Focus on Jesus is key to evangelization, Pope says
December 03, 2015
Speaking on December 3 to the Congregation for Evangelization, Pope Francis said: “It is not the Church who makes the mission, but the mission that makes the Church.”
The Pope told his audience—160 people participating in the plenary assembly of the Congregation for Evangelization—that every initiative to spread the Gospel should begin with personal conversion, and a focus on Jesus Christ. “The mission, in fact, is a force capable of transforming the Church from within,” he said.
“Going forth is innate in our Baptism, and its boundaries are those of the world,” the Pope continued. At the beginning of his talk he had reflected on his trip to Africa, and reported that he saw countless examples of the Church’s evangelical work. “I saw that where there is the need, the Church is almost always present to heal the wounds of those most in need,” the Pope said. “How many anonymous good Samaritans work every day in the missions!”
The focus of evangelization on Jesus is something that the world at large does not easily understand, the Pope remarked:
The secularized world, indeed, even when it is welcoming towards the Gospel values of love, justice, peace and sobriety, does not show similar openness to the figure of Jesus; it considers Him neither the Messiah nor the Son of God. At most, it considers Him an enlightened man. It therefore separates the message from the Messenger, the gift from the Giver. In this situation of separation, the missio ad gentes serves as a motor and horizon for faith.
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