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Pope Francis Catechesis 5 on Evangelization
Paul VI Audience Hall – Wednesday, 22 February 2023
Catechesis. The passion for evangelization: the apostolic zeal of the believer. 6.
Gospel Reflection Matthew (28:16-29)
Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”
The protagonist of the proclamation is the Holy Spirit
Dear brothers and sisters,
In our catechetical itinerary on the passion for evangelizing, we begin today from the words of Jesus that we have heard: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ (above).
‘Go,’ says the Risen One, ‘not to indoctrinate, not to make proselytes, no, but to make disciples. That is, to give everyone the opportunity to come into contact with Jesus, to know Him freely and love Him. “Go and baptise”: to baptise means to immerse; and therefore, it is a liturgical action. It expresses a vital action: to immerse one’s life in the Father, in the Son, in the Holy Spirit; to experience every day the joy of the presence of God who is close to us as Father, as Brother, as Spirit who acts in us, in our very spirit.
To be baptized is to be immersed in the Trinity
When Jesus says to His disciples – and also to us – ‘Go!’, He is not just communicating a word. No. At the same time He is communicating the Holy Spirit, because it is only thanks to Him, thanks to the Spirit, that one can receive and carry it out Christ’s mission (Jn 20:21-22 –As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” 22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.).
In fact the Apostles remained closed up in the Upper Room out of fear until the day of Pentecost came and the Holy Spirit descended upon them (see Acts 2:1-13). And in that moment the fear was gone, and with His power these fishermen, mostly uneducated, will change the world. ‘But if they can’t speak…?’ But it is the word of the Spirit, the strength of the Spirit that carries them onward to change the world. The proclamation of the Gospel, then, is accomplished only in the power of the Spirit, who precedes the missionaries and prepares their hearts: He is ‘the motor of evangelisation.’
We discover this in the Acts of the Apostles, where on every page we see that the protagonist of the announcing is not Peter, Paul, Stephen, or Philip, but is the Holy Spirit. Staying with the Acts of Apostles, a key moment in the beginning of the Church is recounted, which can also tell us a lot. Then, as now, there was no lack of suffering, there were good and bad moments, joys and sorrows.
One worry in particular: how to deal with the Gentiles who came to faith, with those who did not belong to the Jewish people, for example. Were they or were they not obliged to follow the rules of the Mosaic Law? This was no small matter for those people. Thus, two groups were formed, between those who considered the observance of the Law indispensable and those who did not. In order to discern, the Apostles gathered in what is called the ‘Council of Jerusalem’. It was the first (council) in history. How to resolve the dilemma? They could have sought a good compromise between tradition and innovation: some rules are observed, and others are set aside. But the Apostles did not follow this human wisdom to find a diplomatic balance between the one and the other. They don’t follow it, but they adapted themselves to the work of the Spirit, who had anticipated them by descending on the pagans as He had descended on them.
And so, removing almost every obligation related to the law, they communicate the final decisions, made – and this is what they write – (Acts 15:28 – it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things), and this went out, ‘the Holy Spirit with us,’ and the Apostles always acted in this way.
Together, without being divided, in spite of their different sensibilities and opinions, they listen to the Spirit. And He teaches one thing, which is also valid today: every religious tradition is useful if it facilitates the encounter with Jesus. We could say that the historic decision of the first Council, from which we also benefit, was motivated by a principle, the principle of proclamation: everything in the Church must be adapted to the requirements of the proclamation of the Gospel; not to the opinions of the conservatives or the progressives, but to the fact that Jesus reaches people’s lives. Therefore, every decision, every practice, every structure, and every tradition is to be evaluated on the basis of whether it favors the proclamation of Christ. And when there are decisions in the Church – for example ideological divisions: ‘I am conservative because…’ ‘I am progressive because…’ But where is the Holy Spirit?
Pay attention that the Gospel is not an idea, the Gospel is not an ideology. The Gospel is an announcement that touches your heart and changes your heart. But if you take refuge in an idea, in an ideology, whether right or left or centre, you are making the Gospel a political party, an ideology, a club of people. The Gospel always gives you this freedom of the Spirit that acts in you and carries you forward. And how necessary it is today to take the freedom of the Gospel by the hand and let oneself be carried forward by the Spirit.
