Jesus instructed us to go out and make disciples of all nations. As a member of his Church, we are each called to assist in that work of evangelization. But how do we even begin to live that out in our lives?
You might not feel as if you are equipped to evangelize, or maybe your personality doesn’t make you comfortable with evangelization, but these abilities are given to each one of us. “We have to have an understanding of what our identity as Catholics is and what has happened to us in our Baptism and Confirmation – what they did for us. Because especially the Sacrament of Confirmation, it’s probably the least understood of all the sacraments but the graces of Confirmation basically are given to us so that we can powerfully and with the spirit of God share our faith. So in other words, the Holy Spirit is given to us in its fullness at our Confirmation. It completes the graces that were started at Baptism, that which made us sons and daughters of God, which opened us up to heaven and all these other things. But confirmation in particular makes us spiritually, evangelists. So … if you’re confirmed you have all the grace that you need to be a great evangelist,” explained Marcel LeJeune, regular contributor to Morning Air® on Relevant Radio®.
We are all presented with opportunities to evangelize; we just need to open ourselves up to them. LeJeune says it’s a “dangerous prayer” to pray, “God, help me to evangelize other. Help me to see the opportunities that you’ve already put in front of me to be able to evangelize.” God is going to answer that prayer, and you’ll begin recognizing all the opportunities in your life to talk with others at work, in your family, or in the grocery store that are curious about the Catholic Faith or need a little prayerful support.
We are called to this mission, but it won’t always be easy. “You and I are made by God to assist Jesus Christ in his mission. And if you think about how God went about fulfilling this mission: Jesus came down to earth, he called 12 men around him who he deeply invested in. He evangelized them, those 12 men. And in fact, I think the reason why we have this example of Judas who chose to fall away from him is so you and I remember that we’re not in control of these situations. We can only do what we can do; we can’t control the other person, we can’t make somebody decide to follow God,” said LeJeune.
Evangelism for most people doesn’t mean packing up and becoming a missionary in a foreign country. “We’re looking for those people who are right there around us who we can have influence in their lives. That changes things. And if I can change a handful of people’s lives through the course of my life and they do the same thing, through time we’ve changed the world. That’s how the Church operates.”
Listen to the full segment here:
