At the end of the Gospels we hear Jesus sending the apostles to “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 Acts of the apostles relate to us how the Apostles and the first Christians faithfully fulfilled their mission. They went out into the known world to announce the Gospel. The disciples’ response to the Lord’s command changed the world forever.
During this time of Lent, it is part of our Catholic tradition to give up something as a sacrifice. No doubt that it is a wonderful tradition. But we know that Lent is much more than that. Lent is a time of renewal of our Catholic identity. In other words, it is a time to respond anew, from our faith, to the question of “who we are.”
This is the question I have wanted to pose, first to myself, as your shepherd, and to all of you, through my pastoral letter, “You will be my witnesses,” written on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of my installation as the archbishop of San Antonio. In it I reflect on the Christian mission to evangelize and proclaim Jesus Christ.
In the letter I refer to some aspects of our faith that can help us to appreciate more the beauty of the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Jesus’ command to “go and make disciples of all nations,” is not an abstract request that He addressed only to the apostles or to the men and women of his time; it is a call to each Christian not only as a duty but as a right, when they receive baptism. It is a call to all of us for our personal salvation and that we may share the good news of salvation with the world.
Many Christians, when they become aware of this mission, feel like Jeremiah and repeat his words, “Ah, Lord God! I know not how to speak; I am too young.” (Jer 1:6)
But, as I point out in my pastoral letter, “there are many ways to proclaim Christ, and not only with words. It is not only a matter of speaking or preaching or what is negatively considered ‘proselytizing.’ Proclaiming Christ includes everything that we do, in word or in deed, to bear witness to our faith in him. We proclaim Christ by our way of life.”
In other words, “the important point is this: the proclamation of Christ is not an option or an obligation reserved for priests, religious and bishops. It is the duty of every believer.”
That is why I have addressed my pastoral letter in a special way “to you who are lay men and lay women.”
I am aware that we are celebrating the year of the priesthood. And that the priests are coworkers with the bishops “in the universal dimensions of the mission that Christ entrusted to the apostles” to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us. But the church is not built without the participation of all her members, because we are all living stones of the only building, which is the church. And the mission to proclaim the Gospel entrusted by Christ to the entire church could never be fulfilled without the collaboration of the faithful, without the collaboration of each one of you.
In his recent message for Lent, Pope Benedict XVI reminded us that, in fact, each Christian’s encounter with Christ makes him an agent of renewing change, of justice and reconciliation. “Precisely due to the strength of this experience,” writes the pope, “the Christian feels impelled to contribute to the formation of just societies, where everyone receives what is needed to live according to his own dignity as men and where justice is revitalized by love.”
And there is no greater act of justice than to take Jesus to the hearts of men and women who hunger for God. Because, as the Holy Father writes us in his message for Lent, when describing the greatest act of justice we Christians can perform, “What then is the justice of Christ? It is, above all, the justice that comes from grace, where it is not man who corrects.”
Then it is the justice that comes from God, but which does not reach the men and women of this world if it is not proclaimed by the men and women of our church.
I pray intensely at this time of Lent that the Lord may inspire each of the faithful with the spirit of the prophet Isaiah, “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?’ ‘Here I am,’ I said; ‘send me!’” (Is 6:8)