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September 6, 2020
Third in a series
By John and Therese Boucher | Special to The CFP
Jesus wants to give us an inner fire, and a new boldness to evangelize, that comes from the joy of encountering him and knowing the magnificent love of his Spirit. As Pope Francis wrote, “Every Christian is a missionary to the extent that he or she has encountered the love of God in Christ Jesus” (The Joy of the Gospel, 120). Or as the preparation document for the 2012 Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization states, “The Gospel can only be transmitted on the basis of ‘being’ with Jesus and living with Jesus… ; and, in a corresponding way, of ‘feeling’ compelled to proclaim and share what is lived as a good and something positive and beautiful” (12).
Just as Jesus promised a new Pentecost to the apostles (Acts 1:8), he promises us a new outpouring of his Holy Spirit, who is the source of zeal, compassion, and all the gifts that we need to evangelize. Like the disciples and apostles in the early Church, God will grant us as many “Pentecosts,” or outpourings of the Spirit, as we need, to share the good news about Jesus in daily life.
The gift of zeal is just one of many different gifts and charisms that grow in us as we surrender more completely to the Holy Spirit as missionary disciples. Since the Holy Spirit is the principal agent of evangelization, our challenge is to receive him as a divine person who loves us and who wants to be our teacher.
So, we ask the Spirit to fill us and to empower us to continue Christ’s mission. We give him permission to endow us with all the spiritual gifts we need to reach out to people with the good news. Each of us must, as Pope St. John Paul II urged, “allow ourselves to be filled with the ardor of the apostolic preaching which followed Pentecost. We must revive in ourselves the burning conviction of Paul, who cried out: ‘Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!’” (At the Beginning of the New Millennium, 40).
Jesus was sent into the world by God the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. John’s Gospel recounts that Jesus “became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14). He came as the missionary (Latin for “one who is sent”). He leapt across time, space, languages, age groups, and cultures to reveal God’s unconditional love for us. His mission gave birth to the Church.
And we, his disciples, are also sent, with no less of a calling than that of a missionary who leaves family and travels around the world for the sake of the Gospel. Even though we might only leave our front door, when we step out of that door we are in mission territory, sent out in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. That is why the last thing we hear at a Sunday liturgy is to “go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.”
So where do we go from here? In future articles, we will talk more specifically about four simple ways to bring the good news of Jesus to those whom we encounter each day. Through praying for them, showing we care, sharing our faith in conversations, and inviting them into our faith communities, we can be a part of the New Evangelization that our world so desperately needs at this time of pandemic suffering.
(This article was taken from the June 2020 issue of “The Word Among Us magazine,” wau.org.
Used with permission. The book “Sharing the Faith That You Love,” by John and Therese Boucher, from which these articles were adapted, is available at www.bookstore.wau.org.)
PHOTO:Demonstrators in Boston hold hands in a rally against racial inequality Aug. 31, 2020, one week after Jacob Blake, a Black man from Kenosha, Wis., was shot by police while three of his children looked on. (CNS photo/Brian Snyder, Reuters)
