Reignite the spirit of evangelism

A Happy New Year in Jesus. It is God Himself who is the first to express His wishes for a wonderful year: “May the Lord bless you and keep you! May the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you! May the Lord turn His face towards you and give you peace!”

He loves us and asks us to trust in him. But do we have faith? If we have faith, it is because someone proclaimed the Gospel to us, someone brought us to the Church. The proclamation of the Gospel is essential to the life of the Church. Pope Paul VI said: ‘The Church exists to evangelise… It is a duty to evangelise, for it is a matter of the salvation of souls… However clear our witness of life may be, it is not enough. We must proclaim Christ through the Word’ (Evangelii nuntiandi). Through our baptism, we are priests, prophets and kings: prophets and therefore proclaimers of the Word of God. Evangelisation is a commandment: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations’ (Mt 28:18–20). A Christian is a missionary. If they are not, then they become a ‘superficial’ Christian. I remember that my wife had bought an artificial apple tree with pretty apples hanging from it. She put it in the living room. One day, one of our children, taken in by how real the apples looked, took a greedy bite out of one of these colourful fruits, and you could see that their teeth had revealed the white flesh of the apples hidden beneath the colour. Just as those apples were fake, so too are there ‘false’ Christians – those who do not practise charity and who do not evangelise.

Evangelisation is part of the very nature of the Church. It is not a task that falls solely to the clergy and religious, but to the whole People of God. According to Pope Francis, ‘Once you have experienced Christ, you do not need much training to proclaim him’. Whilst it is true that training is of great help, the principal agent of evangelisation is the Holy Spirit. A small group of women from the Word of God Groups in Bamenda, Cameroon, had set out to evangelise at Bafut Hospital, at the Catholic centre for people with disabilities, bringing provisions to the sick. There they met a patient who had been bedridden for three years and whom his family had abandoned because he was paralysed; he belonged to a Christian sect. They gave him the provisions and shared the Word of God with him. A month after their visit, the man became a Catholic, as reported by the local doctor, who was a member of the Focolare Movement. A community that does not evangelise loses its vigour; for, in fact, its members become self-centred consumers who do not share. Pope Francis had called for parishes not merely to be administrative offices, but to rediscover their missionary zeal; in short, to rekindle the drive for evangelisation.

It is true that there are often many excuses for not sharing the Word of God: sometimes we think, ‘I don’t feel worthy’. Yet evangelisation is a logical consequence of love for Christ. A genuine experience of love is not something to be hidden away. It is something to be shared. If one truly loves God, the natural consequence is to care for his flock. So if I do not love God, I cannot evangelise. There are people who say: ‘I can’t bring myself to evangelise; I don’t know what’s holding me back; I’m tired and I lack the zeal for evangelism.’ These are signs that love for God is lacking or waning. Evangelism is a story of love. When you love someone, you do what pleases them and brings them joy. ‘There is great joy in heaven over one sinner who repents’ (Luke 15:7). A sense of shame about evangelisation haunts Catholic Christians who fear prejudice and that they might be mistaken for members of sects or, worse still, be given derogatory nicknames. ‘If you are ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you. If you deny me, I will deny you before my Father’ (Mt 10:32–33). Not evangelising is letting the sick die. According to Saint Paul, one must not say, ‘I’ve already tried; he can’t change; I’m discouraged; I’m sure he’s not interested.’ To evangelise in season and out of season is to evangelise without growing weary or losing heart. Saint Pope John Paul II said: ‘Faith grows when it is shared’ (Redemptoris missio). Many people often pray: ‘Lord, my faith is weak. Increase my faith.’ Here is an opportunity to do so by evangelising.

The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few. In his Apostolic Letter *Evangelii gaudium*, Pope Francis urges all the faithful to rekindle the zeal for evangelisation and to share the Word of God with joy. The Holy Pope John Paul II also said: ‘The true missionary is the saint.’ As we approach the 30th anniversary of the Word of God groups in 2026, the guiding principle is ‘to abound in generosity’ (2 Cor 8:7). To evangelise is to be generous with the spiritual graces we have received. This cannot be achieved without a life of faithful prayer. Let us rekindle the zeal for evangelisation in our lives and our parishes this year.

Henri Bayemi