Pope: announcing mercy, the task of those who proclaim the Gospel
In a meeting with the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelisation, Francis stressed the contribution that individual peoples and cultures make to the journey of the People of God and to the complex interviewing of interpersonal relationships that allow people to experience the deep unity and humanity of the Community of believers.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Pope Francis today received the participants in the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelisation. The pontiff told them that at a time of a new culture, fruit of technology, the Church must urgently renew its efforts of evangelisation and continuously announce mercy. He also told them to preserve especially the fruits of the Jubilee of Mercy.
“This Holy Year was a moment of grace that the entire Church lived with great faith and intense spirituality. We cannot permit, therefore, that so much enthusiasm be diluted or forgotten. The People of God has strongly felt the gift of mercy and lived the Jubilee, rediscovering in particular the Sacrament of Reconciliation, as a special place for experiencing God’s goodness and tenderness, and His forgiveness that knows no bounds. The Church thus has the great responsibility of continuing tirelessly to be an instrument of mercy. In this way, it can easily be ensured that the welcome of the Gospel is perceived and lived as an event of salvation and may bring full and definitive meaning to personal and social life.”
“The announcement of mercy, which is made concrete and visible in the lifestyle of believers, lived in the light of the many works of mercy, belongs intrinsically to every evangeliser, who has discovered first-hand the call of the apostolate, precisely by virtue of the mercy reserved to him.”
With respect to evangelisation, Francis said that “It is necessary to discover ever more that it by nature belongs to the People of God. In this regard, I would like to underline two aspects.”
“The first is the contribution that the individual peoples and the respective cultures offer to the journey of the People of God. From every people towards which we go there emerges a wealth that the Church is called to recognise and value to bring to fulfilment the unity of “all the human race” of which it is a “sign” and “sacrament” (cf. Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, 1). This unity is not constituted “according to the flesh, but in the Spirit” (ibid.), which guides our steps. The richness that comes to the Church from the many good traditions that the individual peoples possess is valuable to give life to the action of grace that opens the heart to welcoming the announcement of the Gospel. They are authentic gifts that express the infinite variety of the creative action of the Father, and which merge in the unity of the Church to increase the necessary communion so as to be a seed of salvation, prelude of universal peace and concrete locus of dialogue.”
“Being an evangelising people (cf. Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 111) brings awareness – and it is the second aspect – of an appeal that transcends each individual personal willingness, to be inserted in a “complex interweaving of personal relationships” (ibid., 113), which enables the experience of the profound unity and humanity of the community of believers. And this applies in a particular way in a period such as ours, in which we are forced to face a new culture, the fruit of technology that, while it fascinates us for the conquests it offers, it makes equally evident the lack of a true interpersonal relationship and interest in the other. Few realities such as the Church can claim to have a knowledge of the people able to valorise that cultural, moral and religious heritage that constitutes the identity of entire generations. It is important, therefore, that we know how to penetrate into the heart of our people, to discover that sense of God and His love that offers the confidence and hope to look ahead with serenity, despite the grave difficulties and poverty that many are forced to live due to the greed of the few. If we are still able to look in depth, we will rediscover the genuine desire for God that makes restless the heart of many people who have fallen, despite themselves, into the chasm of indifference, that prevents them from savouring life and building their future serenely. The joy of evangelisation can reach them and restore to them the strength for conversion.”
.png)
