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"Go out to all the world and tell the good news." Pope Paul VI defined evangelization as "bringing the Good News into all strata of humanity and through its influence transforming humanity from within and making it new."
In their book entitled Creating the Evangelizing Parish , Paulist Fathers Frank DeSiano and Kenneth Boyack challenge us to accept this simple truth: each of us is called to be an evangelist, to “go out to all the world and tell the Good News,” and to give witness to the power and promise of God's redeeming love in our lives. (Paulist Press, 1993)
While the good news is essentially the same, the authors insist that the manner and method in which each of us evangelizes must be rooted in the state and stage of life in which we find ourselves. For a deeper understanding of what this means, they turn to our old friend and companion, Saint Francis de Sales:
“Saint Francis de Sales wrote a marvelous book entitled The Introduction to the Devout Life. In it he makes the simple yet profound point that a follower (a disciple) of Jesus should look at his or her situation in life and then live a Christian life accordingly. A wife and mother will find holiness in the way she lives in relation to her husband, and in taking care of the family. She could hardly leave her family many times each day, like monks or nuns, to attend Liturgy of the Hours...Her spirituality, her way of following Christ is determined by her vocation and lifestyle...and if she works, living out her vocation as a married woman bearing witness to Christ in the workplace.”
We are made in the image and likeness of God. We are redeemed by the life, love, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We are inspired and strengthened by the Holy Spirit. This acclamation is indeed Good News! This Good News should make a difference in our lives and in the lives of those with whom we love, live, work, pray, and play. This Good News should transform and renew us. Through us, this Good News offers the possibility of transformation and renewal to others. How we share this Good News -- how we evangelize -- depends on the person we are, where we are, and how we are. How we share this Good News must match the state, stage, circumstances, responsibilities, routines, and relationships in which we find ourselves each day. Following Jesus is not about forsaking our ordinary lives. No, it is about making real the life and love of God in our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and actions. Evangelization has a lot to do with what we say. After all, it is about “telling” something, which in this case, is the Good News of God. However, evangelization also has a lot to do (perhaps even more) with what we do. What we say is a convincing sign of God's love only insofar as it is congruent with how we relate to one another. By all means - by any means – “go out to all the world and tell the Good News” of God's love, God's forgiveness, God's justice, and God's peace. But most especially, do it in the places - with the people - where you live, work, pray, and play every day. And why not begin today?*
“I have been praying just now, and on asking myself why we have come into this world, I understood that we are here only to receive and to carry our sweet Jesus: on our tongue, in telling people about him; in our arms, in doing good works; on our shoulders, in carrying his yoke…O blessed are they who carry Him gently and with constancy!” (Stopp, Selected Letters, p. 168)
In the fullness of her humanity, who better than Mary to embody this way of carrying Jesus and sharing Jesus with others? In her saying “Yes” to being the Mother of God, Mary embodies the fullness of the two greatest commandments. She agrees to be the mother of the Messiah out of her love both for God and also for her neighbor. God certainly gave Mary the grace she needed to be worthy of the calling that he extended to her. Do we have faith that the same God gives us the grace we need to be faithful to the calling that God extends to us?*
“The first canonized saint of the New World has one characteristic of all saints—the suffering of opposition—and another characteristic which is more for admiration than for imitation—the excessive practice of mortification.”
“She was born to parents of Spanish descent in Lima, Peru, at a time when South America was in its first century of evangelization. She seems to have taken Catherine of Siena (April 29) as a model, in spite of the objections and ridicule of parents and friends.”
“The saints have so great a love of God that what seems bizarre to us and is indeed sometimes imprudent, is simply a logical carrying out of a conviction that anything that might endanger a loving relationship with God must be rooted out. So, because her beauty was so often admired, Rose used to rub her face with pepper to produce disfiguring blotches. Later, she wore a thick circlet of silver on her head, studded on the inside, like a crown of thorns.”
“When her parents fell into financial trouble, she worked in the garden all day and sewed at night. Ten years of struggle against her parents began when they tried to make Rose marry. They refused to let her enter a convent, and out of obedience, she continued her life of penance and solitude at home as a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic. So deep was her desire to live the life of Christ that she spent most of her time at home in solitude.”
“During the last few years of her life, Rose set up a room in the house where she cared for homeless children, the elderly, and the sick. This was the beginning of social services in Peru. Though secluded in life and activity, she was brought to the attention of Inquisition interrogators, who could only say that she was influenced by grace.”
“What might have been a merely eccentric life was transfigured from the inside. If we remember some unusual penances, we should also remember the greatest thing about Rose: a love of God so ardent that it withstood ridicule from within, violent temptation, and lengthy periods of sickness. When she died at 31, the city turned out for her funeral. Prominent men took turns carrying her coffin.” http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/Saints/saint.aspx?id=1116
We see in the example of Rose of Lima just one of many ways to “stand firm and hold fast to the Lord.” Today, how might we follow her example in our own way?*
“You can see how God – by progressive stages filled with unutterable sweetness – leads the soul forward and enables it to leave the Egypt of sin. He leads it from love to love, as from dwelling to dwelling, until He has made it enter into the Promised Land. By this, I mean that God brings it into most holy charity, which, to state it succinctly, is a form of friendship…Such friendship is true friendship, since it is reciprocal, for God has eternally loved all those who have loved Him, who now love Him or who will love Him in time…He has openly revealed all His secrets to us as to His closest friends…” (TLG, Book II, Chapter 22, pp. 160 - 161)
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is clear and unambiguous about the quality that makes Bartholomew (a.k.a., Nathaniel) a friend of God: “There is no guile in him.” There is no pretense in Bartholomew – nothing fake, nothing phony. Jesus sees him as a man who is real, authentic, and transparent. In other words, Jesus is an open book. In his Introduction to the Devout Life , Francis de Sales offered some practical advice regarding how to practice the virtue of guilelessness“Your language should be retrained, frank, sincere, candid, unaffected, and honest…As the sacred Scripture tells us, The Holy Spirit does not dwell in a deceitful or tricky soul. No artifice is so good and desirable as plain dealing. Worldly prudence and carnal artifice belong to the children of this world, but the children (the friends) of God walk a straight path and their hearts are without guile.” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 30, p. 206)
Today, do you want to be a friend of God? Then, like Bartholomew, strive to be guileless. Simply try to be yourself – nothing more and nothing less.*
“Saint Louis led an exemplary life. His biographers have told us of the long hours he spent in prayer, fasting, and penance, without the knowledge of his subjects. The French king was a great lover of justice. It was during his reign that the ‘court of the king’ (curia regis) was organized into a regular court of justice, having competent experts, and judicial commissions acting at regular periods.”
