Our salvation lies in invoking the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ as "My Lord and my God", like St. Thomas did (John 20:28). Whoever believes, whoever has faith, will be saved (Mark 16:16). However, to invoke Christ, one must have faith; for a person to have faith he must listen to the Word, and someone has to proclaim the Word of God to him. This someone or herald cannot be just a means of communication, nor can it be the Bible by itself.
If we were to parachute heaps of Bibles down to an isolated tribe, the fact of reading and rereading the Bible would not be enough for the natives to have faith. Someone from a Christian community has to go and proclaim the Word to them. Someone to share with them his own experience, his testimony, that is, someone who will proclaim to them what the God he believes in has done in his life.
The Bible is the Word of Life, that is why it can only be proclaimed by someone who lives it, who embodies it or strives to embody it. Faith is like a beneficial virus that passes from person to person, faith is contagious and only passes from the one who has it by contagion, that is, from the one whose faith works wonders in his life.
John 1:14 – "The Word became flesh and lived among us" – Salvation for the world came when the eternal Word of God became flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Salvation for each of us is not automatic, it passes by means of faith which opens doors to the things of God; however, we only experience this salvation if we gradually incarnate this Word.
When the Word becomes flesh of our flesh, that is, when we change our heart, soul and mind in such a way that our works and our behavior in daily life and in every situation is regulated by the agenda of the Gospel. When like St. Paul we can at last say, "It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20), then we can say that we are Christians, that is, another Christ on earth.
Preach the Gospel at all times, when necessary, use words. Saint Francis of Assisi
An authentic and genuine Christian, by the very fact of being so, is a missionary. "The mouth speaks out of the abundance of the heart", therefore if the mouth does not speak it is because there is no abundance in the heart. A glass when it is full of water or wine spills out; if it overflows, it is a proof that it is full, and if it does not overflow, it is a proof that it is not yet full. As St. Francis says, the Christian is already a missionary simply because he is a Christian.
The daily life of an authentic and genuine Christian is lived by being the salt of the earth and the light of the world. (Matthew 5:13-16). His living is evangelizing per se, because it shows the path of being a Christian to so many other people.
The opposite is also true: when a person claims to be a Christian but his life does not coincide at all with the Gospel, then instead of being a stepping stone to help others in the ascending Christian way of Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, he is instead a stumbling block, which in Greek is called "scandal", who causes others to fall. He is an anti-evangelizing counter witness that is like a Pharisee of Jesus' time who does not enter nor let others enter into salvation, or is not saved nor allows others to be saved.
The Incarnate Word makes a Christian authentic. This Christian becomes an announcing Word which, in turn, leads those who see and hear it incarnated to be able to incarnate it as well. The Annunciation of the angel led to the incarnation of the Word; every annunciation of someone who incarnated the Word leads to another incarnation. This movement cannot be stopped; annunciation - incarnation - annunciation - incarnation... "ad infinitum", from generation to generation till the end of the world.
The testimony of someone who has faith provokes faith in the one who hears it. This professed faith opens the door to experience, that is, it leads the listener to experience for himself the salvation presented in the testimony of the evangelizer: once he has experienced this salvation, he himself becomes an evangelizer, he himself becomes a missionary, or turns into someone who bears witness to the wonders the Lord has worked in him.
Since every disciple becomes a master or teacher, faith in someone else’s testimony leads to my own experience, to personally verify what they tell me, and when I begin to feel or experience the same thing, that is, salvation, I too become a missionary. It is like that the woman who was suffering from an ailment and took a special tea that healed her; once health was experienced (salvation means health) she went and announced to her friends and neighbours, to the four winds, the benefits of that tea.
This model or paradigm of spreading the Gospel, Faith - Experience - Mission, is already found in the Gospels themselves: in Mary, mother of the Lord, in the episode of the Samaritan woman, in Mary Magdalene, and in the disciples of Emmaus. Let us look here at the episode of the Samaritan woman, Mary Magdalene and the disciples of Emmaus, leaving Mary, mother of the Lord, for when we speak of the Mission. In the Gospel of John, Jesus calls Andrew who then shares his experience of having found the messiah with his brother Simon.
