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    The Joy of the Gospel
    The Joy of the Gospel
    The Joy of the Gospel
    Ebook182 pages3 hours

    The Joy of the Gospel

    By Pope Francis

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    What on earth are you chasing? We are all chasing something, and always for the same reason: we want something or someone to give us the joy we yearn for at the very depths of our being. All too often we are searching for joy in all the wrong places. Pope Francis calls this the feverish pursuit of the frivolous.

    What brings you joy? We live busy lives and in the midst of all the chasing it is essential that we slow down from time to time, and not just slow down, but pause, to reflect of who we are, where we are, and what we are doing. Is all the chasing bringing us the joy that God created us to experience?

    Jesus Christ, the undeniable, inescapable, unavoidable God, wants to fill you with joy. The Gospels are the most complete record of his life and teachings, and they hold the key to the joy we never stop yearning for.

    Whether we are aware of it or not, we are all chasing Jesus. In this book, Pope Francis explains how and why embracing the Gospel is the source of this joy. Through his personal passion, he brings to life the Gospels for the people of this age, by taking the reader on a journey exploring many of the challenges facing the people of God today, while at the same time inviting the reader to whole-heartedly embrace the Gospel like never before.

    The Joy of the Gospel is a deeply personal invitation to reflect on the gap between the life we are living and the life God calls us to live. It is an invitation to love both God and our neighbor more fully. It is an invitation to live more fully in the midst of the opportunities and challenges that each day presents.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateOct 14, 2014
    ISBN9781937509897
    The Joy of the Gospel
    Author

    Pope Francis

    Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires on December 1936, has been the Bishop of Rome and 266th Pope of the Catholic Church since the 13th of March 2013. On the 13th of March 2015 he decided to give a decisive turn to his papacy by announcing the Holy Year of Mercy that began on December 8th 2015, which is celebrated in his first book as Pope, The Name of God is Mercy, written in conversation with Vatican expert and La Stampa journalist Andrea Tornielli.

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      Book preview

      The Joy of the Gospel - Pope Francis

      1.

      CHAPTER ONE

      THE CHURCH’S MISSIONARY TRANSFORMATION

      19. Evangelization takes place in obedience to the missionary mandate of Jesus: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you (Mt 28:19-20). In these verses we see how the risen Christ sent his followers to preach the Gospel in every time and place, so that faith in him might spread to every corner of the earth.

      I. A CHURCH WHICH GOES FORTH

      20. The word of God constantly shows us how God challenges those who believe in him to go forth. Abraham received the call to set out for a new land (cf. Gen 12:1-3). Moses heard God’s call: Go, I send you (Ex 3:10) and led the people towards the promised land (cf. Ex 3:17). To Jeremiah God says: To all whom I send you, you shall go (Jer 1:7). In our day Jesus’ command to go and make disciples echoes in the changing scenarios and ever new challenges to the Church’s mission of evangelization, and all of us are called to take part in this new missionary going forth. Each Christian and every community must discern the path that the Lord points out, but all of us are asked to obey his call to go forth from our own comfort zone in order to reach all the peripheries in need of the light of the Gospel.

      21. The Gospel joy which enlivens the community of disciples is a missionary joy. The seventy-two disciples felt it as they returned from their mission (cf. Lk 10:17). Jesus felt it when he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and praised the Father for revealing himself to the poor and the little ones (cf. Lk 10:21). It was felt by the first converts who marvelled to hear the apostles preaching in the native language of each (Acts 2:6) on the day of Pentecost. This joy is a sign that the Gospel has been proclaimed and is bearing fruit. Yet the drive to go forth and give, to go out from ourselves, to keep pressing forward in our sowing of the good seed, remains ever present. The Lord says: Let us go on to the next towns that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out (Mk 1:38). Once the seed has been sown in one place, Jesus does not stay behind to explain things or to perform more signs; the Spirit moves him to go forth to other towns.

      22. God’s word is unpredictable in its power. The Gospel speaks of a seed which, once sown, grows by itself, even as the farmer sleeps (Mk 4:26-29). The Church has to accept this unruly freedom of the word, which accomplishes what it wills in ways that surpass our calculations and ways of thinking.

