It is Easter and we have been sent, but we cannot evangelize, we cannot bring the good new that is Jesus, without witnessing to our personal encounter with Him. This is because we aren’t trying to “transmit an ideology or a ‘doctrine’ on God,” rather we are sharing God who is living in us, Pope Francis said at a general audience last month.
Pulling from what Pope Paul VI wrote about in 1975, Francis then posed 3 fundamental questions to ask ourselves: Do you believe in what you are proclaiming? Do you live what you believe? Do you preach what you live? “A person is credible if there is harmony between what he or she believes and lives.” We, as church, must be “a Church that dialogically encounters the contemporary world, that weaves fraternal relationships, that generates spaces of encounter, implementing good practices of hospitality, of welcome, of recognition and integration of the other and of otherness, and that cares for the common home that is creation.”
Let us ask ourselves these three questions that Pope Francis presents so that both we and the Church can grow and be transformed. As Joan Chittister, O.S.B., might add we need to be transparent: “People, hearing what we say, should know what we think. Seeing what we do with our lives, people can infer what we care about and how we think about things. If we say one thing but think another, somewhere, somehow, it all begins to seep out. Worst of all, the burden of hiding exhausts a person from the soul on out.”
Guided by the Holy Spirit, who Pope Francis calls the “agent of evangelization,” and "nourished by prayer and love for the Eucharist," we will find harmony between what we believe and how we live. That is good news indeed.
Showcasing SHA talent: Adrian in 4th is so excited to tell the good news he's shouting it from the top of the Eiffel Tower.
God bless,
Mrs. Alhadef
Campus Minister
4th Grade Aide
Jr. High ELA Aide