Andrew and John – John 1:36-42
The Church placed John the Baptist’s birth in the summer solstice, when the daylight begins to decrease, and the birth of Jesus in the winter solstice, when the daylight begins to increase. This is because John said, “He (referring to Jesus) must increase, but I must decrease." In putting this plan into practice, John gives his disciples to Jesus; the two of them, Andrew the brother of Simon Peter and John the brother of James, point out Jesus and say:
Here is the Lamb of God – This is a statement coming from a priest because John the Baptist being the son of a priest (Zechariah) was himself ipso facto a priest. As John the Evangelist says in his Gospel, John the Baptist is not the Light, he came to bear witness to the Light, so he points his finger at Jesus saying that He is the last immolated lamb, He is going to replace the sacrificial system.
Come, and see. They went and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day — Andrew and John believed in the Baptist's testimony and set out to follow Jesus, to find out where he lived, what was his doctrine, and what was his identity. Veni vidi vincit, I came, I saw, I conquered. They experienced Jesus as someone who is meek and humble of heart and whose doctrine is not like the heavy burden of the Law of Moses but like a gentle and light yoke.
We have found the Messiah (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus – After the experience, they were so won over and so happy to have found the Messiah that they did not rest until they went to share that joy with their closest ones, in this case, Andrew's brother, Simon. There are certain joys that if a person does not share them, will burst forth. Shared sadness diminishes, shared joy increases.
The Samaritan Woman - John 4:1-41
On the road between Judea and Galilee, Jesus passed by Samaria and drank from the well of Sychar where centuries earlier, Jacob had met his beloved Rachel. There Jesus met a woman who, at that time of day, came looking for love with the excuse of coming for water. Fountains and wells have always been places of encounter between lovers, because they are ones of the few places where women can go protected under the subterfuge of fetching water.
Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty - You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you (St. Augustine) – Jesus plays the same game as the Samaritan woman, since his asking for water is only a subterfuge to give the Samaritan woman what her heart longs for: the love of God, a faithful love, an everlasting love that frees her from coming obsessively over and over again to draw water from the well, that is, that frees her to going from lover to lover, breaking her heart over and over again.
Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water - The Samaritan woman found in Jesus the source of divine love, a water that flows from within towards eternal life. Human love fills our hearts, but not totally; on the other hand, it makes us dependent on the other. Divine love fills our hearts completely, it does not make us dependent, but free. "Let nothing disturb you, nothing frighten you, all things are passing, God is unchanging. Patience gains all; nothing is lacking to those who have God: God alone is sufficient." (St. Teresa of Avila)
Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he? – As she undergoes the experience of divine love, by feeling within her heart the love of God, the Samaritan woman is so happy that she cannot fail to transmit to her countrymen the testimony of such a sublime experience. The proof that she did not come to draw water in the first place lies in the fact that she left her pitcher at the well, which also proves that her thirst was, once and for all, satisfied.
Many Samaritans from that city believed in Him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done. – Jesus gave the Samaritan woman a reading of her past in the light of the present, of the experience of God's love. The Samaritan woman no longer had to hide her past or be ashamed of it, because it was revealed to her in a new light, as stages in the process of coming to know true love.
It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world – All that I do is to sit on this bank and sell water from the river, said an evangelizer; the business thrives because buyers do not see the river; from the moment they see the river for themselves, they no longer need me to sell water to them, they can come here to get it themselves. The Samaritans no longer need to believe in the testimony of their countrywoman, they do not need to have faith since they met Jesus themselves and experienced firsthand Jesus' salvation.
Mary Magdalene - John 20:1-18
Mary Magdalene, the leader of Jesus' female disciples, like Peter was of the male disciples, is the apostle of the apostles because the male group did not show any empathy for the Master while he was sweating blood and shedding tears of anguish, and they fell asleep even though he asked them to keep him company. Mary Magdalene stood at the foot of the cross of her Master without him asking her to, while among the male disciples, the administrator of the group, Judas, sold Him out, the president Peter cowardly denied Him and the rest fled like frightened chickens.
