Each of Us Exists to Evangelize
by Fr. David M. Knight
Wednesday, October 23, 2024
Twenty-Ninth Week of the Year
Saint John of Capistrano, Priest
Lectionary 475
Eph 3:2-12/Lk 12:39-48
Ephesians 3:2-12: If there ever lived a motivated man, it was Paul.
Five times at the hands of the Jews I received forty lashes minus one.... Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked.... on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own race, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers among false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many sleepless nights, through hunger and thirst, through frequent fastings, through cold and exposure. (2Corinthians 11:24-27)
He endured all this for the sake of “the stewardship (oikonomian) of God's grace that was given to me for your benefit... the mystery made known to me by revelation... the mystery of Christ.
For Paul, Christianity was “the mystery of Christ.” This was the Christ he met “by revelation” on the road to Damascus: Christ identified with those Paul was persecuting. The mystery he preached was “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” He describes it here as
the mystery of Christ, unknown in former ages but now revealed by the Spirit to his holy apostles and prophets: that in Christ the Gentiles are coheirs with the Jews, members of the same body, and sharers of the promise through the preaching of the Good News. (See Acts 9:4; Colossians 2:2; 4:3; 9:27.)
This was the mystery of the Christ he met on the road to Damascus. From that moment on, he knew that his mission, his life was to preach it. “Of this I became a minister (diakonos: “servant”) by the gift God in his goodness bestowed on me by the working (energeian; cf. “energy”) of his power: the grace to preach the unfathomable riches of Christ.”
We don’t understand Christianity, the Church, or ourselves until we realize that this is the grace, the gift and the call given to every one of us. Pope Paul VI declared that the Church “exists in order to evangelize,” and the Church is us. Each of us exists to evangelize. Until we experience something of the zeal and “energy” that drove Paul in his ministry, we have not experienced in its wholeness the life of God in us. And we have not sufficiently entered into our baptismal consecration as stewards of the plan, the oikonomian of God. (See Evangelization in the Modern World: 14, 21. 41.)
This is not to lay a “guilt trip” on us. It is to make us aware there is more to our religion than perhaps we were taught. That the “unfathomable riches of Christ” are available to us if we care to “open the door” to them.
In Luke 12:39-48 Jesus invites us to look forward to the “end time”: “Blessed is the faithful and prudent steward [oikonomos]” whom the master finds doing his job when he returns.
Initiative: Investigate the mystery entrusted to you. Think like a manager.
Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry
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