Food For Thought

Jun 27, 2014

Last year, Pope Francis said Pope Paul VI’s document, “Evangelii Nuntiandi,” or “Evangelization in the Modern World” was one of the “greatest pastoral documents that has ever been written to this day.”

Though the apostolic exhortation was written in 1975, it included words, Pope Francis said, that “are as timely as if they had been written yesterday.” That’s because evangelization has been a topic of importance for Pope Francis, whose own exhortation released late last year carried the topic to the forefront.

Evangelizing must be done in deeds and words, Pope Francis said in his first exhortation, “The Joy of the Gospel.” It also must be done with the true joy and happiness we experience from knowing what the Gospel asks of us.

“An evangelizer must never look like someone who has just come back from a funeral!” Another important part of evangelization is that it’s something we must partake in as a community, not as individuals, he said.

“An evangelizing community gets involved by word and deed in people’s daily lives; it bridges distances, it is willing to abase itself if necessary, and it embraces human life, touching the suffering flesh of Christ in others,” Francis said.