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Illustration: The Four Evangelists – by artist Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678)
Pope Francis Catechesis 8. The Passion for evangelization 8
Saint Peter’s Square – Wednesday, 22 March 2023
Catechesis. The passion for evangelization: the apostolic zeal of the believer. 8.
The first way of evangelization: witness (cf. Evangelii nuntiandi)
Reflection:
1 Peter (1:8-9)
Beloved, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but, on the contrary, repay with a blessing. It is for this that you were called.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today we are listening to the “magna carta” of evangelization in the contemporary world: the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi of Pope Paul VI (8 December 1975). It is topical, it was written in 1975, but it is as if it had been written yesterday. Evangelization is more than just the transmission of doctrine and morals.
Evangelization is first of all Witness
it is not possible to evangelize without witnessing; witnessing to the personal encounter with Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word in whom salvation was accomplished. It is an indispensable witness because the world, first of all, needs “evangelizers who speak to it of a God whom they know and who is familiar to them” (EN, 76).
It is not a matter of transmitting an ideology or a “doctrine” about God. No!
It is the transmitting of God who becomes life in me. This is the witness; and also because “contemporary man listens more readily to witnesses than to teachers, […] or if he listens to teachers, he does so because they are witnesses” (EN, 41).
The witness of Christ is therefore both the primary means of evangelization and an essential condition for its effectiveness (EN, 76), if the proclamation of the Gospel is to be fruitful. Be witnesses.
It is important to remember that witness also includes the profession of faith, that is, the convinced and manifest adherence to God the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, who out of love created us and redeemed us. A faith that transforms us, that transforms our relationships, the criteria and values that determine our choices. Witness, therefore, cannot be based on the coherence between what is believed and what is proclaimed and what is lived. One is not credible simply by proclaiming a doctrine or an ideology, no.
A person is credible if he has harmony between what he believes and what he lives.
Many Christians only say they believe, but they live by something else, as if they did not believe. And this is hypocrisy. The opposite of witnessing is hypocrisy.
How many times have we heard “ah, this one who goes to Mass every Sunday, and then lives like this, so, so, like this”: it is true, it is the counter-witness.
Each of us is called to answer three fundamental questions, formulated by Paul VI:
Do you believe what you proclaim?
Do you live what you believe?
Do you proclaim what you live?”.
There is a harmony: do you believe what you proclaim? Do you live what you believe? Do you proclaim what you live?
We cannot be satisfied with simple ready-made answers.
We are called to accept the destabilizing risk of research, fully trusting in the action of the Holy Spirit who works in each of us and urges us always to go beyond: beyond our borders, beyond our barriers, beyond our limits, of any kind.
In this sense, the witness of a Christian life involves a journey of holiness, based on Baptism, which makes us “sharers in the divine nature, and therefore truly holy”
A holiness that is not reserved for the few; it is a gift of God and must be welcomed and made fruitful for ourselves and for others.
Chosen and loved by God, we must bring this love to others. Paul VI teaches that the zeal for evangelization springs from holiness, springs from a heart that is full of God. Nourished by prayer and above all by love for the Eucharist, evangelization in turn makes those people who carry it outgrow in holiness (EN, 76).
At the same time, without holiness, the word of the evangelizer “will hardly open the way into the heart of the man of our time”, but “risks being vain and fruitless”.
Therefore, we need to be aware that the recipients of evangelization are not only others, those who profess or who do not profess other faiths, but also ourselves, believers in Christ and active members of the People of God. And we need to be converted every day, to welcome the Word of God and to change our lives: every day.
And this is the evangelization of the heart.
In order to bear this witness, the Church as such must also begin to evangelize herself.
If the Church does not evangelize herself, she remains a museum piece.
On the contrary, it is the evangelization of itself that constantly renews it.
He needs to listen continually to what he must believe, the reasons for his hope, the new commandment of love. The Church, which is a People of God immersed in the world, and often tempted by idols — so many — always needs to hear God’s works proclaimed. This means, in a word, that she always needs to be evangelized, she needs to take up the Gospel, pray and feel the power of the Spirit who is changing the heart (EN, 15).
A Church that evangelizes to evangelize is a Church that, guided by the Holy Spirit, is called to follow a demanding path, a path of conversion, of renewal.
This also includes the ability to change the ways of understanding and living his evangelizing presence in history, avoiding taking refuge in areas protected by the logic of “it has always been done this way”. These are refuges that make the Church sick.
The Church must move forward, it must grow constantly in order to remain young.
This Church is totally turned to God, therefore a participant in his plan of salvation for humanity, and, at the same time, totally turned to humanity.
The Church must be a Church that dialogically encounters the contemporary world, that weaves fraternal relationships, that generates spaces of encounter, implementing good practices of hospitality, acceptance, recognition and integration of the other and of otherness, and that takes care of the common home that is creation.
That is, a Church that encounters the contemporary world in dialogue, in dialogue with the contemporary world, but that encounters the Lord every day, in dialogue with the Lord, and that lets in the Holy Spirit, who is the protagonist of evangelization.
Without the Holy Spirit we could only announce the Church, we could not evangelize.
It is the Holy Spirit in us, that drives us to evangelize and this is the true freedom of the children of God.
Dear brothers and sisters, I renew the invitation to you to read and re-read Evangelii Nuntiandi: I tell you the truth, I read it often, because it is the masterpiece of Saint Paul VI. It is the legacy he left us to evangelize.
The website is the following: –
https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_p-vi_exh_19751208_evangelii-nuntiandi.html
Summary:
Dear Brothers and Sisters:
In our continuing catechesis on missionary zeal, we now consider the teaching of Saint Paul VI in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, on evangelization in the modern world.
Pope Paul insisted that evangelization is first and foremost a personal witness to the Gospel and its saving truth.
For this reason, he emphasises the importance, in all the baptized, of a living faith in the triune God, manifested in a life of holiness fully in accord with the message we proclaim.
Holiness of life, based in the gift of the Holy Spirit received in Baptism, is the source of our zeal to share with others the treasure of new life and hope that is ours.
Pope Paul went on to say that the Church not only evangelizes, but is herself evangelized, that is, constantly called to conversion and interior renewal in the Spirit.
A Church that evangelizes is totaly turned to God, the source of our salvation, and, at the same time, totally engaged in a creative dialogue with the world, cooperating with the Lord’s gracious plan for the unity and peace of our human family.
