Day 30
Your Three Ways to Evangelize
We most earnestly beg all our sons the world over, clergy and laity, to be deeply conscious of the dignity, the nobility, which is theirs through being grafted on to Christ as shoots on a vine: “I am the vine; you the branches.” They are thus called to a share in His own divine life; and since they are united in mind and spirit with the divine Redeemer even when they are engaged in the affairs of the world, their work becomes a continuation of His work, penetrated with redemptive power.
— St. John XXIII, Mater et Magistra, 259
No one will evangelize in the exact same way that you do. Your relationship with God is unique, your social network is unique, your circles of influence are unique, and your mission in the Church and the world is unique. And so how you enter into the universal apostolate (see CCC, 863) will also be unique. In a sense there are as many forms of apostolate as there are individual Christians. This is why the first requirement for carrying out our apostolic mission is to be good listeners — to listen to the whispers of the Holy Spirit directing our desires, our hopes, our thoughts, our actions.
A Threefold Richness
But the Church has also identified three general categories of apostolate. In fact the Second Vatican Council published an entire decree describing the apostolate of the Church, especially of the laity, called Apostolicam Actuositatem. Understanding these general categories will help us be better listeners and more effective apostles.
These three forms of evangelization correspond to the threefold mission of Christ, who redeems and sanctifies the world as priest, prophet-teacher, and king. Through baptism every Christian shares in this threefold mission, though clergy and laity share in different ways.
A Way to Bridge Heaven and Earth
The priestly aspect of our mission consists in bringing God’s grace to bear on our normal activities. Everything Jesus did, from working in the carpenter shop to dying on the cross, expressed and exhibited his love for and obedience to the Father. Everything Jesus did was an offering to the Father, an act of worship, part of his redeeming sacrifice that reached its culmination through his passion, death, and resurrection. In this way Jesus reconnected the human realm to the divine realm — a connection that had been lost with original sin. Such is the primary function of a priest — to be a bridge between heaven and earth.
But even the lay members of the Church exercise this function when they unite their daily activities and sacrifices to the offering of Christ himself by living them with faith and by placing them spiritually on the altar during Mass. In other words, simply the way we live our daily lives — filled with faith, as expressions of love for God and neighbor — can become a powerful witness in the world to the reality and truth of the gospel, as well as an instrument of God’s grace.
Words to Change History
The second category of apostolate flows from the prophetic mission of Christ, which also is shared by every Christian. In this context, prophetic doesn’t simply mean foretelling the future. Rather it refers to “speaking forth” on behalf of God: announcing the gospel, explaining it, and teaching it by words. The clergy do this in an official way, but all Christians are called to do so in their efforts to evangelize the world: “To teach in order to lead others to faith is the task of every preacher and of each believer” (CCC, 904).
Works to Renew the World
Finally, the third way of evangelizing is linked to Christ’s kingly mission, which once again is shared by every Christian. For the clergy, this mission applies particularly to governing the ecclesial structures themselves, although laypersons can also participate in that activity to some extent (see CCC, 910). Primarily, however, for the laity this form of apostolate has to do with bringing the institutions and conditions of society under the rule of Christ, what the Second Vatican Council called “the renewal of the temporal order.”
In short, the three ways of evangelization have to do with our priestly and Christ-centered way of day-to-day living, our prophetic words of Christian wisdom, and our creative works directed toward Christianizing human society, institutions, and culture from the inside out. In the following reflections we will dig into some more specific aspects of each.
Questions for Personal Reflection or Group Discussion
What idea in this reflection struck you most and why?
From the point of view of your sharing in Christ’s priestly, prophetic, and kingly mission of redemption, what aspects of your life do not have evangelizing potential?
How would you describe in your own words the three dimensions of the Church’s apostolate?
G.K. Chesterton, a famous convert to Catholicism and prolific author and apologist in the early twentieth century, once quipped that when someone becomes a Christian absolutely everything changes, even brushing one’s teeth. His point was that once we are members of Christ’s mystical body, which happens through baptism, our smallest actions take on grace-filled meaning.
What will you do today to activate this meaning more intentionally?
- I will say a small prayer before each of my day’s activities, consciously offering them up to God for the advance of his kingdom.
- I will light a devotional candle somewhere in my house, to remind me that, because God inhabits my soul through grace, my house is in a certain sense a Christian sanctuary, an outpost of Christ’s kingdom here on earth.
- I will arrive for Mass a few minutes early next time so I can focus my heart and prayerfully place on the altar all my activities, intentions, and relationships, thus uniting them to Christ’s self-offering and living more purposefully my share in the Lord’s priestly mission.
- (Write your own resolution) I will
Concluding Prayer
In the Church, God has made known to us his hidden purpose: to make all things one in Christ. Let us pray that his will may be done.
— Father, unite all things in Christ.
We give you thanks for the presence and power of your Spirit in the Church: give us the will to search for unity, and inspire us to pray and work together.
— Father, unite all things in Christ.
— Liturgy of the Hours, Prayers and Intercessions for Evening Prayer for the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
