BUT THEY DO NOT KNOW JESUS

           

One of the great pains of ministry today is that so many of our people do no know Jesus. They do not have a living and daily friendship with the very person of Jesus.

 

Far too often our religion has been diluted into ‘cultural events.’ We know it is good to get our kids ‘done’ and give our grandmothers a Christian burial but other than that, our faith does not seem to have too much an impact on our lives. We are nice people, but oh, so secular.

 

We live in a society where everything goes. We are surrounded by new world religions. There was a built-in challenge here for us to and to be reclaimed by Jesus Christ. The atmosphere we breath is challenging believers to become real. 

 

If you know the history of our church through the ages, you recognize that this is nothing new. We go through times where we need to re re-evangelized and rediscover our faith. Now, we must take each person that comes and treat them as a aspiring convert, a new believer. We do not want them to be complacent in their religion but open their lives to the great call of Jesus Christ. We are being challenged to become involved in the very project of Jesus. What was he about when he came to earth? What is he asking of us ,today, 2022? 

 

At the very same time, question the very serious situation our world challenges our belief. The invasion by Mr. Putin of the Ukraine is an event of unquestionable evil. Countless people are suffering and being displaced. It is here that we must discover the goodness and the justice that Jesus brings to humanity. Where others may kill and destroy, Jesus challenges us to build and to nourish. This is not some nice sweet invitation. It is to get in get involved in the hard work of Jesus Christ building a world of justice and peace. It means laying down our guns and planting gardens to care for each other.  This great evil provokes a stronger practice of justice.

 

We  are proclaiming our faith in a world that suffers from indifference. The great sin of indifference is ‘I do not care’ about my fellow human being. I look the other way. Jesus challenges us to look for the man and woman beaten up on the side of the road. Care for them. And we want to teach everyone that the poor are always very close to us. 

 

As I began in the beginning of this blog, one of the great pains is we do not know Jesus. 

 

 The situation of the practice of the Christian faith in our society provokes us to become a church of evangelization. Today we must proclaim and share with each one great call to live and follow and work with Jesus Christ. 

 

We must structure our churches and parish communities to be communities of evangelization. Everyone must be brought into a living faith, a living relationship, a living involvement with Jesus Christ and all that he is about. 

 

Those who may be caught up in the cultural aspects of our religious faith will resist. This does not lessen our responsibility to evangelize and call people to a living adult faith. 

 

This is an exciting time for Christianity. We may be smaller, but we may become more authentic as we evangelize, bring to Gospel reality, our society/ culture.