advice on evangelizing, the book will not only help you understand what evangelization is but leave you confident in doing it yourself.
You’ll especially appreciate his clear three-fold path to evangelization: know our faith, live our faith, and share our faith. As Pope Benedict has often noted, catechesis—knowing our faith—is crucial to living and sharing it. It’s no accident he launched the Year of Faith alongside the anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The two are closely linked. Once we grasp what the Church teaches and why, we’ll be much more emboldened to share it.
However, as Greg explains, knowing our faith is not enough. We also must also live it by cultivating our prayer life, participating in our parish, and frequenting the sacraments. All of that activity grounds us on God and attunes us to his promptings. Greg is the perfect example of this dynamic. Before taking his faith seriously, he hardly evangelized. Yet after he renewed his commitment to the Lord and the Church, he’s become one of the most effective evangelists in America.
Finally, Greg says, we’ve got to share our faith. Once we know it, once we live it, we’re charged with spreading it to others. Catholicism is always personal, indeed, but it’s never private. As Pope Paul VI wrote in 1975, “the Church exists to evangelize.” Spreading the Good News of Jesus risen from the dead is her basic mission, and, thus, ours too.
These three callings—to know, live, and share our faith—have been around since the time of Christ. But most Catholics only practice one or two of them. In recent years, however, a new movement has given them fresh emphasis and form. Pope John Paul II christened it the “New Evangelization” back in 1979. Yet it wasn’t until 1983 that he began to unpack it. Speaking to a group of bishops in Haiti, he described the New Evangelization as not a new message, but a new delivery, one that was “new in ardor, methods, and expressions.”
If he were still living today, I think Pope John Paul would describe Greg’s book the same way (and I think if the Pope read Greg’s book, Greg would have a heart attack.) As you’ll discover, this book bubbles with excitement—with “new ardor.” On every page you sense Greg’s zeal for the New Evangelization and by the end, you’ll share it, too. As longtime readers and radio listeners know, Greg is naturally hilarious (who else can tie the New Evangelization to the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon?) He’s also a gifted storyteller who is not afraid to share stories of both success and failure. With great candor, charm, and excitement, his book embodies the “new ardor.”
Also, Greg’s book highlights many “new methods” of evangelizing. Over the years, Greg has used dozens of tools to evangelize. Whether digital forms like Facebook, YouTube, and radio, or decidedly non-digital means like hand-crafted rosaries, he’s constantly coming up with fresh ways to spread the faith. In the book, you’ll learn the background behind many of his efforts.
However the book isn’t primarily about Greg; it’s about you. Greg shares his “new methods” in order to get your mind racing with your own new ideas. He demonstrates you don’t have to trek to a remote African tribe in order to evangelize. If you have a computer, phone, or handful of yarn, you can evangelize right now using “new methods” of your own.
Finally, Greg’s book offers several “new expressions.” The New Evangelization is not a one-sized-fits-all project; there’s no one right way to do it. It demands varied and diverse expressions and that’s what Greg offers here. In addition to his own examples, you’ll find sidebars profiling many ordinary Catholics modeling creative ways to do the New Evangelization. They all have normal backgrounds—engineers, stay-at-home moms, entrepreneurs, young priests—but they share their faith in extraordinary ways. As G.K. Chesterton wrote, “The Church is a house with a hundred gates, and no two men enter at exactly the same angle.” Here you’ll glimpse many of those different angles.
He probably didn’t know it when he started writing, but with this book Greg follows in the footsteps of Della Genga and Castiglioni. He doesn’t wield any brass candlesticks. He doesn’t swing silver hammers (at least not that I know of.) But Greg’s whole life is aimed at leading people through the porta fidei, the door of faith.
Through his writing, speaking, podcasting, and other work, he’s helped countless people come home to the Catholic Church. That’s what the New Evangelization is all about, and that’s exactly what this book will help you do, too.
"The ‘door of faith’ is always open for us, ushering us into the life of communion with God and offering entry into his Church."
— Pope Benedict XVI, Porta Fidei
Purchase The New Evangelization and You!
Pope Benedict’s new “Jesus of Nazareth” book is here! (w/ excerpt)
Today marks the long-awaited release date for the Pope's latest, and perhaps final, book. Titled Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives (Image Books, hardcover, 144 pages), it's the third volume in his trilogy on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.
A Facebook friend asked if he should read this latest volume now, or wait until he read the first two books in the trilogy. Here's what I recommend:
I actually think the third volume would be a good precursor to the other two so I'd read it first. Here's why:
1. It's shorter. Volume 3 is just 144 pages while the other two are 300+ pages each.
2. It's timelier. It covers themes relating to Advent and Christmas which are the liturgical seasons we're about to enter into.
3. It's first, chronologically. The events here precede the other two volumes so it makes sense to read it first.
If I were you, I'd read Volume 3 (Infancy Narratives), then Volume 1 (Baptism to Transfiguration), then Volume 2 (Holy Week). That would give you a linear, comprehensive "life of Christ."
