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Monday, December 9, 2024
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Ask A Priest – What is the New Evangelisation?

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Photo: Alphonsus Fok
Photo: Alphonsus Fok

Over the years people have often asked me; “What exactly is the mission of the Church?” First of all to answer this question to someone who has no appreciation of faith in Jesus Christ is futile. The mission of the Church is to evangelise the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. The word evangelise is a Greek word that encompasses the process of effectively sharing the word and the witness of the Gospel.

How this is to be done is definitely conditioned by the culture and the times that people are living in. So in every time there needs to be a New Evangelization!

The five essential qualities of evangelisation:

Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles  Robert Barron recently shared what he considered to be five essential qualities to effectively evangelize, I will briefly mention and comment on each quality;

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  • Enthusiasm & Joy; this means that someone has a personal conviction and a genuine vitality in what they believe.
  • An appreciation of the history of Israel; an awareness that the Old and the New testaments merge and support each other.
  • An awareness of one’s own culture; we are now living in a post Christian culture so we are facing new cultural obstacles.
  • Appreciating essential Church traditions; Church teachings and traditions are there to support the bible’s texts.
  • A familiarity with social media; it is important to see the value of blogs, email distribution lists and accessing corporate media opportunities.

The message is the same but the methods of delivering it is always evolving!

Fr Martin R Maunsell is the Parish Priest of St Kevin’s Eastwood

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