Liturgical Personhood and the New Evangelization

The liturgical task of all pastoral activity has not yet been fully accounted for in the recent turn toward the New Evangelization discernable in the magisterium. This article offers the fundamentals of an argument for a liturgically-centered approach to the pastoral task of the New Evangelization. In the first part of the essay, author argues that the implicit telos of the New Evangelization in John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and now Pope Francis necessitates the formation of a liturgical and sacramental personhood made difficult by late modern society. In the second, author provides three dimensions of cultural renewal necessary for developing the liturgical-pastoral task of the New Evangelization. These dimensions include a critique of the technocratic paradigm, a fostering of memory in a secular age, and the reclamation of aesthetics as an authentic form of knowing.