What are You Waiting for?

Pope Francis elevated 19 bishops to the College of Cardinals on Sunday. There is no question about the priorities of Canada’s newest cardinal: 

“I’m very involved in the New Evangelization. That’s what makes my heart tick: to share the Gospel of the Lord and to bring people to encounter Jesus Christ. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and bringing people to him is my life.”

Amen to that.

Gerald Cyprien Cardinal Lacroix spoke of the need for people in North America to be “invited back to Jesus Christ and to discover the Gospel.” He stated his belief that the world would change if practicing Catholics truly bear witness to Christ in the world. 

“But we’re waiting,” he said. "We’re all like on pause, waiting for somebody to change the world.”

What are we waiting for?

I want each of us to ask ourselves a serious question: Have I responded to the call to be a missionary? Am I one of those "waiting for somebody (else) to change the world?" 

Pope Francis said in Evangelii Gaudium:

The new evangelization calls for personal involvement on the part of each of the baptized. Every Christian is challenged, here and now, to be actively engaged in evangelization; indeed, anyone who has truly experienced God’s saving love does not need much time or lengthy training to go out and proclaim that love. Every Christian is a missionary to the extent that he or she has encountered the love of God in Christ Jesus: we no longer say that we are “disciples” and “missionaries”, but rather that we are always “missionary disciples”. (120)

I think it is easy to become a bit lazy, a bit unfocused and think that we are taking part in the New Evangelization simply by the fact of being Catholic. But in reality, we are being called to “find ways to communicate Jesus wherever we are,” to “offer explicit witness to the saving love of the Lord.” (121) 

What’s your explicit witness? Maybe you've shared your personal testimony with someone. Maybe you've organized a faith study with your friends, like CCO's Discovery, or Alpha for Catholics. Maybe you’ve simply called up friends you know are away from the faith and invited them to come to Mass with you and go for coffee afterwards. 

If you haven’t, what are you waiting for?

God could have called for a New Evangelization earlier, or later in history, but he decided to call for it now and to involve you in it. Let’s stop waiting for someone else to change the world.

Let’s press play on the New Evangelization.

You may also like: YOU Can Share Your Testimony; Sharing Your Testimony 101.