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Apostolic Letter of His Holiness Pope John Paul II |
FROM NOVO MILLENNIO INEUNTE...
“At the beginning of the new millennium, and at the close of the Great Jubilee during which we celebrated the 2000th anniversary of the birth of Jesus, and a new stage of the Church’s journey begins, our hearts ring out with the words of Jesus when one day, after speaking to the crowds from Simon’s boat, he invited the apostle to ‘put out into the deep’ for a catch: ‘Duc in altum’ (Luke 5: 4)”. “Duc in Altum! These words ring out for us today, and they invite us to remember the past with gratitude, to live the present with enthusiasm, and to look forward to the future with confidence”.
“I feel the need to write to you, dearly beloved, to share this song of praise with you. From the beginning of my pontificate, my thoughts had been on this Holy Year 2000 as an important appointment. I thought of its celebration as a providential opportunity during which the Church, thirty-five years after the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, would examine how far she had renewed herself in order to be able to take up her evangelizing mission with fresh enthusiasm”.
“Now, the Christ whom we have contemplated and loved bids us to set out once more on our journey: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ (Mt. 28: 19). The missionary mandate accompanies us into the Third Millennium and urges us to share the enthusiasm of the very first Christians: we can count on the power of the same Spirit who was poured out at Pentecost and who impels us still today to start out anew, sustained by the hope ‘which does not disappoint’ (Rom 5:5). |
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Encyclical Letter of John Paul II |
FROM MISSION OF THE REDEEMER...
“I wish to invite the Church to renew her missionary commitment. Missionary activity renews the Church, revitalizes faith and Christian identity, and offers fresh enthusiasm and new incentive. Faith is strengthened when it is given to others! It is in commitment to the Church’s universal mission that the new evangelization of Christian peoples will find inspiration and support. But, what moves me even more strongly to proclaim the urgency of missionary evangelization is the fact that it is the primary service which the Church can render to every individual and to all humanity in the modern world”.
“God is opening before the Church the horizons of a humanity more fully prepared for the sowing of the Gospel. I sense that the moment has come to commit all of the Church’s energies to a new evangelization and to the mission ad gentes. No believer in Christ, no institution of the Church can avoid this supreme duty: to proclaim Christ to all peoples”.
“Those who are incorporated in the Catholic Church ought to sense their privilege and for that very reason their greater obligation of bearing witness to the faith and to the Christian life as a service to their brothers and sisters and as a fitting response to God. They should be ever mindful that they owe their distinguished status not to their own merits but to Christ’s special grace; and if they fail to respond to this grace in thought, word, and deed, not only will they not be saved, they will be judged more severely”.
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Apostolic Exhortation of Paul VI |
ON EVANGELIZATION IN THE MODERN WORLD...
“We wish to confirm once more that the task of evangelizing all people constitutes the essential mission of the Church. It is a task and mission which the vast and profound changes of present-day society make all the more urgent. Evangelizing is in fact the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelize, that is to say, in order to preach and teach, to be the channel of the gift of grace, to reconcile sinners with God, and to perpetuate Christ’s sacrifice in the Mass, which is the memorial of His death and glorious resurrection”.
“There is no true evangelization if the name, the teaching, the life, the promises, the kingdom and the mystery of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God are not proclaimed”. |
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VATICAN II DECREE ON THE CHURCH’S MISSIONARY ACTIVITY |
Ad Gentes Divinitus, 7 December 1965
“Having been divinely sent to the nations that she might be “the universal sacrament of salvation”, the Church, in obedience to the command of her founder (Mt. 16: 15) and because it is demanded by her own essential universality, strives to preach the Gospel to all men”.
“In the present state of things which gives rise to a new situation for mankind, the Church, the salt of the earth and the light of the world, is even more urgently called upon to save and renew every creature, so that all things might be restored in Christ, and so that in him men might form one family and one people of God”.
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“The Church’s fundamental function in every age, and particularly in ours, is to direct man’s gaze, to point the awareness and experience of the whole of humanity toward the mystery of Christ” - John Paul II
The call to the new evangelization was born of the Church’s increasing self-awareness of Her role and mission in God’s plan of salvation. Beginning with Vatican II and continuing with great momentum and enthusiasm into the New Millennium, this call is being answered by millions of ordinary Catholics throughout the world. God is opening the door to the laity to take on the responsibility of impacting society and history with the powerful Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Holy Father has called this “the hour of the Laity”.
In much of Sub-Sahara Africa there is a mighty revival going on. In the last century over 100 million people have entered the Holy Roman Catholic Church! A mighty move of God is underway, with the flame of conversion fanned by the wind of the Holy Spirit. We have seen tens of thousands of people, who walk long distances and sit on the ground in the hot equatorial sun from morning until night, listening eagerly to the Word of God being proclaimed. I have seen God confirm His Word with signs and wonders, just like He did on the day of Pentecost. The New Evangelization is a call to all Catholics to share their faith and a reminder that “the workers are few”. |
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