“He was renowned for his charity. ‘The peace and blessings of the realm come to us through the poor,’ he would say. Beggars were fed from his table, he ate their leavings, washed their feet, ministered to the wants of the lepers, and daily fed over one hundred poor. He founded many hospitals and houses: the House of the Felles-Dieu for reformed prostitutes; the Quinze-Vingt for three hundred blind men and the hospitals at Pontoise, Vernon, and Compiégne.”
“Saint Louis was a man of sound common sense, possessing indefatigable energy, graciously kind and of playful humor, and constantly guarding against the temptation to be imperious. His personal qualities as well as his saintliness greatly enhanced the prestige of the French monarchy. Boniface VIII canonized Saint Louis at Orvieto in 1297.” http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09368a.htm
In a letter addressed to Jane de Chantal’s son Celse-Benigne, Francis de Sales wrote:“Imagine that you were a courtier of Saint Louis. This holy king liked the people around him to be brave, courageous, generous, cheerful, courteous, affable, frank, and polite – but above all, he wanted them to be good Christians. If you had been with him, you would have seen him laugh merrily when the occasion offered, speak out boldly when the need arose, maintain a brave outward show of royal splendor and dignity (like another Solomon), and in the next moment you would have seen him serving the poor at the hospitals, and in short marrying civil virtue to Christian virtue, and majesty to humility. This, in a word, should be your aim: to be no less brave for being a Christian, and to be no less Christina for being brave.” (Stopp, Selected Letters, pp. 189 - 190)
Saint Louis was clearly the master of the house – he was the master of a kingdom. But what made him great as a master of both people and place was how he welcomed people into his home and into his heart.How might we follow his way of imitating the eternal Master by making room in our homes and our hearts for others - just this day?
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“For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” In the book Saints are not Sad (1949,) we read
“Holiness, in Francis de Sales’ conception of it, should be an all-around quality without abruptness or eccentricity. It should not involve the suppression in us of anything that is not in itself bad, for the likeness to God which in its essence must be incomplete in the proportion that it does not extend to the whole of us. So we must be truthful to ourselves and about ourselves, and we shall lose as much by not seeing the good that really is in us as by fancying that we see good that is not there at all. It is as right and due that we should thank God for the virtue that His grace has established in us as that we should ask His forgiveness for our sinfulness that hinders His grace.” (Select Salesian Subjects, # 0377, p. 85)
God calls us to holiness. God calls us to walk in his ways. Imperfect as we are, we can make great progress in this quest by accepting the grace of God, putting God’s grace to work in action, and relying on the love, support, and encouragement of others. This call to holiness also challenges us to be truthful with ourselves and about ourselves - to recognize what is good in us, as well as anything in us needing to be purified. While we will always be imperfect – while we will always be reminded of our weakness – we don’t need to be perfect to strive for perfection.Today, how can the “foolishness of God” help us to become sources of God’s strength today? Today, how can God help us to transform our weakness into greatness in the service of others today?
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“It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus…”
“Saint Monica was married by arrangement to a pagan official in North Africa, who was much older than she, and although generous, was also violent tempered. His mother lived with them and was equally difficult, which proved a constant challenge to Saint Monica. She had three children; Augustine, Navigius, and Perpetua. Through her patience and prayers, she was able to convert her husband and his mother to the Christian faith in 370. He died a year later. Perpetua and Navigius entered the religious life. Saint Augustine was much more difficult, as she had to pray for him for seventeen years, begging the prayers of priests who - for a while - tried to avoid her because of her persistence at this seemingly hopeless endeavor. One priest did attempt to encourage her by saying, ‘It is not possible that the son of so many tears should perish.’ This thought, coupled with a vision that she had received, strengthened her in her prayers and hopes for her son. Finally, Saint Augustine was baptized by Saint Ambrose in 387. Saint Monica died later that same year in the Italian town of Ostia, on the way back to Africa from Rome.” (http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=1)
We can all relate to Saint Monica. We all have people in our lives for whom we want the best. We all have people in our lives that we want to be happy. We all have people in our lives about whom we have concerns and heartaches. Of course, as much as we might love someone else, we cannot live their lives for them. Sometimes the most we can do is to pray for them, encourage them and support them. As for the rest, we need to leave it in the hands of God and hope that God will do His best.Saint Monica is a model of courage. We see in her struggles the power that flows from a life of prayer and perseverance. And while Augustine may have ultimately been converted to the way of Jesus Christ through divine intervention, the prayers of his mother probably played no small part in his conversion.
How can we imitate Monica’s example today, especially when it comes to loved ones about whom we care so deeply?
