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Transforming humanity from within – 23 May 2010


Transforming humanity from within – 23 May 2010 PDF Print E-mail
This week I return to the document prepared by Monsignor Robert Llanos dealing with the Church’s theme for this year Catholic Family: Become what you are. This is in keeping with the Synod mandate of the New Evangelisation.

The word evangelise means to announce the Good News as proclaimed by Jesus Christ and mandated by Him to his disciples in (Mk16:15).

The document states, “At the heart of this Good News is conversion to Christ himself. This means essentially a conversion of heart and will in the individual that results in a personal relationship with God and a conviction of the truth, the consequence of which is transformation of the individual, the society and the world.”

Writing about evangelisation in the history of Christianity, Monsignor Llanos refers to Pope Paul VI’s Apostolic Exhortation (Evangelii Nuntiandi) which states, ‘Evangelisation’ can mean many things for different persons and cultures, so “it is imperative that a definition and parameters for its use be attempted before we explore explicitly the term “New Evangelisation” and the part that family life plays in this process.”

Evangelisation in the Roman Catholic Church, the document continues, means bringing the Good News into all strata of humanity and through its influence, transforming humanity from within and making it new: “Now I am making the whole of creation new.”(Rev 21:15) EN#18.

“This evangelisation “will always contain – as the foundation, centre and summit of its dynamism – a clear proclamation that in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man…salvation is offered to all humanity as a gift of God’s grace and mercy” (Eph.2:8).

“Whilst this salvation begins in temporal existence, it finds its fulfillment in eternity in our communion with the one and only divine absolute.” (EN#27).

The document continues, evangelisation is for life as a whole and must take into account humankind’s concrete life, both personal and social. It must therefore speak to the “rights and duties of every human being, about family life without which personal growth and development is hardly possible, about life in society and about international issues like peace, justice and development” (EN#29).

Last Updated on Friday, 28 May 2010 16:02