Mary Magdalene witnessed the death and burial of the Master. She was the only disciple to bear witness to this event, because Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were secret friends of Jesus, and though powerful, they never did anything for Jesus while he was alive; gnawed by their conscience for having being part of the silent majority of Sanhedrin who condemned Jesus, they wanted to at least give him a burial.
In the end, despite the male disciples having behaved so poorly towards the Master, Mary Magdalene went to them when she did not find the Master’s body after having gone to the tomb to pay homage to him early in the morning. If it were not for her, they would never have known that the tomb was empty; she is the herald of the pre-Resurrection, that is, of the empty tomb which for the beloved disciple was sufficient, because on leaning over the empty tomb, he believed that Jesus had risen and not because someone had stolen his body.
Jesus said to her, ‘Mary! She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabouni! (which means Master). – Seeing, I had seen; it was that particular voice by the way he pronounced her name that revealed to Mary Magdalene that He was not the gardener, but her Master or Teacher.
Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father – The natural temptation is to hold onto the feet of the Master and weep over them tears of joy after having exhausted tears of sorrow. But Jesus cannot be stopped as he no longer belongs to this world. And she, having experienced the Risen Christ, cannot be stop either as she must go and proclaim to the apostles that the Master is alive after all.
Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her – Mary Magdalene runs, now for the second time, to the apostles; this time not to tell them that they had stolen the body of the Lord, but that he has risen from the dead and thus confirming the faith the beloved disciple had manifested before the empty tomb.
Disciples of Emmaus – Luke 24:13-35
Cleofas and his wife were leaving Jerusalem much disillusioned, there was nothing left in this city that caught their attention. Jesus of Nazareth had been up to that point, the reason for their living. They had no doubt that he was a great prophet, mighty in word and deed, as even the crowd knew and could bear witness; they, however, had hoped that he would be more than a prophet, that he would be the long-awaited one of the nations, the Messiah in person.
Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures – Jesus helps the disciples of Emmaus to contextualize his death, that is, to read his death in the context of the scriptures. That he was indeed the Messiah as they had hoped, but a different type of messiah, one who comes to overcome not only the evil that affects Israel, but the evil that affects the entire world; the one who comes to deliver not only Israel from the Romans, but to give true freedom to every creature.
‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them – As their hearts were burning, as they begin to understand the scriptures in a new enlightened and revealing light, as their joy was growing, they wanted to know more and did not want to lose his company, therefore they invited the stranger to stay with them.
Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him (…) ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ – Jesus reveals himself in the breaking of the bread, a gesture so characteristic of Jesus as they had experienced it so many times before. The way Jesus broke the bread was unusual, as unusual as it had been on the morning of that day, the way Jesus had pronounced the name of Mary Magdalene. We have reached the height of the revelation, the Eucharist was completed with the communion with the Master, preceded by the Liturgy of the Word carried out as they were walking.
That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem – "Ite, missa est" (go, the Mass is ended), said the priest when the Mass was in Latin, which really means that the Mass has ended, now the Mission begins. The life of the Christian takes place between Mass and Mission; it is a coming and going between the community expression of our faith and living it in life; a coming and going between communion with God in Mass and communion with our brothers and sisters in life. "Ite, missa est" means both that the "Mass is over" and "you are on a mission".
FAITH
Many heard St. Paul’s preaching at the Areopagus in Athens. Most did not believe, but there were some who did. Surely everyone heard the same words of St. Paul, his testimony, yet some believed and others did not. Faith as a gift from God is given to all, but not everyone accepts this gift, some choose not to accept it.
Faith as an option
We often refer to faith as a gift from God. Saint Paul says, it is the Spirit within us who cries out, “Abba, Father!” (Rom. 8:15). Jesus says that it was He who chose us and not us Him (John 15:16). If faith is a gift from God, then why do some have it and others do not? Is it a case of an unjust God who gives faith to some and not to others? So is faith a gift or an option? Or is it both?
Everything starts from God, the initiative is from Him, therefore faith is a gift; but the gift has no effect without our response, without our assent, and therefore faith is also an option. We are saved freely by the grace of God, through faith. Faith is our answer to God's saving grace.
In this sense, faith is a round-trip ticket; it is like a letter that God sends us, registered and with acknowledgement of receipt: it is necessary that I accept the letter and sign the accompanying document. Faith is like a blank check that God signs and sends to me; for this check to have value or to serve me, I have to write on it an amount of money.