I'm diving into my copy tonight and plan to review it soon. But in the mean time, scroll below and find the publisher's description, a video trailer, and a special excerpt from the first chapter.
Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives
by Pope Benedict XVI
Image, 144 pages, hardcover
Released on November 21, 2012
In 2007, Joseph Ratzinger published his first book as Pope Benedict XVI in order “to make known the figure and message of Jesus.” Now, the Pope focuses exclusively on the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s life as a child in this momentous third and final book in the international best-selling Jesus of Nazareth series.
The root of these stories is the experience of hope found in the birth of Jesus, our Savior, and the affirmations of surrender and service embodied in his parents, Joseph and Mary.
This is a story of longing and seeking, as demonstrated by the Magi searching for the redemption offered by the birth of a new king. It is a story of sacrifice and trusting completely in the wisdom of God as seen in the faith of Simeon, the just and devout man of Jerusalem, when he is in the presence of the Christ child.
Ultimately, Jesus’ life and message is a story for today, one that speaks to the restlessness of the human heart searching for the sole truth which alone leads to profound joy.
Here's a special excerpt from Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives which comes from the first chapter. In the chapter, Pope Benedict reflects on the genealogies of Jesus, but here looks at the opening verses in St. John's Gospel:
John the evangelist, who repeatedly raises the question of Jesus’ provenance, does not present a genealogy at the beginning of his Gospel, but in the Prologue he grandly and emphatically proposes an answer to that question. At the same time he expands his answer to the question into a definition of Christian life: on the basis of Jesus’ provenance he sheds light upon the identity of his followers.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...and the Word became flesh and dwelt [pitched his tent] among us” (Jn 1:1– 14). The man Jesus is the dwelling- place of the Word, the eternal divine Word, in this world. Jesus’ “flesh,” his human existence, is the “dwelling” or “tent” of the Word: the reference to the sacred tent of Israel in the wilderness is unmistakable. Jesus
is, so to speak, the tent of meeting—he is the reality for which the tent and the later Temple could only serve as signs.
Jesus’ origin, his provenance, is the true “beginning”—the primordial source from which all things come, the “light” that makes the world into the cosmos. He comes from God. He is God. This beginning” that has come to us opens up—as a beginning—a new manner of human existence. “For to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not
of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn 1:12f.).
One version of the manuscript tradition preserves a reading of this sentence not in the plural but in the singular: “who was born, not of blood...” This makes the sentence into a clear reference to the virginal conception and birth of Jesus. Jesus’ being from God, as affirmed by the tradition preserved by Matthew and Luke, would be concretely underlined once more. But this is only a secondary reading: the authentic text of the Gospel speaks quite clearly here of those who believe in Christ’s name and who receive a new origin through that name. Yet the connection with the confession of Jesus’ birth from the Virgin Mary is undeniably present: those who believe in Jesus enter through faith into Jesus’ unique new origin, and they receive this origin as their own. In and of themselves, all these believers are initially “born of blood and of the will of man.” But their faith gives them a new birth: they enter into the origin of Jesus Christ, which now becomes their own origin. From Christ, through faith in him, they are now born of God.
So John has recapitulated the deepest meaning of the genealogies, and moreover he has taught us to understand them as an interpretation of our own origin, our true “genealogy.” Just as the genealogies break off at the end, because Jesus was not begotten by Joseph, but was truly born of the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary, so it can now be said of us that our true “genealogy” is faith in Jesus, who gives us a new origin, who brings us to birth “from God.”
Read more excerpts from Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives.
New and Notable Books (November 2012)
One perk of being a book reviewer is that publishers constantly keep you in the loop. I get emails, newsletters, and catalogs promoting their newest titles, and there's a constant flow of advanced review copies.
But I can't write about all of them, so in the interest of highlighting new and upcoming books, every month or so I highlight some of the best.
(The descriptions below are either from the publisher or from Amazon.)
Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives
by Pope Benedict XVI
Image, 144 pages, hardcover
Released on November 21, 2012
In 2007, Joseph Ratzinger published his first book as Pope Benedict XVI in order “to make known the figure and message of Jesus.” Now, the Pope focuses exclusively on the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s life as a child in this momentous third and final book in the international best-selling Jesus of Nazareth series.
The root of these stories is the experience of hope found in the birth of Jesus, our Savior, and the affirmations of surrender and service embodied in his parents, Joseph and Mary.
This is a story of longing and seeking, as demonstrated by the Magi searching for the redemption offered by the birth of a new king. It is a story of sacrifice and trusting completely in the wisdom of God as seen in the faith of Simeon, the just and devout man of Jerusalem, when he is in the presence of the Christ child.
Ultimately, Jesus’ life and message is a story for today, one that speaks to the restlessness of the human heart searching for the sole truth which alone leads to profound joy.
