How difficult is it to share with someone the relationship you have with a beloved one? Parent, child, spouse? Not difficult at all! As most of us would definitely say. Why then would it be or is, that it is difficult to share about our relationship with the Lord our God? Isn’t the big word Evangelization a title in which we actively share our loving relationship with Jesus with others?
We are all children of God our Heavenly Father and because of His great love for us, He sent His only Begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ. To gather all of us into Himself, to liberate us from all sin so that we can live life to the full in Him. By His own life, death and Resurrection we have hope of eternal life with Him. Now this proclamation of the salvation of the world through our Lord Jesus Christ is the kerygma.
So frankly the only reason for not being able to share Jesus with anyone or everyone is because you do not have a loving relationship with Him at all. It does matter if you attend mass every Sunday, are generally good to others and so on. Because, not having a deep personal relationship with Jesus rooted on His Word and prayer does not change you inwardly. You won’t have ever growing faith stories of loving encounters with Jesus to share with others.
It is not too late! So long as you live and breathe, pray to the Holy Spirit to guide you. The Spirit of truth will lead you to the complete truth. And then you will be able to proclaim without the slightest hesitation that Jesus is the Lord of your life and that He loves everyone. Jesus is for everyone. Amen
First reading
Acts 17:15,22-18:1
I proclaim the God you already worship without knowing it
Paul’s escort took him as far as Athens, and went back with instructions for Silas and Timothy to rejoin Paul as soon as they could.
So Paul stood before the whole Council of the Areopagus and made this speech:
‘Men of Athens, I have seen for myself how extremely scrupulous you are in all religious matters, because I noticed, as I strolled round admiring your sacred monuments, that you had an altar inscribed: To An Unknown God. Well, the God whom I proclaim is in fact the one whom you already worship without knowing it.
‘Since the God who made the world and everything in it is himself Lord of heaven and earth, he does not make his home in shrines made by human hands. Nor is he dependent on anything that human hands can do for him, since he can never be in need of anything; on the contrary, it is he who gives everything – including life and breath – to everyone. From one single stock he not only created the whole human race so that they could occupy the entire earth, but he decreed how long each nation should flourish and what the boundaries of its territory should be. And he did this so that all nations might seek the deity and, by feeling their way towards him, succeed in finding him. Yet in fact he is not far from any of us, since it is in him that we live, and move, and exist, as indeed some of your own writers have said:
“We are all his children.”
‘Since we are the children of God, we have no excuse for thinking that the deity looks like anything in gold, silver or stone that has been carved and designed by a man.
‘God overlooked that sort of thing when men were ignorant, but now he is telling everyone everywhere that they must repent, because he has fixed a day when the whole world will be judged, and judged in righteousness, and he has appointed a man to be the judge. And God has publicly proved this by raising this man from the dead.’
At this mention of rising from the dead, some of them burst out laughing; others said, ‘We would like to hear you talk about this again.’ After that Paul left them, but there were some who attached themselves to him and became believers, among them Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman called Damaris, and others besides.
After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.
Gospel
John 16:12-15
Jesus said to his disciples:
‘I still have many things to say to you
but they would be too much for you now.
But when the Spirit of truth comes
he will lead you to the complete truth,
since he will not be speaking as from himself but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come.
He will glorify me,since all he tells you
will be taken from what is mine.
Everything the Father has is mine;
that is why I said: All he tells you
will be taken from what is mine.’
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