      23. The Church’s closeness to Jesus is part of a common journey; communion and mission are profoundly interconnected.²⁰ In fidelity to the example of the Master, it is vitally important for the Church today to go forth and preach the Gospel to all: to all places, on all occasions, without hesitation, reluctance or fear. The joy of the Gospel is for all people: no one can be excluded. That is what the angel proclaimed to the shepherds in Bethlehem: Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people (Lk 2:10). The Book of Revelation speaks of an eternal Gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tongue and tribe and people" (Rev 14:6).

      Taking the First Step, Being Involved and Supportive, Bearing Fruit and Rejoicing

      24. The Church which goes forth is a community of missionary disciples who take the first step, who are involved and supportive, who bear fruit and rejoice. An evangelizing community knows that the Lord has taken the initiative, he has loved us first (cf. 1 Jn 4:19), and therefore we can move forward, boldly take the initiative, go out to others, seek those who have fallen away, stand at the crossroads and welcome the outcast. Such a community has an endless desire to show mercy, the fruit of its own experience of the power of the Father’s infinite mercy. Let us try a little harder to take the first step and to become involved. Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. The Lord gets involved and he involves his own, as he kneels to wash their feet. He tells his disciples: You will be blessed if you do this (Jn 13:17). An evangelizing community gets involved by word and deed in people’s daily lives; it bridges distances, it is willing to abase itself if necessary, and it embraces human life, touching the suffering flesh of Christ in others. Evangelizers thus take on the smell of the sheep and the sheep are willing to hear their voice. An evangelizing community is also supportive, standing by people at every step of the way, no matter how difficult or lengthy this may prove to be. It is familiar with patient expectation and apostolic endurance. Evangelization consists mostly of patience and disregard for constraints of time. Faithful to the Lord’s gift, it also bears fruit. An evangelizing community is always concerned with fruit, because the Lord wants her to be fruitful. It cares for the grain and does not grow impatient at the weeds. The sower, when he sees weeds sprouting among the grain does not grumble or overreact. He or she finds a way to let the word take flesh in a particular situation and bear fruits of new life, however imperfect or incomplete these may appear. The disciple is ready to put his or her whole life on the line, even to accepting martyrdom, in bearing witness to Jesus Christ, yet the goal is not to make enemies but to see God’s word accepted and its capacity for liberation and renewal revealed. Finally an evangelizing community is filled with joy; it knows how to rejoice always. It celebrates every small victory, every step forward in the work of evangelization. Evangelization with joy becomes beauty in the liturgy, as part of our daily concern to spread goodness. The Church evangelizes and is herself evangelized through the beauty of the liturgy, which is both a celebration of the task of evangelization and the source of her renewed self-giving.

      II. PASTORAL ACTIVITY AND CONVERSION

      25. I am aware that nowadays documents do not arouse the same interest as in the past and that they are quickly forgotten. Nevertheless, I want to emphasize that what I am trying to express here has a programmatic significance and important consequences. I hope that all communities will devote the necessary effort to advancing along the path of a pastoral and missionary conversion which cannot leave things as they presently are. Mere administration can no longer be enough.²¹ Throughout the world, let us be permanently in a state of mission.²²

      26. Paul VI invited us to deepen the call to renewal and to make it clear that renewal does not only concern individuals but the entire Church. Let us return to a memorable text which continues to challenge us. The Church must look with penetrating eyes within herself, ponder the mystery of her own being… This vivid and lively self-awareness inevitably leads to a comparison between the ideal image of the Church as Christ envisaged her and loved her as his holy and spotless bride (cf. Eph 5:27), and the actual image which the Church presents to the world today... This is the source of the Church’s heroic and impatient struggle for renewal: the struggle to correct those flaws introduced by her members which her own self-examination, mirroring her exemplar, Christ, points out to her and condemns.²³ The Second Vatican Council presented ecclesial conversion as openness to a constant self-renewal born of fidelity to Jesus Christ: "Every renewal of the Church essentially consists in an increase of fidelity to her own calling… Christ summons the Church as she goes her pilgrim way… to that continual reformation of which she always has need, in so far as she is a human institution here on

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