The Terrible Speed of Mercy: A Spiritual Biography of Flannery O'Connor
by Jonathan Rogers
Thomas Nelson, 208 pages, paperback
Released on September 18, 2012
"Many of my ardent admirers would be roundly shocked and disturbed if they realized that everything I believe is thoroughly moral, thoroughly Catholic, and that it is these beliefs that give my work its chief characteristics."
— Flannery O’Connor
Flannery O’Connor’s work has been described as “profane, blasphemous, and outrageous.” Her stories are peopled by a sordid caravan of murderers and thieves, prostitutes and bigots whose lives are punctuated by horror and sudden violence. But perhaps the most shocking thing about Flannery O’Connor’s fiction is the fact that it is shaped by a thoroughly Christian vision.
If the world she depicts is dark and terrifying, it is also the place where grace makes itself known. Her world—our world—is the stage whereon the divine comedy plays out; the freakishness and violence in O’Connor’s stories, so often mistaken for a kind of misanthropy or even nihilism, turn out to be a call to mercy.
In this biography, Jonathan Rogers gets at the heart of O’Connor’s work. He follows the roots of her fervent Catholicism and traces the outlines of a life marked by illness and suffering, but ultimately defined by an irrepressible joy and even hilarity. In her stories, and in her life story, Flannery O’Connor extends a hand in the dark, warning and reassuring us of the terrible speed of mercy.
The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society
by Brad Gregory
Harvard University Press, 592 pages, hardcover
Released on January 1, 2012
In a work that is as much about the present as the past, Brad Gregory identifies the unintended consequences of the Protestant Reformation and traces the way it shaped the modern condition over the course of the following five centuries.
A hyperpluralism of religious and secular beliefs, an absence of any substantive common good, the triumph of capitalism and its driver, consumerism—all these, Gregory argues, were long-term effects of a movement that marked the end of more than a millennium during which Christianity provided a framework for shared intellectual, social, and moral life in the West.
The Unintended Reformation asks what propelled the West into this trajectory of pluralism and polarization, and finds answers deep in our medieval Christian past.
Check out two great reviews of this important book, one by Archbishop Chaput and the other by Brantley Millegan.
The Quest for the Creed: What the Apostles Really Believed, and Why It Matters
by Fr. Dwight Longenecker
Crossroad, 192 pages, paperback
Released on November 16, 2012
Demonstrating a deep understanding of scripture, church history, doctrine, and pastoral work, this exploration takes a fresh look at a prayer many Catholics commonly zip past while saying the Rosary: the Apostle's Creed.
The study brushes the centuries of dust off each of the elements in which churchgoers intone “we believe” without pausing to reflect on the prayer's meaning, confronting this overlooked component of mass in a zingy, Chestertonian style that will appeal to discerning readers of popular theology and apologetics.
Delving into the startling statements that this creed makes about the nature of God, man, and the universe, this guide once again reminds Catholics how to be surprised and challenged by the paradoxical beauty that the Christian faith finds in everyday life.
What new or upcoming books are you excited about?
What if G.K. Chesterton edited your writing?
In 1955, in a San Francisco used bookstore, Dr. Alfred Kessler, an avid collector of the works of G.K. Chesterton, uncovered a rare treasure—Chesterton's personal copy of a privately published edition of Holbrook Jackson's Platitudes in the Making (1911) with original responses by Chesterton written in green pencil between lines of Jackson's book.
One can easily imagine Chesterton, upon reception of the volume from his literary friend Jackson, settling comfortably near the fireplace, chuckling and chortling as he read and jotted down in a spirit of friendship, fun, and fairness his own insightful observations.
Chesterton and Jackson were contemporaries and friends with much in common. Both were literary critics and had written biographies of George Bernard Shaw. Their paths, however, crossed and diverged because of their literary interests and philosophical differences. Jackson fancied himself a disciple of Nietzche and Fabian Socialism while Chesterton's mind and heart took a turn toward Christian philosophy.
Since 1911, this unknown Chesterton "book within a book" has been seen by only a priveleged few. But in 1997, Ignatius Press released a beautiful facsimile edition of the marked-up book titled, Platitudes Undone (Ignatius Press, hardcover, 105 pages). The book looked as if Chesterton himself had written right in it with his green pencil, and it allowed Chestertonians everywhere to glimpse the remarkable wisdom and humor of this literary giant "at play."
Unfortunately, the book is currently out of print. You can find it used on Amazon for around $30 or around $25 at other used bookstores.
But with similar luck to Dr. Kessler, I recently found a copy at a local used bookstore for just $0.50. It's such a cool book that I scanned some of the pages to share here. They provide answer to anyone who ever wondered what it would be like for Chesterton to edit his or her writing. Enjoy!
Gotta love the horn-blowing devil sketch.
I love the rabbit quote.
Chesterton's characteristic pithiness on full display.