Salvation is a free gift from God, faith in God’s salvation is a free choice of man. Someone said that God feeds the birds of the sky, but He does not put the food in their nests, they have to go out and get it.
On Sunday morning, Mary Magdalene and the apostle John saw the empty tomb; the first saw and thought that they had stolen the Lord's body, the second saw and believed that Jesus had risen from the dead.
Jesus reproaches and points the finger at the lack of faith of the people of his generation (Matthew 17:17, Mark 6:6, Luke 24:25), as well as of his disciples (Mark 16:14). If faith were not an option, and it were only a gift from God, there would be no reason for such rebuke.
Jesus, bitter because the Pharisees did not want to believe, neither in John the Baptist nor in Himself, weeps over Jerusalem and condemns the cities, where more miracles were done and still they did not believe. In the end he praises children and the humble ones, because unlike the wise, they believed and accepted his message (Matthew 11:16-24).
When we discover faith, we realize that it is a gift from God. However, it is first the option that we make before the testimony of someone who is happy because he believed, like Elizabeth said to her cousin Mary at the Visitation.
I cannot believe
Faith that does not come from reason must be called into question, and the reason that does not lead to faith must be feared. Mr. Campbell Morgan
To believe is to give the heart. Christian Bobin
Faced with an existence of God that cannot be proved or disproved unequivocally, it is up to us to decide, that is, to choose. Both theism and atheism are options, while agnosticism chooses not to choose. Several agnostics have told me "I cannot believe". In psychotherapy, when someone says "I cannot", the therapist translates it as "I do not want to".
For example, let us suppose the patient says, "I can't quit smoking"; the therapist asks, "Is quitting smoking impossible?" to which the patient replies "No, others have quit", and the therapist concludes "You do not want to quit smoking, because if you really wanted to, you would quit, because as the people say, "Where there is a will there is a way".
The same can be said of the agnostic or atheist who says "I cannot believe". To believe is not impossible: many believe, if you do not believe it is because you do not want to believe or because this attitude of not believing is more convenient to you. I have encountered many who are agnostics because this is in fashion and because they are full of prejudices about faith, religion, the Church and those who are religious.
(...) choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. Joshua 24:15
Faith is not an object of science, nor is science an object of faith. Scientific knowledge convinces us, satisfies our rationality completely without room for doubt; faith is not like that. Reason helps us with faith, but not in a rational or reasonable way.
Reason is not able to rationalize faith completely, it can only make it reasonable; the rest comes from it being our gift. That is why it is said that faith is a reasonable gift, because reason takes us to a certain point, then we are on our own: either we take the leap or do not leap, we open the door or do not open, we trust or do not trust, we give in or do not give in, we surrender or do not surrender. Faith is therefore an option.
‘Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?’ Luke 16:10-11
Whoever has lost faith, can no longer lose anything else. Publilius Syrus
"The thief assumes that everyone is like him" – Whoever does not trust is not trustworthy, since he is not trustworthy, he is not to be trusted. Because he judges others as he judges himself, and since he is a thief, he thinks everyone is a thief like him, he does not believe that anyone can be different.
Faith is in the spiritual sphere what money is in the commercial sphere. Anonymous
Faith is lived not only in religion, nor is reason lived only in science. Faith and reason are parts of a whole and we need them in our daily lives. Practically every act contains a bit of reason and a bit of faith. In our lives, reason analyzes and faith decides; without reason we would decide prematurely and make more mistakes than we already do; without faith we would never decide, never risk a solution to our problems, because we would always think that something may have escaped our analysis and we become paralyzed.
When I accept a check for a service rendered, I trust that it will not bounce. It would be impolite and I could lose a friend if had I refused it in the first place. When I get on a plane, I trust that the security personnel did a good job in preventing someone from putting a bomb in his luggage, and I believe that the pilots are highly skilled and with good intent. When I sit down to eat in a restaurant, I trust that the food is in good condition and I do not to have it analyzed in the laboratory before consuming it; it is the lack of faith and the fear of poisoning that people make the cooks in Ethiopia always taste the food in front of the guests.
