Living and Spreading the Good News
It’s still a pretty awesome thought, even if it’s been around since the Second Vatican
Council. Every single Christian, not just the clergy, is called to evangelize, to “preach
the gospel.”
St. Paul VI called it “the new evangelization.” What’s new about it is not loving
and hoping in Jesus Christ. No. What’s new about it is the evangelizers. Not just nuns
and priests like the old days, but all of us, married, single, nuns, priests, monks.
Now that the need to “shelter at home safe” is in the past, we might risk thinking
about going abroad and evangelizing. That’s not “going abroad” to, say, Singapore or
Addis Abba. Our “abroad” is right around us, waiting beyond the shelter at home. As
St Paul told the early Christians, let everyone continue in the part which the Lord has
allotted to them (1 Cor.7:17).
For each of us, that part allotted to us means that we are called to love the Lord
Jesus Christ in our day-to-day lives, and to love all the others in the world around us.
Loving and wishing well to everyone around us is the way we “go abroad.”
“Evangelizing” begins not with preaching, but with just being who I am—a loving
disciple of Jesus Christ.
If I live always joyful, constantly prayerful, and in all things giving thanks to the
Lord—those around me will surely notice (1 Thess. 5:16). It’s God’s work in me—and
I’m already continuing in the part which the Lord has allotted me—and doing the
“new evangelization.”
Fr. Joe Tetlow, S.J.