Evangelize with your life – not by proselytism

Sep 16, 2016

VATICAN: Recalling the life of the Jesuit missionary St Peter Claver, Pope Francis said that the essence of evangelization is witness to Christ with one’s whole life.

In a Friday Mass in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta, the pope characterized evangelization as an art and a discipline – never a vaunt, never a task to be done by rote – and never, ever, “a walk in the park.”

“Sadly, however, there are some Christians today, who live their lives of service as though they were mere functionaries – priests and lay people who boast of what they do,” Pope Francis lamented.

“This reduces the Gospel to a function or even a source of pride: I go to preach the gospel and I’ve brought many people into the Church. To proselytize: that too is a source of pride.

To evangelize is not to proselytize,” he warned.

The correct “style” of evangelization is to “go and share in the lives of others: accompany them on their journey of faith, that they might grow in faith along their way,” the pope suggested.

He recalled an episode at World Youth Day in Krakow, when a boy asked him what he should say to an atheist friend.

“It’s a good question. We all know people far from the Church: what should we tell them?” Pope Francis noted.

“I said: ‘Look, the last thing you need to do is say something! begin to do, and he will see what you are doing and ask you about it; and when he asks you, then tell him.’ To evangelize is to give this testimony: I live the way I do, because I believe in Jesus Christ; I awaken in you a curiosity, so you ask me, ‘But why are you doing these things?’ The answer: ‘Because I believe in Jesus Christ and preach Jesus Christ and not just with the Word – you must proclaim the Word – but with your life.” -- Global Pulse