When I join a woman in marriage, I believe it will work out, that it will be for life. When I apply for a bank loan, no matter how much the bank analyzes my financial situation, if they eventually grant me the requested loan, it is because they believe that one day I will pay it back with interest. The credit card is, at the end of the day, a faith card, and it works based on it; we speak of faith in the markets as we speak of faith in God. In short, faith is not only the exchange currency between us and God, but it is also the exchange currency among humans.
Since man is not an object of science, in everyday life there are no certainties, only probabilities. Like reason, faith is essential in human relationships for understanding between people. It is based on the trust that people have of each other, that promises and commitments are made and honored. Since the one who does not trust is not faithful, to be faithful one must believe, one must have faith.
Original trust or distrust
“The meek lamb sucks milk from its mother and from somebody else’s mother, the big-headed lamb however is restless and suspicious even when it is sucking milk from its own mother”. Portuguese Proverb
Many of our positions, choices and ideas regarding God, others and life, for as much as it pains us to admit it, have more to do with our vital and existential experience than with our discernment and intellectual research.
Used to seeing babies nursing peacefully at their mothers' breasts, I found it anecdotal when I saw some babies in Ethiopia suckle on one breast, while putting their hand on the other, as if to say "I am not done with this one, the other one is mine too, nobody takes it away from me while I am suckling on this one."
Psychologist Erik Erikson speaks of the original trust or distrust that the baby receives from conception to birth and during the first years of his life. When the baby is born, he already knows instinctively what awaits him, because he already was or was not accepted while growing inside of his mother's womb.
Primary trust, that is, faith, acquired in the mother's womb and not defrauded during the first years of life is a fundamental condition for an authentic, successful and happy human life. The lack of this original trust can be the basis for the choice of agnosticism, atheism, for lack of faith in general and mistrust of others, and the attitude of always having one foot behind.
Cultivating faith
Jesus said to him, ‘If you are able! – All things can be done for the one who believes.’ Immediately the father of the child cried out, ‘I believe; help my unbelief!’ Mark 9:23-24
‘(...) if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there”, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.’ Matthew 17:20
Faith increases by prayer, is strengthened by the study of the Word, and is fulfilled when we submit daily to the Lord Jesus. J. Charles Stern
It is clear from the Bible that faith is not a static and unchanging gift from God. There is certainly a component of faith that is God’s gift and as such, is common to all his children, but then there is the possibility of growing in this gift or letting it diminish and losing it completely. Everything in life is dynamic and faith is no exception. God also assists us in the growth of this gift, but there must be an effort on our part; God does not help lazy people.
Growing through prayer – Through prayer we communicate with God and put ourselves in a dynamic of increasing our knowledge of God, and at the same time increasing our love for Him. As in human relationships, God only reveals himself to those who love him; therefore, the more knowledge the more love, the more love the more knowledge.
Study – Basically, the encounter with the Word of God, the Scriptures, grows in those who read them with an attitude of meditation, to find in them the food for each day. Every Christian is free to interpret the Scriptures for himself with the help of the Holy Spirit.
In our reading, it is appropriate to take into account the interpretation that the Holy Church makes of the Scriptures as described in the tradition of the Church in her two centuries of following the Master. The Magisterium is the authorized word on the Scripture, we can interpret it in our own way, but never against the interpretation of the Church.
We Catholics have a particular devotion to those who have preceded us in the life of faith. Our devotion and veneration of them must be translated as an imitation of their virtues and an exhortation for us to follow the Master as they did.
Practice of the sacraments - Above all, is the need to belong to a small Christian community; "Unus christianus, nullus christianus", just as the disciples needed a master, every Christian needs to belong, to associate with a group of people who share the same faith. This group of people gradually becomes a community of life when they share the practice of faith and celebrate the memory of the Life, Death and Resurrection of the Lord.
