Evangelization!
Evangelization!
As I write this reflection, we have Totus Tuus missionaries with us. They decided to take time in their summer and got trained to be the Totus Tuus missionaries and go to parishes to teach the faith to children and youth. Through our baptism, we all are called to be missionaries.
Some time ago I read a story of a prison chaplain. The chaplain went to talk with a man sentenced to die in the electric chair. He urged him to believe in Jesus Christ and be baptized; that forgiveness and eternity with God awaited him if only he would turn towards God. The prisoner said, "Do you really believe that?" "Of course, I do," replied the chaplain. "Go on," scoffed the prisoner. "If I believed that I would crawl on hands and knees over broken glass to tell others, but I don't see you Christians making any big thing of it!" He had a point.
We are in Eucharistic Revival Years and Maintenance to Mission Years. Both invite us to learn and relearn our faith. The reading reminds us that we are commissioned to be a missionary. In the first reading, God chose Amos to deliver His words to the people of Bethel. He was from the southern kingdom and worked in an orchard. God sent him to the northern kingdom. Amaziah, the chief priest in charge of the sanctuary, told Amos to go back to the south and learn to live because he was prophesying against King Jeroboam. In those days some prophets misled the people. We see in the book of Micah 3:5, “Thus says the LORD regarding the prophets: O you who lead my people astray, when your teeth have something to bite you announce peace but proclaim war against the one who fails to put something in your mouth.” Deuteronomy 18:22 says, “If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord but the word does not come true, it is a word the Lord did not speak. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; do not fear him.” Amos reacts strongly to Amaziah’s attempt to classify him as a “prophet for hire who earns bread” by prophesying. Amos said, I was no prophet, nor have I belonged to a company of prophets; I was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores. The LORD took me from following the flock, and said to me, Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”
The first reading prepares you to listen to the Gospel reading. Amos was a shepherd and farm worker whom God chose to be a prophet. Jesus chose twelve ordinary fishermen to proclaim the Good News. Jesus sent them two by two and gave the instruction. St. Gregory the Great suggests that Jesus sent out the disciples in pairs to signify that the twin precepts of charity: love of God and love of neighbor, are indispensable for the duty of Christian preaching. Jesus gave them authority. In the Gospel of Matthew 10:1, we read, “Then he summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over the unclean spirit to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness.” Jesus instructed them “To take nothing for the journey but a walking stick, no food, no sack, no money in their belt (Mark 6:8).” These detailed directions were indications for the need to move quickly and to be totally dependent on God’s care.
The second reading is a prayer of praising God in the form of benediction and thanksgiving for the many blessings he has showered, and God has accomplished in Jesus. Paul says, through Christ, God has given us a clear purpose in life—to praise and to serve God and one another—with the Holy Spirit as a helper in carrying out the task.
Pope Francis keeps reminding us that our Catholic faith is not primarily a bunch of rules to follow, rather, it's a relationship, and friendship with a real, living person Jesus Christ. A healthy life of prayer means that we spend time each day with that friend, listening to what he has to say to us, especially through the words of the Bible, and speaking to him about what's on our minds and hearts.
Bishop Powers in his pastoral letter he suggest four simple tasks for evangelization: 1. Pray everyday, 2. Invest in Christian friendship 3. Invest in relationships in your spheres of influence, 4. When someone opens up to you, respond.
Every time we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, God gives us nourishment through His Word and Body and Blood and we are sent out to proclaim the Good News. Once God sent Amos, Jesus sent His disciples, and today He sends each one of us with the same message. New Evangelization invites us to relearn our faith, renew our relationship with Christ and share with others.