Category Archives: Ecumenism

In my last post, I discussed that evangelization goes to the essence of who the Church is as Church.  The missionary mandate that Christ gives is not something added to the nature of the Church; the Church is missionary in its very nature.  It is intrinsic to who we are and thus evangelization has an ontological focus.  It is, in the words of Ad Gentes, a “universal sacrament of salvation.”  And, as a Church we need to constantly be of renewal and a visible witness to the salvific love of Christ.  We also need to proclaim the “good news” of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection. 

I wanted to emphasis our need to “share” our faith because I do believe that for many within the Catholic Church, this is a foreign concept.  We have come to view evangelization as simply doing good and being good.  The sense that we need to articulate and express our faith is a stretch for many within the Church.  There are many reasons for this due to confusions regarding questions of salvation, Rahner’s “anonymous Christian,” grace versus nature, the necessity of the Church for salvation, and what about those people who never hear or come to know Jesus.  These questions are just a sampling of some of the underpinnings that need to be explained for the Catholic faithful to again capture the evangelization fervor of Pentecost.