In this way the Spirit always illuminates the path of the Church. In fact, He is not only the light of hearts; He is the light that orients the Church: He brings clarity, helps to distinguish, helps to discern. That is why it is necessary to invoke Him often; let us also do so today, at the beginning of Lent. Because, as a Church, we can have well-defined times and places, well-organized communities, institutes and movements, but without the Spirit, everything remains soulless. The organization… it won’t do, it’s not enough: it is the Spirit who gives life to the Church. The Church, if it does not pray to Him and invoke Him, closes in on itself, in sterile and exhausting debates, in tiresome polarisations, while the flame of the mission is extinguished.
It is very sad to see the Church as if it were nothing more than a parliament.
The Church is something else. The Church is the community of men and women who believe and proclaim Jesus Christ, but moved by the Holy Spirit, not by their own reason.
Yes, you use your reason, but the Spirit comes to enlighten and move it. The Spirit makes us go forth, urges us to proclaim the faith in order to confirm ourselves in the faith, to go on mission to discover who we are. That is why the Apostle Paul recommends: ‘Do not quench the Spirit’ (1 Thess 5:19). Do not quench the Spirit. Let us pray often to the Spirit, let us call upon Him, let us ask Him every day to kindle his light in us. Let us do this before each encounter, to become apostles of Jesus with the people we find. Don’t extinguish the Spirit, neither in the community nor in each one of us.
Dear brothers and sisters, let us begin, and let us begin anew, as a Church, from the Holy Spirit. ‘It is undoubtedly important that in our pastoral planning we start from sociological surveys, analyses, the list of difficulties, the list of expectations and even complaints, this must be done, in order to touch reality. However, it is far more important to start from the experiences of the Spirit: this is the real starting point. And that is why it is necessary to look for them, to list them, to study them, to interpret them. It is a fundamental principle that, in the spiritual life, is called the primacy of consolation over desolation. First there is the Spirit who consoles, revives, enlightens, moves; then there will also be desolation, suffering, darkness, but the principle for adjusting in the darkness is the light of the Spirit’ (C. M. Martini, Evangelising in the Consolation of the Spirit, 25 September 1997). This is the principle to guide us in things we do not understand, in confusions, even in such great darkness, it is important. Let us ask ourselves, each one of us, let us ask ourselves if we open ourselves up to this light, if we give it space: am I invoking the Spirit?
Each one of us can answer within ourselves. How many of pray to the Spirit? ‘No, Father, I pray to Our Lady, I pray to the Saints, I pray to Jesus, sometimes I pray the Our Father, I pray to the Father…’ ‘And the Holy Spirit? Don’t you pray to the Holy Spirit, who is the one who moves your heart, who brings you consolation, who brings you the desire to evangelize, to go on mission?
Do I allow myself be guided by Him, who invites me not to close in on myself but to bear Jesus, to bear witness to the primacy of God’s consolation over the desolation of the world?
May our Lady, who has understood this well, help us to understand it.
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Summary of the Holy Father’s words
Dear Brothers and Sisters: In our continuing catechesis on apostolic zeal, the burning desire to share the joy of the Gospel, we now turn to the role of the Holy Spirit, sent by Jesus on the day of Pentecost to inaugurate the mission of the Apostles to make disciples of all nations. In the great missionary outreach of the early Church, the Holy Spirit appears as the driving force, preparing hearts to receive the Gospel and confirming the apostles in their witness to the risen Lord.
The momentous decision of the Council of Jerusalem not to require converts to observe the Mosaic law was the fruit of prayerful discernment and communicated with the formula, “it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” (Acts 15:28). In every age, the Spirit enlightens and guides the Church’s proclamation of the Gospel. Today, on Ash Wednesday, we are invited to invoke the light of the Spirit on our individual lives as followers of Christ and on the Church’s mission to bring the consolation of Jesus to the desolation of a world that thirsts for the justice, peace and reconciled unity that are the fruit of the Lord’s Passover from death to life at Easter.
