‘Do you love me? Feed my sheep’ (John 21:15)

One of my cousins once said to me: ‘Please, I’d like you to help me with my spiritual life. I used to think that just having a job was enough to make me feel at peace. But the emptiness inside me just keeps on lingering. I need God; I need your help.’ Many people are spiritually ill. They are starving for the Word of God (cf. Amos 8:11). Many people are suffering. The tragedy is that some do not recognise this. It is as if they have an illness that is eating away at them, yet they do not realise it. They merely feel, as a consequence, a profound lack of happiness. Still others know that their lives are a disaster, but they do not know how to escape it. There are also people who want to follow God, who want to get involved in the Church, but who do not know how to go about it. Will there be anyone to guide them, to help them?

Are you ready to help Jesus, who suffers spiritually through these people? ‘Whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me’ (Mt 25:40). Isaiah had heard the Lord’s message asking him: ‘Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?’ He replied: ‘Here am I, Lord; send me’ (Isaiah 6:8).

I used to believe that the task of evangelisation fell solely to priests, religious or catechists. I looked down on anyone who tended to speak to others about God. I told myself that it was enough simply to live my life well, even if I did so in secret. But Pope Paul VI, in his letter on evangelisation, *Evangelii nuntiandi*, says that however beautiful one’s witness of life may be (which is essential), it is not enough. The good news of Christ must be proclaimed with words. Many people have often believed that it was enough simply to seek personal holiness. It is true that the witness of one’s life leads others to God, but it is not enough. The proclamation of the Good News is the other side of the coin of evangelisation. Saint Pope Paul VI also says that the Church exists to evangelise. I am a member of the Church and my life of faith cannot be conceived without evangelisation. Moreover, Pope John Paul II, in *Redemptoris missio*, says that faith grows when it is shared. How many Christians today suffer from a decline in faith! To rekindle it, we must share what little we have left, the Pope tells us. This also means that if I do not share it, it withers away. We are disciples of Christ and must live like our Master, who came to give us divine life. We have this life through our Baptism, which makes us priests, prophets and kings. A prophet, in the Church’s sense, is not primarily one who foretells the future, but one who speaks in God’s name, who proclaims the Word of God.

It is inconceivable that we should hold the key to the path to happiness, yet fail to open the door to those who need to enter, or even fail to show them the way. Thus, we have the capacity to help others encounter God. Pope Benedict XVI reminded us that faith is not a private matter: ‘We are not born alone, we do not sin alone, and we are not saved alone’. My brothers and sisters must benefit from my faith. Most Christians who do not like evangelisation are ashamed to speak of God. They are ashamed of being treated as outcasts; ashamed of being isolated; ashamed of being labelled as sectarians; or they are simply ashamed of being rejected. ‘Whoever is ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of them before my Father’ (Mt 10:33).

How, then, can it be that we fail to help even those closest to us to come to know God? We can begin by sharing the Gospel with our family members, even if they do not listen to us: ‘Whether they listen to you or not, they will know that there is a prophet among them’ (Ezekiel 2:5). If you truly love someone, show them the way of Christ; lead them to Christ. I remember my first evangelisation trip to another town 35 years ago. We knew very little about the spiritual life. We sang a great deal and shared our testimonies with the pupils. Among those pupils are priests and nuns today. Glory to God, for there are many people—mostly young people—who have a renewed zeal for evangelisation within them. For several years now, I have witnessed the zeal for evangelism among young people in the ‘Word of God’ groups. If we say we love Jesus, he addresses these words to us: ‘Feed my sheep’ (Jn 21:15). Our evangelisation, however small it may be, if done according to God’s will, will strengthen our faith, and Jesus will be pleased: ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom’. At the end of the major ‘Word of God’ retreats, where the Lord Jesus has showered us with graces, we must not neglect to share the Word of God, so that others may taste the joy of knowing Christ.

Henri Bayemi