Twentieth Century Apostle

THE THOMIST A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY EDITORS: THE DoML."'liCAN FATHERS OF THE PRoviNCE oF ST. JosEPH Publishers: The Thomist Press, Washington 17, D. C. VoL. X APRIL, 1947 No.2 TWENTIETH CENTURY APOSTLE T HE task of the apostle of Christ remains essentially the same in every age. Men are to be brought to God, and God to men; heaven is to be sampled beforehand through the establishment of the kingdom of God in the hearts of men; that kingdom is to be eternally possessed in the courts of heaven. Whatever the age, whatever the risks and difficulties , whatever his labors, the apostle comes to the end of the road knowing himself an unworthy servant; the fruits of his apostolate are always so evidently much more God's than men's. The apostle's harvest field is the heart of a man; only God can enter there to sow and till and reap. Still, the Almighty, with divine graciousness, has given the apostle a part in the accomplishment of the happiness of men. In the ordinary Providence of God, there are things to be done by the apostle, indispensable things, things for which he must answer under penalty of his own eternal life with God. Consequently the apostle must use his human powers to the utmost 133 184 WALTER FARRELL for men, not because God needs him but because, through the mercy of God, men need him. He must evaluate and develop the gifts which God has given him; a matter which will be between himself and God, with help normally limited to his confessor , his directors, his superiors, and his friends. As he grows in wisdom, he may even get much help in this line from his enemies. There is, too, the whole objective field of his labors to be considered: the world he lives in, the men of his time, the difficulties peculiar to, and opportunities for, his work offered by the defects and perfections of his age. In estimating this aspect of his labors, the sources of help to the apostle are almost unlimited. From this angle, his work is a public affair, any man of his time may contribute to it. The importance of a reasonably correct objective estimate hardly needs argument: knowing his time, his contemporaries, the instruments ready to his hand, and the obstacles that will be raised against him, the apostle is in a position to escape that dread which haunts the truly apostolic heart-the waste of time and effort. It is to this objective view of the apostolic field that this study will be directed. An obvious guide, and constant corrective , to such a survey is a sharp contrast with the original apostolic field into which the twelve chosen ones of Christ stepped from the sheltering companionship of their Master and ours. That will be the procedure in this paper. In the full assurance of the extravagant gifts of divine grace to our times, we shall concentrate on some of the human aspects of our age that differentiate the apostle's labors, and on the apostle who labors among the constantly increasing unbelievers of the America of our day. * * * * * The Apostles might have looked out over their world and have wondered how to prevent the obliteration of the infant Church by the crushing weight of paganism, as a modem apostle might wonder how to avert the submergence of the Church today under the growing waves of unchristian thought TWENTIETH CENTURY APOSTLE 135 and practice. In actual fact, this was not the problem of the Apostles. Their problem was how to convert a world; not avert, then, but convert. It could not be otherwise, for the first is a purely human point of view, edging fearfully towards despair under the weight of the overwhelming probabilities of defeat; the second is beyond the reach of a man unless he stand on the shoulders of God, a prospect alive with hope, with challenge , and vibrant with courage. The strategy of that original band of Apostles was never purely defensive because it was never purely human; it was definitely offensive. It was not negative but positive. They were not fighting...