EXPERIENCE
We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life – this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us – we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 1 John 1:1-3
The experience of Jeremiah 15:16 and Ezekiel 3:1-3
O mortal, eat what is offered to you; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat. He said to me, Mortal, eat this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it. Then I ate it; and in my mouth it was as sweet as honey. Ezekiel 3:1-3
So I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll; and he said to me, “Take it, and eat; it will be bitter to your stomach, but sweet as honey in your mouth.’ So I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it; it was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter. Then they said to me, ‘You must prophesy again about many peoples and nations and languages and kings.’ Revelation 10:9-11
The prophet Jeremiah and the prophet Ezekiel, as well as the author of the book of Revelation, all have the same experience with respect to the Word of God; it is sweet to the palate, it is pleasant to hear it because it tells the truth and we are convinced that it is the truth. However, assimilating it, digesting it and above all putting it into practice is hard.
It is true that the Word of God is the only way, truth and life and only with it will we be happy and feel fulfilled, because it is the lid for our pot, it appeals to our human nature that cannot be lived otherwise. That is why the Word is the Word of Life, because only in it and through it we can have an authentic and true life.
However, our nature is weakened and made fragile by the first sin of Adam and Eve; our nature is a fallen nature and our inclination towards evil has become, like the first sin, a second nature almost as natural as the one that God gave us.
From experience to Metanoia
(…) ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ And pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.’ Matthew 12:48-50
To go through the experience of Christ is to embody the Word, it is to eat it like Jeremiah did, to digest it and extract from it the food for spiritual life, like we do from vegetables, cereals, meat, fish and fruits for our physical life. To go through the experience of God is metanoia, that is, to change our mind, to change our ideas; since the mind governs our lives, when we change our mind or ideas, we also change our behavior and our deeds.
It is, on the other hand, to have the same experience as Mary; when we have the faith that she had, we conceive Jesus as she did, through the work and grace of the Holy Spirit, which is in fact what makes us cry out, “Abba, Father!”. Once Jesus is conceived in our womb through faith, He grows inside of us as he did inside of Mary; and when it is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me, as St. Paul said, then I give birth to Christ, that is, I carry out a mission, I speak of Him, I speak of how He has changed my life.
The experience of becoming a Christian is, therefore, to conceive the Word through faith, to make it grow through prayer and the practice of the sacraments, until we fully embody the Word and it becomes the flesh of our flesh, giving it birth, that is, giving it to others in the Mission.
There are three attitudes towards Jesus: know Him - love Him - follow Him. With these three attitudes, we can always grow; know Him better to love Him more and to follow Him more closely. Let us look at examples of experience and metanoia, that is, conversion, change of mind and life.
Bartimaeus – The encounter with Jesus cured him of his blindness. He opened his eyes and began to see life differently; in one leap he left behind his previous life (symbolized by the cloak) and followed Jesus. Mark 10:46-52
Samaritan Woman – Finding in Jesus the true water, she abandoned her water jug at the well, symbol of a life made up of comings and goings, in search of a water that never quenches.
Paul of Tarsus – The encounter with Christ turned his life around; the same energy he used to fight Christ served from that moment onward to spread the good news of the Master throughout the ancient world.
Francis of Assisi – Young and the only son of a wealthy bourgeois family who could afford to pay for all his whims, found Christ and abandoned material wealth to embrace spiritual wealth.
Nuno Álvares Pereira – Young nobleman, famous hero of the battle of Aljubarrota, possessed half of Portugal and deserved, more than the Master of Avis, to be the king of Portugal, yet he abandoned everything for a greater wealth: Christ.
Teresa of Ávila – After the beatific vision she came to affirm, "I live without living in me and I expect a life so high, and that I die because I do not die". Nothing held her to this earth anymore, after experiencing Christ and still being young, she wanted to die and fly to Him. St. Paul experienced this very thing and wanted to go to Him, but he saw the convenience of still being among the young people to spread the Word to them.
Francis of Borgia - Nobleman from the great Borgia family, served with dedication the Emperor of Europe, Charles V who was married to the very beautiful Isabella of Portugal, eldest daughter of Don Manuel I. When contemplating the young and beautiful empress on her deathbed, he said, “Never again, never again will I serve a master who can die on me.”
