A Church Which Goes Forth

On several different occasions, we have heard the Holy Father speak of the need for the Church to go out and meet those who have yet to hear the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. We cannot simply sit in our churches and rectories and wait for them to come to us. We must go out into the streets or, in the words of the Gospel, the highways and byways, to seek out the lost and to encourage them to come home. This is really not anything new. It was a theme that I heard frequently during the years I was in the seminary. During our years of formation, we were often "graded" on the notion of self-initiative. Did we, as seminarians, wait for the problem to come to us or did we seek out the means to confront a difficulty? The Holy Father promotes this idea by citing an important fact from the Gospels; namely, Jesus is God's initiative.

The Gospel often reminds us that God loves us. St. John says that God loved us first and uses that fact as a way to encourage us to love in return. Pope Francis writes:

24. The Church which goes forth is a community of missionary disciples who take the first step, who are involved and supportive, who bear fruit and rejoice. An evangelizing community knows that the Lord has taken the initiative, he has loved us first (cf. 1 Jn 4:19), and therefore we can move forward, boldly take the initiative, go out to others, seek those who have fallen away, stand at the crossroads and welcome the outcast. Such a community has an endless desire to show mercy, the fruit of its own experience of the power of the Father's infinite mercy. Let us try a little harder to take the first step and to become involved.

When I first read this paragraph, I was stopped in my tracks. The first step is the step of mercy, the step of forgiveness, the step of compassion, the step of welcoming the estranged. In the local newspaper, there is a single box cartoon strip that is called "True Love." It usually depicts a little couple expressing love in various ways. According to the Gospel, true love is forgiving love. God expresses love for us by forgiving us even before we express our sorrow. When we have forgiven, then we can embrace the fallen. When we have shown mercy, then we can welcome the estranged. When we have shown compassion, then we can overlook the sin that has caused us pain. Love which takes this form places us all in a very vulnerable position. We have no knowledge of whether the act of love which we call forgiveness will be accepted. We might, and very probably will be hurt again. Yet when such love is expressed and received, the joy of the reconciliation is like the joy that comes after the pain of childbirth.

The Church has been shown the example of forgiving love through the life of Jesus. Rather than preaching (in words) about how Jesus' act of redemptive suffering is God's proof of love for us, we must preach by action. When we forgive, we make the Gospel live anew.

How hard it is for humans to forgive one another! This is, however, the core of new evangelization. The first step seems to be setting aside old grievances, old hurts. The words I have written are easy. Our actions will not be so easy. It is important here that we do not stop to try to determine who we know that needs to forgive. No, we must stop here and ask ourselves whom we need to forgive!

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator