Entering the ordinary time of the liturgical year, Pope Francis began his catechetical cycle on “the passion for evangelization and the apostolic zeal of the believer”, where he reflected on the conversion of Matthew.
Below is the complete catechesis of Pope Francis:
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
Today we begin a new cycle of catechesis, dedicated to an urgent and decisive theme for the Christian life: the passion for evangelization, that is, apostolic zeal. This is a vital dimension for the Church: the community of Jesus’ disciples is in fact born apostolic, missionary, not proselytizing, something that we have to distinguish from the beginning. It has nothing to do one thing with the other.
The Holy Spirit molds it into a way out – the Church going out, which goes out -, so that it does not withdraw into itself, but rather extroverts, a contagious testimony of Jesus. Faith is contagious, coming to radiate its light to the ends of the earth. But it can happen that the apostolic ardor, the desire to reach others with the good proclamation of the Gospel, diminishes. Sometimes it seems to fade away. They are closed Christians who do not think of others.
But when the Christian life loses sight of the horizon of the proclamation, it falls ill: it closes in on itself, it becomes self-referential, it atrophies without apostolic zeal, faith withers. However, the mission is the oxygen of the Christian life: it invigorates and purifies it.
We then embark on a journey to discover the evangelizing passion, beginning with the Scriptures and the teaching of the Church, to obtain apostolic zeal from the sources.
Then we will look at some living sources, some testimonies that have reignited the passion for the Gospel in the Church, so that they help us to rekindle the fire that the Holy Spirit always wants to burn in us.
I would like to start with a somewhat emblematic evangelical episode: the call of the Apostle Matthew, which we have heard, just as he himself recounts it in his Gospel (cf. 9,9-13).
Everything begins with Jesus, who “sees” – says the text – “a man”. Few saw Matthew as he was: they knew him as the one who was “sitting at the tax office” (v. 9).
In fact, he was a tax collector: that is, one who collected tribute from part of the Roman empire that was occupying Palestine. In other words, he was a collaborator, a traitor to the people. We can imagine the contempt people felt for him: he was a “publican.” But, in the eyes of Jesus, Matthew is a man, with his miseries and his greatness. Pay attention to this, Jesus does not stop at adjectives, he always looks for nouns, Jesus goes to the person, to the substance, to the noun, never to the adjective, he lets the adjectives pass.
And while there is a distance between Matthew and his people, because they saw the adjective “publican”, Jesus approaches him, because every man is loved by God. Also this wretch? Yes, indeed, He has come for this wretch. The Gospel says it: “I have come for sinners, not for the just.” This look of Jesus that is beautiful, that he sees the other, whoever he is, as a recipient of love, is the beginning of the evangelizing passion. Everything starts from this look, which we learn from Jesus.
We can ask ourselves: how is our look towards others? How many times do we see the defects and not the needs; how many times do we label people for what they do or think! Also as Christians we say to ourselves: is it one of ours or is it not one of ours? This is not the look of Jesus: He always looks at each one with mercy and predilection. And Christians are called to do like Christ, looking like Him especially to those called “far away.” In fact, Matthew’s call passage concludes with Jesus saying, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (v. 13). And if each one of us feels fair, Jesus is far away. Jesus approaches our limitations and our miseries, to heal us.
Therefore, everything begins with the gaze of Jesus, who sees a man. This is followed – second step – by a movement . First the look, Jesus saw, then the second step, the movement. Mateo was sitting in the tax office; Jesus said to him: “Follow me.” And he “rose up and followed him” (v. 9). We notice that the text emphasizes that he “ rose up ”. Why is this detail so important? Because at that time whoever was sitting had authority over the others, who were standing in front of him to listen to him or, as in this case, to pay the tribute. Whoever was sitting, in short, had power.
The first thing that Jesus does is separate Matthew from power: from sitting receiving others he sets him in motion towards others. He does not receive, no; he goes to the others; It makes him leave a position of supremacy to put him on a par with his brothers and open his horizons of service. This is what Christ does and this is fundamental for Christians: we disciples of Jesus, we Church, are we sitting waiting for people to come or do we know how to get up, set out with others, look for others? It is a position that is not Christian, to say “come, I am here”. No, go look for him, take the first step.
A look, Jesus sees, a movement, he gets up and, finally, a goal. After getting up and following Jesus, where will Matthew go? We could imagine that having changed the life of that man, the Master leads him towards new encounters, new spiritual experiences. No, or at least not right away.
First, Jesus goes to his house; there Matthew prepares “a great banquet” for him, in which “there were a great number of publicans” (Lk 5,29), that is, people like him. Matthew returns to his environment, but returns changed and with Jesus. His apostolic zeal does not begin in a new, pure and ideal place, but rather where he lives, with the people he knows.
This is our message: we must not expect to be perfect and have come a long way behind Jesus to bear witness to him; our announcement starts today, where we live. And he does not start by trying to convince others, but by witnessing every day to the beauty of Love that he has looked at us and raised us up.
And it will be this beauty, communicating this beauty, that will convince people. Not us, Jesus himself. We are those who announce the Lord, we do not announce ourselves or announce a political party, an ideology, no, we announce Jesus. We put Jesus in contact with people. Without convincing them, let the Lord convince them. As Pope Benedict taught us, “the Church does not proselytize. Rather she grows by attraction ». Don’t forget this. When you see Christians who proselytize, who make you a list of the people who will come… these are not Christians. They are pagans disguised as Christians, but with a pagan heart. The Church grows not by proselytism, it grows by attraction.
Once I remember that in the Buenos Aires hospital, the nuns who worked there left because they were few and they couldn’t run the hospital. And a community of nuns from Korea came, and they arrived on a Monday, for example, I don’t remember the day anymore. They took over the house of the hospital nuns and on Tuesday they went to visit the hospital patients. They didn’t speak a word of Spanish, they only spoke Korean. The sick were happy because they commented how good these nuns were. “But what did the nun tell you?” “Nothing, but she spoke to me with her eyes.” They have communicated to Jesus, not to themselves. With the look, with the gestures. Communicate to Jesus, not to ourselves. This is attraction, the opposite of proselytizing.
This attractive and joyful testimony is the goal to which Jesus leads us with his look of love and with the outgoing movement that his Spirit arouses in the heart. We can think if our look resembles that of Jesus, to attract people, to bring them closer to the Church. Let’s think about this. Thanks.