MISSION
‘(…) for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.’ Acts 4:20
If we are authentic Christians then we are missionaries. Being a missionary is not something we propose to do, we do not need to sharpen our intelligence, motivate our willpower, and channel our strength and time to the proclamation of the Gospel. For the authentic Christian, proclaiming the Gospel is natural, it flows naturally from his life. Woe to me if I do not proclaim the Gospel, it is as if I did not live, said St. Paul. (1 Corinthians 9:16)
Mission is to give reasons for our hope
Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you. 1 Peter 3:15
For those who believe that we come from nothing and go to nothing, and as the result, live without meaning, we must give them the reasons for our hope. And when they are very intellectual and we cannot answer their questions, simply say in all humility, "I do not have enough culture to answer your questions, but there are doctors in the Holy Mother Church who surely can answer and satisfy your thirst for the truth."
Salt of the Earth and Light of the World
The Christian is the salt of the earth and as such, he melts the ice that causes so many people to slip and fall in the winter, that is, he melts the traps that certain people set to make their peers fall. Salt preserves meat, fish and other foods. Therefore, when there is a Christian in an institution, company, school, government or factory, the social fabric that constitutes this entity does not corrupt.
Salt gives flavor to food, the Christian gives flavor and meaning to life, because life without Christ makes no sense. Salt fixes water in our body, without which we would be dehydrated, we who are made up of more than 70% water. Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and just as he gave the Samaritan woman everlasting water, he will give it to all who believes in Him.
The Christian is also the light that serves to see and reveal the truth of things, the true nature, color and character of everything, he reveals the truth of each one and each thing. Light also reveals or unveils the machinations of evil, for whoever does evil flees from light; light denounces evil, exposes the schemes of the wicked and their plans.
Above all, the Christian is the light because he is a beacon, so that when people in seeing his good works they will glorify the Father in Heaven, that is, like insects that are attracted to the light, so the Christian attracts people to Christ. When the Christian is a blown out candle, that is, when his works do not coincide with his faith, then he is a stumbling block, he is a light that kills all who are attracted to it, and a darkness in which everyone stumbles.
Mary, the missionary model
‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus’. Luke 1:30-31
Mary is the model, the paradigm of our Christian and missionary life because she was the first to walk the path in its three stages: Faith - Experience - Mission. By faith, she opened the door to God who became incarnate through the work and grace of the Holy Spirit, and grew in her womb.
Mary said to the angel, ‘How will this be, since I am a virgin?’ Luke 1:34
Mary did not believe so just like that, without asking her questions, or without using her mind, for her faith was also a reasonable gift. The angel not only answered her inquisitive reasoning by saying that the Son of God would not come into the world by human will, but by the work and grace of the Holy Spirit, and gave her a proof of God's omnipotence by saying that her old cousin Elizabeth had conceived.
‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her. Luke 1:38
As this had never happened before and was only going to happen once, Mary might not have taken that leap of faith, the option of faith, but she did, even though the angel certainly did not answer all her questions. She trusted his Word and so her cousin will later tell her, "Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” (Luke 1:45)
My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One as done great things for me, and holy is his name. Luke 1:46-49
She spoke of this experience to her cousin St. Elizabeth, that is, that she was the first missionary of the people of Israel and then with the birth of her Son, gave Him to the whole world, symbolized by the three ethnicities that the human race is divided into in the magi who visited the infant Jesus. To her cousin Elizabeth, Mary opens her heart and mouth to intone her Magnificat, to bear witness to the wonders that the Lord has done in her life.
The missionary, therefore, is not primarily someone who proclaims the Gospel, the one who catechizes, who speaks "objectively" about Jesus, about his story, life and miracles, and doctrine; that would be proselytism, not mission. The missionary does not speak "objectively" about Christ, but subjectively, because it is from his experience and living of Christ that he announces the "Kerygma", that is, the Gospel.
To be a missionary is to bear witness to how Christ is my salvation, that is, how Christ brought me physical, spiritual, psychic, and moral health, and of how Christ brought me life and life in abundance — happiness. To be a missionary is to chant our Magnificat before men as Mary chanted hers before her cousin Elizabeth.
Conclusion: To be a Christian is to go through the same experience as Mary; like her, by faith, I conceive Jesus as the Word made flesh in my behavior and works; and when "it is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me" (Gal. 2:20), I give birth to Him, that is, I announce Him to others.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC
