Casting Nets. Chris Stewart

the Moral Obligation to Evangelize

      The Church has always understood this mandate to sanctify humanity as the reason for her existence. However, in recent decades the pope and bishops have called for a new awareness of the need to evangelize and the universal call to every member of the Church. As Pope Paul VI wrote: “The presentation of the Gospel message is not an optional contribution for the Church. It is the duty incumbent on her by the command of the Lord Jesus, so that people can believe and be saved. This message is indeed necessary. It is unique. It cannot be replaced. It does not permit either indifference, syncretism or accommodation. It is a question of people’s salvation.”¹ Indeed, salvation is on the line, especially if we are not willing to offer Christ’s saving grace to others.

      Our very identity as followers of Christ is connected with our willingness to bring others to Him. St. John Paul II once said, “No Christian community is faithful to its duty unless it is missionary: either it is a missionary community or it is not even a Christian community.”² If a person does not participate in the evangelization mandate then he or she will be, as declared by the Second Vatican Council, “useful neither to the Church nor to himself.”³

      If we are ever looking for a measuring stick for our own personal faith, then Pope Benedict XVI offered our desire to evangelize as the marker: “Indeed, every Christian community is born missionary, and it is precisely on the basis of the courage to evangelize that the love of believers for their Lord is measured.”⁴ Thus, when we look at the saints, we see them constantly working to bring everyone to Christ. Our love for God can be directly measured by our willingness to evangelize.

      The Catechism of the Catholic Church also connects evangelization to our own salvation: “The disciple of Christ must not only keep the faith and live on it, but also profess it, confidently bear witness to it, and spread it: ‘All however must be prepared to confess Christ before men and to follow him along the way of the Cross, amidst the persecutions which the Church never lacks.’ Service of and witness to the faith is necessary for salvation.”⁵

      A challenge that Pope Benedict XVI set before us is the question of whether or not each one of us has done the most for our own salvation: “As Christians we should never limit ourselves to asking: how can I save myself? We should also ask: what can I do in order that others may be saved and that for them, too, the star of hope may rise? Then I will have done my utmost for my own personal salvation as well.”⁶

      Are we ready to do everything we can for our own salvation? Are we ready to do everything we can for another’s salvation?

       The Seven Pillars of Effective Evangelization

      We have seen that evangelization is at the heart of the Church’s identity; it is the reason she exists, and it is a task given to all its members. Therefore, evangelization cannot be put into a formula such as “do A, then B, and finally C, and then we will have effective evangelization.” The bishops of the United States wrote: “The New Evangelization offers hope. Our hope is not in a program or philosophy but in the person of Jesus Christ, who comforts those who are burdened.”⁷ Thus we are offering “pillars” and not “steps.” “Pillars” create the foundation that make “steps” possible.

      The Seven Pillars are meant to be foundational attitudes or principles that will allow effective evangelization to take place. They show us what evangelization requires in order to work properly—namely:

      • a certain level of awareness that the time to spread the Gospel is now and the place is everywhere;

      • a heart that listens to the movements of the Holy Spirit and is ready to act upon those promptings;

      • a mind that is formed by the teachings of the Church and is prepared to share those teachings with the world;

      • and a will that is obedient to the Church and humble enough to bear sufferings in order to witness to the love that Christ has for humanity.

      An individual, a family, a parish, a ministry, or an entire diocese—anyone can use The Seven Pillars. We can incorporate them into our current programs or our new programs. The pillars can shape the practice of a family or a parish council. Most importantly, they are foundational principles that must shape each of our lives.

      We believe these principles are universal. We have seen them at work in every program or individual that was able to successfully bring the Good News to others. And we can find all of these pillars in the life of Jesus. Indeed, we ought to learn from the Master how we can best love people into the kingdom of God.

       Pillar 1

       Prayerful—The Principle

      A great story is told that St. Pius X once asked a group of cardinals, “What does the Church need today?” One cardinal answered, “Schools.” More Catholic schools seemed like a reasonable answer. The Holy Father responded, “No.” Another cardinal volunteered, “More churches.” The Holy Father again responded, “No.” Yet another cardinal answered, “Better recruitment of priests.” His Holiness finally answered, “No. What we need are holy laymen.” What the Church needs now is for all its members to seek holiness relentlessly. In order to obtain this holiness we have got to be first and foremost a people of prayer.

      Every time Jesus had a decision to make or a momentous act coming up, He went to pray. Whether it was the beginning of His public ministry (see Mt 4:1-11), choosing the Twelve Apostles (Lk 6:12-15), before big miracles (Lk 5:16; Mk 1:35-37; 6:46), the Transfiguration (Lk 9:28-29), or before His suffering and death (Mt 26:36-45), Jesus was always seeking to communicate with His Father. Jesus was such a model of prayer that His disciples asked Him to teach them how to pray (Lk 11:1). It is often forgotten that Jesus even prayed intercessory prayer when He prayed for Peter (Lk 22:32) and when He prayed for us (Jn 17:20-26). Since Jesus chose to make prayer a part of His effective ministry, every effective evangelist must be a person steeped and overflowing in prayer in order to bring Jesus Christ to others.

      There is a well-known adage that says, “You can’t give what you don’t have.” This can apply to many things in life including evangelization. The goal of evangelization is to share with others the truth that is Jesus Christ, but if we are unfamiliar with what that truth means for our own lives, then we will not have the truth to share with others. The pressing question remains: How can we bring Christ to others if we do not know Christ? Prayer is the “place” where we encounter God and speak to Him about our deepest concerns and our most heartfelt desires. Prayer is where God speaks His truth to us. Prayer is where we become fully alive in Christ; it is where we find peace, comfort, confidence, mercy, and most importantly an unquenchable love.

      We have to keep in mind what Dr. Scott Hahn shares: “God is more concerned with sanctifying me than He is with sanctifying others through me.”⁸ Obviously this does not mean we should not be evangelizing, but instead it means that there is a priority to this process. We fly on planes quite often and probably could recite the safety instructions by the flight attendants. The attendants instruct the passengers that “in the case of emergency secure your own oxygen mask before assisting others.” We have to be breathing before we can help others. Once we are “breathing” a life of prayer, once we have these encounters in our interior life, we can then say “we have it.” We have the life, love, and light of Christ. Once we have it, we can then give it.

      In order to be disciples who are effective in our evangelization efforts we must intensify our effort of bringing ourselves closer to Christ. Pope Francis described this challenge for all evangelists:

      Spirit-filled evangelizers means evangelizers fearlessly open to the working of the Holy Spirit. At Pentecost, the Spirit made the apostles go forth from themselves and turned them into heralds of God’s wondrous deeds, capable of speaking to each person in his or her own language. The Holy Spirit also grants the courage to proclaim the newness of the Gospel with boldness (parrhesía) in every time and place, even when it meets with opposition. Let us call upon him today, firmly rooted in prayer, for without